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Posted

Here are the plugins in the main profile I currently use for FO3:

 

 

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Posted
  On 10/1/2016 at 11:43 AM, lordhaw said:

Really?  I followed the guide to set it up.  The only extras I added were a couple things I happen to like...GNR Building Redux and the Intro bus and Dupont Alignment, along with a couple of the user suggestions FCM, Grave Digger and Proper Drinking.  And I did the bashed patch at the end which merged quite a few mods.

 

I may have to create another copy and go through the guide again just to see where I messed up then.  I've set up FO3 with older versions of the guide multiple times and this is the first I ever had any issues.  I had never felt the need to use the older Merge Plugins scripts or the newer Merge Plugins until this round.  Obviously my move to the Steam version from the CD version wouldn't have done anything (I literally wore the CD out, there are chips out of the disc around the center hole and cracks radiating from it...used it too much over the years  ::):) and I've been modding FO3 for years so it's not my first kick at the can or anything.  I must have done something somewhere then.  Interesting.  Thanks for pointing that out.  It's kind of fun messing with this stuff so I'll go back and see where I went wrong.

I have exactly the same problem, but in my case fires up around 150 plugins and has nothing to do with using mods out of this list. I know because after the first time this happened to me, I started from scratch and put all the mods not in the list (quests) in an early stage, and the game was working smoothly all the way until I reached the 150-odd plugins mark.

  It's driving me crazy. I wasted 3 weeks following this guide just to crash and burn 2 feet away from the goal line, twice!I used to play FO3 with +200 mods with no problem in this same computer, but that was with a)an older graphic card, b) in Windows 7 and c)with a retail copy. I'm starting to think those details are significative, particularly b and c.

Posted

I haven't seen any previous comments on FO3 having problems with 200+ plugins when Windows 7 or 8 is used. I currently have Windows 10 installed, but I don't currently use 200+ plugins. It's hard for me to see how there would be a difference between the retail CD version and the Steam version. Using Mod Organizer for FO3, Steam is not active when using FO3 unless you add "FalloutLauncher Replacer for Steam", even if you install the Steam version of FO3. It's possible that Windows 10 introduced some new limitations to the FO3 game engine, but I haven't tested this.

 

Have you tried reducing the plugin count by merging some of the plugins with the "Merge Plugins" utility? It's in the guide but not discussed much since there haven't been any comments on plugin count related problems. If it looks like it is a problem when running Windows 10 some recommendations could be added to the guide on potential plugin merges. Plugins that don't have any Navmesh records or add new FormIDs are the easiest to merge. For example, the TWPC patches can be merged, a lot of the Additional Fix mods can be merged, and some of the other patch plugins can likely be merged. There is already a mod in the guide that merges a lot of the clothing plugins for Exeter clothing.

Posted (edited)

Just my 2 cents, I've been through the mod count headache as well (pulled my hair out for a while trying to work out the cause of my issues) but now have a fairly stable build with 202 active plugins. This seems to be my sweet spot (looks like it may be a bit of a luck dip and vary quite dramatically for some) as any more seem to cause constant crashes and the odd graphical glitch. I have 99% of the guide in my list as well as a number of additional mods such as Point Lookout Reborn, I also did as Kelmych suggests above and merged several mods, primarily the TWCP patches which saved a ton of slots.

 

Oh, I'm running Windows 10 Pro (1607), Nvidia GTX 780, 16 GB Ram. Also, I'm using the Nvidia driver v368.81 as later driver versions seem to have a problem with Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout NV (not sure if this has been resolved yet but I don't think so).

 

I've never run a modded Fallout 3 on Windows 7 or 8 so can't confirm plugin count differences with that OS.

 

My modlist:

 

Active Mod Files:

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Cheers,

 

drav666

Edited by drav666
Posted

There are some mods in the list that are good candidates for inclusion in the guide such as "Intro Street Bus and Dupont Alignment" as well as some location mods that aren't primarily player homes. The guide doesn't include many mods that just add player homes since there isn't often significant agreement on which ones to include, and it's hard to manage more than a few.

 

How did you get "Point Lookout Reborn" and "In the Shadow of the Swamp" to be compatible, by the way?

