Vortex Mod Manager

[Guest]

OK everyone, here is the situation:

I started testing Vortex with great enthusiasm and I believed my limited free time will let me test this manager and give you tips, tricks and similar.

Unfortunately, Vortex is too big and too complex for me; my understanding of the manager and the things it does.

I simply can't find time to test it properly. Especially because of frequent updates.

I apologize for "taking the bite" I can't chew.

Therefore, whoever wants to take this thread and be a helpful to Vortex users is free to do it.

I must give up. My family, son and daily obligations are my priority.

Thanks for understanding,

[Grey Cloud]

This afternoon I started on a total reinstall of Skyrim and decided to make the jump from NMM to Vortex. It went about as well as the Titanic's maiden voyage.

1. The installation and configuration tutorials are scattered all over the Nexus. There doesn't seem to be a 'main page' from where you can reach all the other pages and topics. Many of the links are to video tutorials which are of no interest to me.

a - I'm on metered access so I don't want to waste listening to some twat droning on.

b - I can speed read so I can do a full page of text in seconds. Talking speed is a nightmare for me.

 

2. First download of Vortex resulted in something that decided it would install in my C:/ Prog Files. I want it on my E: drive. Which fuckwit thought that C:/ Prog Files was a smart idea?

a - Doesn't apply to me but it will cause unnecessary problems for people who don't understand admin rights' and all that malarchy.

b - I, like many people these days, have a relatively small SSD (240GB) and a relatively large HDD (2TB). I want to pick and choose what goes on that smaller drive.

 

So uninstall that and get the 'custom' version or whatever it called itself. That got me an install to the E: drive.

 

2. The interface is too cluttered with unnecessary crap. I managed to turn off most of it like the several 'receive news about this or that' bollocks. This still left the GUI full of clickables.

 

3. Apparantly we now 'deploy' a mod or whatever the stupid terminology was. I am one person with one PC, I am not a company with 200 users. Why can't it just be 'install' and 'activate'?

 

4. It also insisted on putting some files in C:/users/username/app/data or somesuch. Again, why? Why does it need to scatter things all over the fucking place and put stuff in such an unintuitive location?

 

5. First mod I installed was SCO Summer Edition which went okay. The mod has a fomod but this didn't show up until I clicked on something purely by chance while trying to find out where the fomod had got to. I made my choices, the mod 'deployed' - Vortex was happy and so was I.

 

6. Next up was Noble Skyrim. First thing that happens is that it appeared to have two instances in the whatever it is called box in the top right. Next thing is it says the archive is corrupt. So I cancel that and try again. Still got two instances but only the upper one said it was corrupt. The lower 'deployed' but didn't give me any messages about overwriting anything from Summer Edition. More fruitless searching and random clicking and the best I got was a message telling me that files wanted to overwrite other files and needed to be looked at. Well, you don't fucking say. It didn't give any clue as to where I would do this.

 

6. By this time I've had enough so I uninstalled it. I say uninstall, it left files and folders in various places on my drives.

 

7. Back to NMM which installed Noble Skyrim without any mention of corrupt archives.

 

8. My verdict: Crap. Overly complicated for the sake of looking sophisticated. It's a mod manager not mission control at NASA. Why drag a file into a box at the bottom of the screen only for it to then disappear and pop up in another box about a tenth of the size and in the top right of the screen?

 

[troni]

new to vortex, but been modding my skyrim for awhile, just been with out a pc for 2 years, anyway my critters arent getting hard, i dunno if its a vortex thing or i did something wrong people get hard just not critturs

[watevir]

Just now, watevir said:

Found it here in the future apparently there is a file that you can copy it from if you are using vortex found at

 

C:\Users\"your computer username here"\AppData\Local\Skyrim

how to grab your load order if you are using vortex had this problem earlier

[Synth-A3-24]

i've been using it for the last couple of years and i've never had any trouble i use it for fallout 3, new vegas and skyrim, i would like that had support for mods from the steam workshop

[Angiath]

Found this thread and Grey Cloud's frustration (posted above) looking for something else, thought I'd drop some answers in for anyone else who stumbles across this.

On 8/23/2019 at 5:33 PM, Grey Cloud said:

2. First download of Vortex resulted in something that decided it would install in my C:/ Prog Files. I want it on my E: drive. Which fuckwit thought that C:/ Prog Files was a smart idea?

a - Doesn't apply to me but it will cause unnecessary problems for people who don't understand admin rights' and all that malarchy.

b - I, like many people these days, have a relatively small SSD (240GB) and a relatively large HDD (2TB). I want to pick and choose what goes on that smaller drive.

