The new mod order in 1.2.5

[Octopuss]

The following changes should prevent these kinds of errors:

• Move Unofficial Skyrim Patch before Dragonborn
• Move Dawnguard before Dragonborn
• Move Unofficial Dawnguard Patch before Dragonborn
• Move HearthFires before Dragonborn
• Move Unofficial Hearthfire Patch before Dragonborn

 

Shall I? Currently my mod order mostly follows the STEP guide (for the fixes section at the least), and this directly conflicts with it.

I don't really understand the new changes, and the long thread where all of that was discussed was beyond what I could understand.

[TheBloke]

Back dating, invalidation... sounds like klingon to me! Is this something a regular user should bother with? Can anyone give me a simple explanation what it is?

 

Yes, everyone should bother - and DoubleYou is/has already updated the Wiki to tell all users to do so.

 

It's very simple:

 

• Go to the Settings screen
• Click Workarounds tab
• Click the long button labelled "Back-date BSAs"
• If you get a Windows popup, asking you to give permission for "helper.exe", then click Yes / OK / whatever
• Done, forever more unless you add new DLCs in the future, in which case you need to repeat this procedure.  If you already own all the DLCs, then done forever.

Edited June 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[Octopuss]

That doesn't quite explain what it does and what is it good for.

It's funny, this is the first time I heard about it since I started playing Skyrim ~4 months ago.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Octopuss

[TheBloke]

That doesn't quite explain what it does and what is it good for.

The explanations for that are in the preceding posts and in the link DoubleYou provided.  

 

Short answer: it ensures all your mod textures always overwrite vanilla textures without problems.

[Octopuss]

Unfortunately, the link doesn't explain anything, and neither do the posts here: all of that assumes one already knows about it. I don't, I read the expression for the first time five minutes ago.

Nevermind I guess.

[blattgeist]

I'm not sure if DoubleYou saw missing textures with or without the invalidation bsa active or not. So we don't know for sure if pressing the button is necessary.. although I pressed it already.

 

And @ Octopuss I believe that TheBloke explained pretty well what backdating does.

 

 

Based on what I've recently read regarding AI, it seems that the Skyrim engine won't load a loose file that overwrites an entry in a BSA, unless that loose file is dated newer than the BSA.

 

 

Short answer: it ensures all your mod textures always overwrite vanilla textures without problems.

Edited June 28, 2014 by blattgeist

[Octopuss]

Looks like I missed a few words and got lost in all the posts here (not very difficult to do when you don't understand most of what's being discussed).

[DoubleYou]

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Oblivion_Mods_FAQ#Archive_Invalidation

 

The bug that caused loose files not to load over BSA files in Oblivion. In Skyrim, you need to have the dates of the BSAs older than your loose files. And no, I do not have Automatic Archive Invalidation checked in Mod Organizer, and it definitely made a difference. Intricate Spider Webs has some cobweb particles which were the first things I noticed. They are dated 12/3/2011 and my game BSAs were dated 2013 or something.

[blattgeist]

 

 

 And no, I do not have Automatic Archive Invalidation checked in Mod Organizer [...]

Well then it's not absolutely needed. We can either choose to press the button or activate invalidation.bsa in MO to get the same effect. On the other hand it does not hurt to press that button once.

 

 

Tannin42, on 19 Apr 2012 - 8:27 PM, said:

@doveman:

Skyrim - Invalidation.bsa is not part of the game, it's part of MOs "Automatic Archive Invalidation"-Feature. Afaik it should never hurt to enable it.

If you go to settings->workarounds and click "Backdate BSA files" you don't need it though. If you haven't backdated your bsas, you might find some textures/meshes from mods don't work without the invalidation.bsa.

Edited June 28, 2014 by blattgeist

[DoubleYou]

Perhaps it would just be simpler just to have everyone use Automatic Archive Invalidation, simply because mod authors might not get the dates right.