Posted

Hi Kelmych,

 

The Wasteland Patch Collection has a patch for "Point Lookout Reborn", "In the Shadow of the Swamp" and "Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch" with the following notes:

 

 

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This supersedes a previous patch for "Point Lookout Reborn" and "In the Shadow of the Swamp" that had the following notes:

 

 

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Now full disclosure,  I've had many testing jaunts but haven't had a serious play-through yet (having a break from Fallout and a fiddle with the old classic Morrowind for a month or two before I start a serious game of Fallout 3), but given the other patches in TWPC seem solid I'm sure the (TWPC) PLR-UUF3P-ISS Patch should be as well. Whether it address all the issues I'm not sure yet, it might be a while before I get to that stage to test properly (I hope it works, might have a little cry if it doesn't :) )

 

With the rest that are over and above your brilliant guide,  I tried to be a little selective with not going too far overboard - I'm bit of a mod junkie (the usual more time modding than actually playing) and this is the first time I've actually made myself finalize a build :)

 

Cheers,

 

drav666

Posted (edited)

Personally, I'm not entirely sure the whole problem, insofar as stability, has too much to to with Windows 10.  I don't find FO3 in Windows 10 any more or less unstable than it was in Windows 7 with a heavily modded setup.  Now I know I said earlier that things were pretty good after cutting my plugin count down to 195 with Merge Plugins but now that is not the case.  Things were great but now suddenly it crashes all the time, particularly when approaching Megaton and texture issues pop up in areas that were fine before.  I can leave Megaton and re-enter and have everyone there now have the red exclamation or have pink skin, when they were perfectly fine before.  I can then leave/re-enter and it's fine.  Here I can't say as to what the problem is exactly, but I am going through the guide again in a separate MO install with the mod list cleared and am reinstalling just guide mods, starting with just core and am documenting what happens along the way to try and track this down.  Everything went to pot for me after having to reinstall Windows 10 and then redoing things from scratch with MO.  My install using the guide prior to this was perfect, same version of MO too.  Only difference here is that I am using the Steam version of FO3 (GOTY) rather than my previous CD based install (also GOTY), because as I said in an earlier post my CD has chips out of it around the center hole and cracks starting and I'm afraid of it flying apart or cracking one of these times...I've seen it happen.  The computer I'm running this all on is not a powerhouse, an i3 with 6GB RAM and a 1GB Radeon R7 250 but FO3 has worked great with this setup, including many hires textures with no slowdowns unless ENB is used, then it's a pig.  Anyway, I'm partway through that now and will let you know how it goes.

Edited by lordhaw
Posted
  On 10/3/2016 at 12:55 AM, lordhaw said:

Personally, I'm not entirely sure the whole problem, insofar as stability, has too much to to with Windows 10.  I don't find FO3 in Windows 10 any more or less unstable than it was in Windows 7 with a heavily modded setup.  Now I know I said earlier that things were pretty good after cutting my plugin count down to 195 with Merge Plugins but now that is not the case.  Things were great but now suddenly it crashes all the time, particularly when approaching Megaton and texture issues pop up in areas that were fine before.  I can leave Megaton and re-enter and have everyone there now have the red exclamation or have pink skin, when they were perfectly fine before.  I can then leave/re-enter and it's fine.  Here I can't say as to what the problem is exactly, but I am going through the guide again in a separate MO install with the mod list cleared and am reinstalling just guide mods, starting with just core and am documenting what happens along the way to try and track this down.  Everything went to pot for me after having to reinstall Windows 10 and then redoing things from scratch with MO.  My install using the guide prior to this was perfect, same version of MO too.  Only difference here is that I am using the Steam version of FO3 (GOTY) rather than my previous CD based install (also GOTY), because as I said in an earlier post my CD has chips out of it around the center hole and cracks starting and I'm afraid of it flying apart or cracking one of these times...I've seen it happen.  The computer I'm running this all on is not a powerhouse, an i3 with 6GB RAM and a 1GB Radeon R7 250 but FO3 has worked great with this setup, including many hires textures with no slowdowns unless ENB is used, then it's a pig.  Anyway, I'm partway through that now and will let you know how it goes.