 

So uninstall that and get the 'custom' version or whatever it called itself. That got me an install to the E: drive.

The Program Files folder on C:\ is the default place for putting programs. It's also the default place for the Steam library, but Vortex does not need to be on the same drive as the game.

On 8/23/2019 at 5:33 PM, Grey Cloud said:

3. Apparantly we now 'deploy' a mod or whatever the stupid terminology was. I am one person with one PC, I am not a company with 200 users. Why can't it just be 'install' and 'activate'?

"Deploying" is what actually puts the enabled mods in your skyrim folder. NMM did/does this too, every time you enable or disable a mod. So does Vortex, with an option to wait until you click the button so you don't spend half an hour constantly writing to disk from enabling many mods one after another. Vortex actually uses the same method as NMM, it just does it more reliably and with better error handling.

On 8/23/2019 at 5:33 PM, Grey Cloud said:

4. It also insisted on putting some files in C:/users/username/app/data or somesuch. Again, why? Why does it need to scatter things all over the fucking place and put stuff in such an unintuitive location?

This is the appdata folder, accessible as %APPDATA% in the Windows 10 searchbar or file explorer. It is a standard place for programs to store their files without being mistakenly overwritten by other programs. These particular files are ones that under normal circumstances you will not need to access yourself.

On 8/23/2019 at 5:33 PM, Grey Cloud said:

5. First mod I installed was SCO Summer Edition which went okay. The mod has a fomod but this didn't show up until I clicked on something purely by chance while trying to find out where the fomod had got to. I made my choices, the mod 'deployed' - Vortex was happy and so was I.

FOMOD installers are accessed exactly the same way in Vortex as in NMM - install the mod.

On 8/23/2019 at 5:33 PM, Grey Cloud said:

7. Back to NMM which installed Noble Skyrim without any mention of corrupt archives.

Just because NMM doesn't say something's wrong doesn't mean it isn't. NMM is, in fact, notorious for failing silently and suddenly shutting down somewhere down the line with no explanation to the user while being a PITA to debug it. Vortex actually tells you whenever it encounters an issue, and has active support from the guy who wrote it and MO2.

 

[Grey Cloud]

18 minutes ago, Angiath said:

thought I'd drop some answers in for anyone else who stumbles across this.

You appear to have missed my point on every point you posted. And 1. I used NMM for the guts of 4 years without problems, 2. I've been using Vortex for about 3 or 4 months now and it's still crap. It doesn't do anything I want or need and does about 100 things I don't want or need.

[Sneaksmile]

Hmmm ... If Vortex has only the best of MO in addition to NMM's friendly but improved interface. Why do many keep saying that it is complete garbage and that MO is better?? They are a bummer with that at every moment. 

[gregathit]

30 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

Hmmm ... If Vortex has only the best of MO in addition to NMM's friendly but improved interface. 

That is only the claim of a few.  Most think NMM is a dumpster fire and Vortex is barely one step better than that.

 

I recently used MO2 and holy cow I like it.  It does what you want and nothing that you don't.  I highly recommend it.

[Sneaksmile]

9 minutes ago, gregathit said:

That is only the claim of a few.  Most think NMM is a dumpster fire and Vortex is barely one step better than that.

 

I recently used MO2 and holy cow I like it.  It does what you want and nothing that you don't.  I highly recommend it.

 

Well, the guys tell me that at every moment on this forum when I say that I use Vortex. And yes, it is better than NMM that is true.
 

Do you have to start from scratch with mods when migrating to MO or can they can be exported from Vortex in an easy way? I want to see if it is true that it is that good, people talk about it as if it were magic and it would fix all the problems of LE. Which is surely not true. 

[Guest]

Vortex's is slightly faster when dealing with files because it uses Windows' hard links instead of its own virtual filesystem (which is what MO and MO2 does). However, I do hate everything else about Vortex, its UI being the major culprit.

30 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

Do you have to start from scratch with mods when migrating to MO or can they can be exported from Vortex in an easy way?

Even if there is no MO plugin to do that for you, it should be fairly simple to migrate; I know Vortex has an option to import your MO profile for one.

Just three text files that you need to create for your MO profile, modlist.txt (mod folders within your root mod folder), plugins.txt (enabled ESP/ESM plugins) and loadorder.txt (plugins' load order).

30 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

I want to see if it is true that it is that good, people talk about it as if it were magic and it would fix all the problems of LE. Which is surely not true. 

If you've it set up for Vortex already, I wouldn't bother, unless you've other reasons to migrate, your mod manager shouldn't really matter in the end.

