mod manager MO2 vs Vortex

[Tattorack]

This has been copied from Reddit since I cannot get definitive answer there. Please answer only if you can be detailed:

I've been modding Skyrim for... pfff... YEARS. Actually I started with Oblivion. My go to mod tool is Mod Organizer which is objectively superior to the Nexus Mod Manager due to the simple fact of its virtual file system.

The original Mod Organizer had some serious limitations, though, so Mod Organizer 2 was started... but never finished. MO2 is still buggy and occasionally crashes for the strangest reasons. Suffice to say that I was very much happy to hear that Vortex was in development by the guy that started Mod Organizer, using the same virtual file system, but with the backing of Nexus.

Vortex is finally here after so much time, but now I heard my flatmate that there is a bunch of contention surrounding Vortex. I've also, after a bit of searching, seen the mention of being two "camps", that there is a whole MO2 vs Vortex thing. Honestly I'm not entirely surprised, this is the internet after all and people tend to divide into camps over the most trivial of things. But it does leave me wondering, what is the merit?

Why would MO2, being an incomplete version of what Vortex should be, be better?

Are features missing in Vortex that are available in MO2? If so, what are they?

 

What I'm personally looking for in a mod manager is:

-A "safe" way to mod the game. In this case the virtual file system.

-The ability to edit my load order.

-The ability to edit the .ini file, preferably without compromising the real .ini file.

-Integrated auto sorting system, like LOOT.

-App directable download links.

-Point to specific .exe files, for example, to use Skyrim Script Extender 64.

[aim4it]

MO2 seems stable to me, haven't had any issues since like 2.1.2,  also I like the fact that its lighter on resources since it doesn't include the whole nexus portal crap anyway.

[Varithina]

Personally I would call vortex and incomplete version of mo2.

 

Hmm, did not tanin say the vortex does not use the same virtual file system as mo, but rather uses syslinks?

 

And mo2 can do everything that you listed, vortex I would assume can do as well, but as soon as the word syslinks was mentioned I stopped paying attention, due to having windows system update kill syslinks before today, on windows 10 that is, I could never get them to even work on windows 7, any manager of them said they were set up, but they never actually worked.

 

Feature wise they both do pretty much the same thing, but in different ways, if you used mo for oldrim, then mo2 should be pretty easy to use, they do work the same pretty much and you may well find some of the skyproc patchers actually work better as you can use 64bit java with them.

 

There again we can argue mo2/vortex till the cows come home, just the same as people argued mo/nmm, pick one and go with it, find the work arounds for its quirks and problems.

[NNS10]

6 hours ago, Tattorack said:

MO2 is still buggy and occasionally crashes for the strangest reasons. Suffice to say that I was very much happy to hear that Vortex was in development by the guy that started Mod Organizer, using the same virtual file system, but with the backing of Nexus.

What version of MO2 are you using? It used to be buggy and crashed a lot when you ran non-game programs like xEdit, but the releases this year have been rock solid.

 

Vortex doesn't use a virtual file system. Varithina has it right below. I believe the decision to not use a virtual file system was because it couldn't be used on all games and Nexus wanted Vortex to be work on more than just Bethesda games.

 

4 hours ago, Varithina said:

Personally I would call vortex and incomplete version of mo2.

 

Hmm, did not tanin say the vortex does not use the same virtual file system as mo, but rather uses syslinks?

 

[...]

 

Feature wise they both do pretty much the same thing, but in different ways,

Not sure if it's still like this, but I thought during the beta of Vortex, people were saying how Vortex did not allow you to manually adjust your load order--you HAD to use LOOT to change it. Seems like they were trying to dummy-proof the program by removing functionality.

[Varithina]

25 minutes ago, nanashi50 said:

Not sure if it's still like this, but I thought during the beta of Vortex, people were saying how Vortex did not allow you to manually adjust your load order--you HAD to use LOOT to change it. Seems like they were trying to dummy-proof the program by removing functionality.