I am very interested in what conclussions your investigation will come to. As I mentioned, a couple of years ago, I played a heavily modded Fallout 3 for weeks without problems (barring the odd CTD now and then that you come to expect with any Bethesda game, particularly when the are modded to the brim). That was with a different NVIDIA card, with a retail cd copy and under Windows 7. And I didn't use Mod Organizer that time either. Now the red marks invasion hits me around 140-150 active plugins. Mod Organizer is discarded as possible part of the problem because after the first time this happened to me, I re-install the game and modded from scratch without it, and the issue arose again. That left, Windows 10, Steam version and new graphic card as thing to look in. I lean towards a Windows 10/Steam version combo since I haven't found anything in Internet about games having problem with my card (GTX 980), but I found report everywhere with conflicts with old games and Windows 10, and also occasional reports of Steam having problems with games made for older systems.

Posted
  On 10/1/2016 at 9:35 PM, Kelmych said:

 

Have you tried reducing the plugin count by merging some of the plugins with the "Merge Plugins" utility? It's in the guide but not discussed much since there haven't been any comments on plugin count related problems. If it looks like it is a problem when running Windows 10 some recommendations could be added to the guide on potential plugin merges. Plugins that don't have any Navmesh records or add new FormIDs are the easiest to merge. For example, the TWPC patches can be merged, a lot of the Additional Fix mods can be merged, and some of the other patch plugins can likely be merged. There is already a mod in the guide that merges a lot of the clothing plugins for Exeter clothing.

Yes, I tried to do that, but I couldn't merge many plugins because most of them had dependency of the Bashed Patch. Now, I'm gonna start from scratch again (4th time in 3 weeks, yipee!), and do my merges before doing the bashed patch.

 

   Anybody knows if adding bash tags required for individual plugins to the merged one does work?

Posted

Redoing the bashed patch shouldn't take very long. If you create a merged patch and it is loading before the bashed patch, it's a good idea to add the bash tags for the individual plugins. The only problem comes when the patches you are combining are intended to load lower in the load order, but if you are just merging patches (vs. mods) this isn't usually a problem.

Posted

Well so far I have run a vanilla test using a clean save with of course no issues.  I ran through the vault and then through Springvale and through Megaton.  Exited and entered Megaton multiple times with no issues.  I just finished a test with just the Core guide mods, LOOT run, mods cleaned, FO3LODGen run and the changes added as a mod, a bashed patch created.  Ran the exact same test with the exact same save.  Absolutely no issues.  50 mods with the Core guide used, 49 after bashed patch.  Next test is to set up with all guide mods and a regen of the bashed patch to see both the mod count and what happens.  Just not sure if the problem will hit after a certain mod count or not this time around.  A previous experiment did but not sure this time around.  This same run in my previous non-test MO setup generated texture errors and other problems depending on the mod count until I lowered below 200 and the texture issues still show up occasionally.  But so far so good in the test setup.

 

I forgot just how horrid vanilla FO3 looks.  I haven't played vanilla for years and it was an eye opener.  Gives you a perspective on just how much a few changes, especially the NMC and UHQ textures along with Vurts make to the game.  

 

Not quite sure how I am going to test this with all mods.  I'd like to split it up so I try at different mod counts to see if there is a point where it starts to go south.  How many mods should an all mods setup with the guide and a bashed patch have?

Posted (edited)

Hey could someone tell me what Constraint settings I need to be using in DDSopt? I've looked it up and from what I'm understanding some of the textures need different settings so I'm at a loss here. Gonna go do some Calculus 2 and hope someone has an answer in like an hour or two.

 

edit: Because in the DDSopt guide itself it has 3 pictures with 3 different kinds of settings for the Constraints tab. Would love to know which on to use during which steps.

Edited by ShadowFyre
Posted

The pictures are related to using DDSopt with different texture types for the vanilla textures, as described in the step by step instructions. What types of textures are you optimizing and how much (if any) resolution reduction do you need?

Posted
  On 10/4/2016 at 8:54 PM, Kelmych said:

The pictures are related to using DDSopt with different texture types for the vanilla textures, as described in the step by step instructions. What types of textures are you optimizing and how much (if any) resolution reduction do you need?

Well I just did the Vanillas with the first first Constraint settings, and I'm optomizing the mods right now with the same constraints and 2kx2k. The guide says to limit it to 2k so I did, but I was wondering if I have to considering I have a pretty good rig.

Posted

If you have a good GPU with 3-4 Gb VRAM you don't need to use any size reduction. The value of using DDSopt is when there is a need for size reduction or when DDSopt can provid some improvements in texture quality.

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