[gregathit]

No, you can't export to MO.  However if you know the mods you want to use, installing them thru MO is very easy.  Additionally it will interface with the nexus (if you want it to).

 

There is a whole thread dedicated to it here:  https://www.loverslab.com/topic/20492-mod-organizer/  that you can ask questions in if you get stuck.

 

And I'd recommend watching a few youtube video's on it as well.  Be sure to use MO2.  The second version is what you want:  https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6194

 

MO can handle the LE version, the SE version and the VR version as well as the other Beth games.   Be sure to read the entirety of the page.

Youtube tutorial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwEm-jKnP44

 

 

[Sneaksmile]

16 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

Vortex's is slightly faster when dealing with files because it uses Windows' hard links instead of its own virtual filesystem (which is what MO and MO2 does). However, I do hate everything else about Vortex, its UI being the major culprit.

Even if there is no MO plugin to do that for you, it should be fairly simple to migrate; I know Vortex has an option to import your MO profile for one.

Just three text files that you need to create for your MO profile, modlist.txt (mod folders within your root mod folder), plugins.txt (enabled ESP/ESM plugins) and loadorder.txt (plugins' load order).

If you've it set up for Vortex already, I wouldn't bother, unless you've other reasons to migrate, your mod manager shouldn't really matter in the end.

Well, I recently started Skyrim from total scratch again with new mods and new settings but I already have more than 100 mods installed with Vortex. And I run more games with it, like The Wtcher 3 where I have like 50 mods. 

Hmmm ... If it doesn't matter in the end ... why people don't stop saying it's so good if Vortex does the same things? ... 

[Sneaksmile]

16 minutes ago, gregathit said:

No, you can't export to MO.  However if you know the mods you want to use, installing them thru MO is very easy.  Additionally it will interface with the nexus (if you want it to).

 

There is a whole thread dedicated to it here:  https://www.loverslab.com/topic/20492-mod-organizer/  that you can ask questions in if you get stuck.

 

And I'd recommend watching a few youtube video's on it as well.  Be sure to use MO2.  The second version is what you want:  https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6194

 

MO can handle the LE version, the SE version and the VR version as well as the other Beth games.   Be sure to read the entirety of the page.

Youtube tutorial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwEm-jKnP44

 

 

Okay, thanks.  

But MO2 isn't just for SE?

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, gregathit said:

It does what you want and nothing that you don't.

That would depend entirely on what one wants or does not want.

 

26 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

Vortex, its UI being the major culprit.

Oh yes.

 

29 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

your mod manager shouldn't really matter in the end.

Exactly.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

Well, I recently started Skyrim from total scratch again with new mods and new settings but I already have more than 100 mods installed with Vortex. And I run more games with it, like The Wtcher 3 where I have like 50 mods. 

If you are already familiar with Vortex, just go with it.

7 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

Hmmm ... If it doesn't matter in the end ... why people don't stop saying it's so good if Vortex does the same things? ... 

People tend to mistake personal preference for facts. Both have pros and cons.

Vortex has no overhead from file accesses because it just uses hard links, while MO2 has some small CPU overhead from its VFS (the game has to get the real path first by looking at the virtual filesystem table). In the other hand, MO2 doesn't need to deploy or re-deploy mods everytime you install new ones and/or change orders. MO2 also takes longer to start because it needs to initialize its VFS each time you launch it.

 

I first started with MO, but I then needed to run some 64-bits tools because their 32-bits variants were running out of 32-bits virtual memory space.

Since MO cannot run 64-bits applications, I then tried Vortex for its hard links and outright hated the UI, which in the end made me move to MO2 (which can run both 32-bits and 64-bits applications).

[Sneaksmile]

5 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

If you are already familiar with Vortex, just go with it.

People tend to mistake personal preference for facts. Both have pros and cons.

Vortex has no overhead from file accesses because it just uses hard links, while MO2 has some small CPU overhead from its VFS (the game has to get the real path first by looking at the virtual filesystem table). In the other hand, MO2 doesn't need to deploy or re-deploy mods everytime you install new ones and/or change orders. MO2 also takes longer to start because it needs to initialize its VFS each time you launch it.

 

I first started with MO, but I then needed to run some 64-bits tools because their 32-bits variants were running out of 32-bits virtual memory space.

Since MO cannot run 64-bits applications, I then tried Vortex for its hard links and outright hated the UI, which in the end made me move to MO2 (which can run both 32-bits and 64-bits applications).

I see.