That is possible, after seeing that vortex uses syslinks I pretty much ignored it so that may still be true, in which case it would be a pain as loot is dodgy as hell as far as I am concerned and has been since around v8+.  And having to create custom rules for pretty much every single esp and where it should go would be a major pain in the bum to say the least, though I would imagine loot is ok for the main mods so to speak, for the ones here it was well odd, well it was the last time I tried to use it, putting my bashed patch near the top of the mod list rather than the bottom, which is where v8 did.

 

If I remember rightly from one of the interviews tanin did soon after starting vortex, he said it was supposed to be at the start easy to use and well, idiot proof or at least as far as it could be, but there would be future modules/changes or options or what ever that would eventually provide the same ability as mod organiser did in dealing with conflicts and such.

 

To be honest though considering vortex is designed by a group, I doubt it will ever get there, or at least not any time soon, had they given a do what you want and I am sure he could come out with something spectacular, considering he wrote mo while holding down a full time job as and creating it in his spare time.

[Varithina]

To the op, if you are in no rush give them both a try, install vortex see how you like it, if you do stay with it, if you used mo with oldrim, give mo2 a try and see how you get on with it, though do be aware mo2 does not really like to be installed into the game directory like you could with mo.

 

I found that out the hard way, as to start with I did install it inside the game directory, and for quite some time had no problems, then mo2 updated and I started having problems with bodyslide, wrye and xedit, missing things and not registering stuff was there, but it was very hit and miss about it, sometimes it was there other times not, did some digging and somewhere in the updates/changes to mo2 it stopped liking being there, oh and make sure to install it in portable mode when installing/running for the first time.

 

Think I had mo2 crash about 3-4 times this month, and one of them was due to windows not forcing the updates and reboot associated with the updates.

[DarksideTinkerbell]

I don't know much about MO2 or Vortex, but, one of the read-ups I saw on Vortex actually suggested that at this point in Vortex if you have a heavily Modded game you may be better off keeping with your current Organizer until future updated/addons ti Vortex are released.  That was enough for me to not down load Vortex but to keep an eye on information coming in.  

No rush to change what I have, especially while it works o.k for me at the moment.  Vortex does look exceptionally easy to use when the addons happen they also may be easy to use.

 

(I like dumbed down... I am by no means an expert, hell I understood Virtual File System (I Think) have no idea what Syslinks is except I assume a File system?)

[GenioMaestro]

I modded games from ... sorry... not remember exactly... but sure 10 or 15 years... maybe 20...

And ALWAYS made it in the old way, modify the game files and add new files in the game directory.

Some times need uncompress and decode the files, modify, recode and compress for test.

In some games each test need a lot of time for make a small modification in a big file.

And you can call me OLD.. yes.. of course...

 

I always use NMM and not like the virtual system of MO.

I know it, have MO installed and sometimes use it for some test.

But the virtual system have a some problems, like define all executables inside MO, and not all work, like java 64x and others need special configurations. I not know how a modder or animator can use MO for create a complex mod that need use 3dstudio, blender, CK, NifScope, BodySlide, OS, Fnis... and launch all of them inside MO.

 

The solution adopted by Vortex is perfect.

The SymLink system work in Windows from years ago.

And not have any fail because is used by the operating system by default. 

When you make double click in My Documents you are ussing a SymLink that aim to

x:\users\(name)\documents and never fail.

Have a reference, and i say a REFERENCE to the real file inside the game directory is perfect. And works.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

[fore]

2 hours ago, GenioMaestro said:

The solution adopted by Vortex is perfect.

The SymLink system work in Windows from years ago.

And not have any fail because is used by the operating system by default. 

When you make double click in My Documents you are ussing a SymLink that aim to

x:\users\(name)\documents and never fail.

Have a reference, and i say a REFERENCE to the real file inside the game directory is perfect. And works.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

 

That's nothing else but the Virtual Install used by NMM.

That's one of the reasons I never understood why users are so much hooked up on MO. Accept a huge performance hit for an run-time implementation of something that is already solved by a static Windows solution. A solution that lacks all these errors, especially when it comes to deal with NON-Game tools like FNIS.