[TheBloke]

Backdate-BSAs sets your /Data/*.bsa files to 01/01/2000 - mod authors would need a pretty major clock error to be before that :)

 

But yeah, AI does appear to guarantee to be safest.  There's also the issue that Backdate BSAs needs to be run again if someone re-installs Skyrim or adds more DLCs later, which would easy to forget.

 

I'm certainly not turning off AI now it's on in my profile.

 

So yeah, recommend AI to people.  It's one tickbox in your profile settings, then nothing to worry about again.  (Of course, then users need to do that again if they ever add a new profile - but arguably, if they're adding new profiles on their own, they know what they're doing.)

 

What I'm now wondering:  is there any reason Tannin couldn't just enable AI automatically in all profiles?  Ticked by default?  Is there any downside?  I might raise an Enhancement request and see what he says to that.

[blattgeist]

 

What I'm now wondering:  is there any reason Tannin couldn't just enable AI automatically in all profiles?  Ticked by default?  Is there any downside?  I might raise an Enhancement request and see what he says to that.

Yeah.. he even said there is no downside to it. So why not just enable it by default.. Would be cool if he implements it to be on by default.

[TheBloke]

Yeah.. he even said there is no downside to it. So why not just enable it by default.. Would be cool if he implements it to be on by default.

Yeah good point, I forgot he already said there wasn't a downside. I'll raise an Enhancement request.

 

There's also the issue that Backdate BSAs needs to be run again if someone re-installs Skyrim or adds more DLCs later, which would easy to forget.

Actually I am now thinking the second apart might be wrong - you don't need to click Backdate BSAs again if you add more DLCs. It's a bit confusing. However, I've been looking at how the Archive Invalidation method works. It works by adding a new BSA, "Skyrim - Invalidation.bsa", and loading it before any Meshes/Textures BSAs.

 

According to some Oblivion documentation I read, this is called "BSA Redirection" (you can also see this term if you look at the help text in MO for the AI tickbox, in the Profile; that's how I knew to Google it.)

 

The idea of BSA Redirection is that you "trick the game into applying its faulty Archive Invalidation check to the wrong BSA file". I.e. it applies to a BSA file added by MO, which presumably has a very early date set on it.

 

So this strongly suggests that it doesn't matter if all the BSAs have the right date. It only matters about the first BSA that contains a mesh file. If you look inside Invalidation.bsa, you will see that it contains a single file : dummy.dds. So the idea of having "Skyrim - Invalidation.bsa" is that MO is ensuring that the first BSA file that contains a mesh, has an appropriate date. That then apparently works for all future meshes/textures.

 

So I now think: As long as you don't re-install Skyrim, you only need to hit Backdate BSA one time. As long as your Skyrim - Meshes.BSA has an early date, that's all that matters. Other BSAs, including DLC BSAs, are irrelevant.

 

Of course I might be wrong; it's confusing. And I'm not saying we should change the advice to use AI in the profile, rather than bother with Backdate BSA. But for the purposes of discussion and working out how this stuff works, I'm pretty sure the above is correct.

 

Anyway I'll raise that Enhancement with Tannin, and I'll ask a quick question about all this stuff at the same time. Maybe he can clear up some of the doubts.

[Neovalen]

My understanding was Archive Invalidation no longer required for Skyrim, then this conversation popped up in the last few days. Be curious to hear what Tannin has to say.

 

Edit: .dds is a texture, not a mesh.

[kylhwch]

FWIW, I've always just clicked the Archive Invalidation checkbox when I make a new profile. It seems to work fine. I figured it was better safe than sorry.

 

I've never bothered with the back date button because I swap my mods around too much and it's a hassle.

 

Just another data point.

Edited June 29, 2014 by kylhwch

[TheBloke]

1.2.7 is now out which should make all of the load order stuff moot!

 

I have just upgraded to 1.2.7 (which I had to do via SourceForge download, because of how awful Nexus servers are), and so I have returned to having Distant Decal and a few other mods above USKP, and therefore above my Non-MO mods.