Hmmm ... I think I'd better use it for SE because I can't fix CTD problems with LE.
 

It's true, the ''deploy thing'' it is annoying but not so much. 

Thanks for the explanation! 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

Hmmm ... I think I'd better use it for SE because I can't fix CTD problems with LE.

Both Vortex and MO2 are able to run SSE.

 

As for fixing LE crashes, eh... 90% of those consist in you dropping some DLLs and configuring their configuration file. 15 mins at most even for someone with minimal or no technical knowledge, and there is plenty of crashes on SSE aswell that needs some SKSE plugins to fix.

The main timer waster will be fixing/merging record conflicts via xEdit and configuring your mods in-game, both being present in both versions of the game.

[gregathit]

22 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

That would depend entirely on what one wants or does not want.

True, but MO2 is insanely customizable .  You can turn on what you want and turn off what you don't.  You have a great deal of control with it.  If you don't want it to connect to the nexus (or elsewhere) you don't have to.  You can do basically what you want.  In the past I've always preferred to manually install mods without any mod manager.  With how easy MO2 is to use, you can very much have that level of control if you want, and not risk messing up your base game.  But hey, use what you are comfortable with.  

 

As long as you follow good modding practices in the end, you'll get there.

[Sneaksmile]

19 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

Both Vortex and MO2 are able to run SSE.

 

As for fixing LE crashes, eh... 90% of those consist in you dropping some DLLs and configuring their configuration file. 15 mins at most even for someone with minimal or no technical knowledge, and there is plenty of crashes on SSE aswell that needs some SKSE plugins to fix.

The main timer waster will be fixing/merging record conflicts via xEdit and configuring your mods in-game, both being present in both versions of the game.

But a 64-bit version is not more stable?

[Sneaksmile]

20 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

Both Vortex and MO2 are able to run SSE.

 

As for fixing LE crashes, eh... 90% of those consist in you dropping some DLLs and configuring their configuration file. 15 mins at most even for someone with minimal or no technical knowledge, and there is plenty of crashes on SSE aswell that needs some SKSE plugins to fix.

The main timer waster will be fixing/merging record conflicts via xEdit and configuring your mods in-game, both being present in both versions of the game.

 

Well yes, but I can use both organizers. Nope? 

[Sneaksmile]

21 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

Both Vortex and MO2 are able to run SSE.

 

As for fixing LE crashes, eh... 90% of those consist in you dropping some DLLs and configuring their configuration file. 15 mins at most even for someone with minimal or no technical knowledge, and there is plenty of crashes on SSE aswell that needs some SKSE plugins to fix.

The main timer waster will be fixing/merging record conflicts via xEdit and configuring your mods in-game, both being present in both versions of the game.

There isn't much in that guide that I haven't done yet, but thanks.

But that's why I don't know what to do anymore, CTDs are even worse.  

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

But a 64-bit version is not more stable?

There are many reasons for some of us to stick with the 32-bits version, despite the obvious benefits from x86_64 and DX11.

You will have to do some research on this and decide for yourself which version suits you better. Stability should be the same on both when properly modded.

[Sneaksmile]

18 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

There are many reasons for some of us to stick with the 32-bits version, despite the obvious benefits from x86_64 and DX11.

You will have to do some research on this and decide for yourself which version suits you better. Stability should be the same on both when properly modded.

But I can't fix the CTDs anymore ... HOW?! ... I did everything the guides with fixes suggest and the CTDs are worse. My only hope is that 64 bits helps something.

I really like LE due to the large number of mods available and with a few mods you can make it look much better than SE (graphically speaking) ... but ... it is very annoying to follow all the guidelines to stabilize it and even then the problems continue or get worse. For example, I managed to stabilize my old game with the Memory Patch, you know SSME and other fixes. But now that doesn't work, the first block fills up too fast and when it reaches 400 MB, the game always CTD. In my old game it took at least 4 hours to reach 400 MB and only CTD when it reached 500 MB. 

I deactivated the 4K Parallax textures and the Dat Grass mod, which are the 'heaviest' Mods that I have installed but the time the game reaches 400 MB does not change at all, it is too fast, it reaches them in less than an hour. 

I no longer know what to do with that CTD problem, due to my prior knowledge of my previous game ... I literally know all the fixes that exist for the game, nothing can surprise me or be new to me in that regard. So I think I have to give up, it has no solution.

[Grey Cloud]

2 minutes ago, Sneaksmile said:

So I think I have to give up, it has no solution

Just because you cannot find the solution to your problems it does not follow that there is not a solution. Thousands of users run LE without constant CTDs.