 

But are you sure these are "only" symlinks, in all cases? NMM has used HARDlinks in case mods and Skyrim are on the same partition. Hardlinks have one big advantage compared to symlinks, because they are not visible with simple explorers, and therefore cannot be messed with by the careless user.

[Tattorack]

13 hours ago, DarksideTinkerbell said:

I don't know much about MO2 or Vortex, but, one of the read-ups I saw on Vortex actually suggested that at this point in Vortex if you have a heavily Modded game you may be better off keeping with your current Organizer until future updated/addons ti Vortex are released.  That was enough for me to not down load Vortex but to keep an eye on information coming in.  

No rush to change what I have, especially while it works o.k for me at the moment.  Vortex does look exceptionally easy to use when the addons happen they also may be easy to use.

 

(I like dumbed down... I am by no means an expert, hell I understood Virtual File System (I Think) have no idea what Syslinks is except I assume a File system?)

Any modding system that keeps the main installation directory clean is exponentially better than installing mods directly to the installation directory.

Situations where a game crashes due to modding with virtual file systems or dedicated mod directories are usually easily solved, whereas installing mods to the installation directory require either hours if not days of tedium or just clean installing the entire game and starting from scratch again.

This is something I want to avoid absolutely.

I've been modding games since the original Homeworld and when games started implementing dedicated mod folders or MO with its virtual file system came along it felt like a grace from the gamer gods.

 

So... Vortex uses the same modding system as Nexus Mod Manager. That is terrible! Like... really really really terrible! What's the point of Vortex if it's just going to use the old system.

Was was Tannin even called on board to make Vortex if they're not going to use his virtual file system!?

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Tattorack said:

Any modding system that keeps the main installation directory clean is exponentially better than installing mods directly to the installation directory.

Situations where a game crashes due to modding with virtual file systems or dedicated mod directories are usually easily solved, whereas installing mods to the installation directory require either hours if not days of tedium or just clean installing the entire game and starting from scratch again.

This is something I want to avoid absolutely.

I've been modding games since the original Homeworld and when games started implementing dedicated mod folders or MO with its virtual file system came along it felt like a grace from the gamer gods.

 

So... Vortex uses the same modding system as Nexus Mod Manager. That is terrible! Like... really really really terrible! What's the point of Vortex if it's just going to use the old system.

Was was Tannin even called on board to make Vortex if they're not going to use his virtual file system!?

 

 

 

My impression is problem with the virtual file system in Mod Organizer is that it needs to be configured specifically for the game (hence why MO only ever supported Bethesda games). Because of this, Tannin needed to make a mod manager that was useful to pretty much every game featured on the Nexus (specifically the non-Bethesda games) and he needed to implement the mod install method in a way that could be easily configured for new games. As @fore mentioned above, hard linking is a fairly simple way of getting around this problem. Also (and this is speculation) it may be that NexusMods will in the future want to give users Linux and OSX versions of Vortex as those platforms are starting to get some traction and that could introduce problems if the mod manager only used a vfs.

 

Edit: clarified last point a bit

[Varithina]

2 hours ago, Tattorack said:

Any modding system that keeps the main installation directory clean is exponentially better than installing mods directly to the installation directory.

Situations where a game crashes due to modding with virtual file systems or dedicated mod directories are usually easily solved, whereas installing mods to the installation directory require either hours if not days of tedium or just clean installing the entire game and starting from scratch again.

This is something I want to avoid absolutely.

I've been modding games since the original Homeworld and when games started implementing dedicated mod folders or MO with its virtual file system came along it felt like a grace from the gamer gods.

 

So... Vortex uses the same modding system as Nexus Mod Manager. That is terrible! Like... really really really terrible! What's the point of Vortex if it's just going to use the old system.

Was was Tannin even called on board to make Vortex if they're not going to use his virtual file system!?

Because vortex was designed by a group, and we all know how well such things usually work out, badly, tanin probably has an idea what he wants to do, but if those holding the pay packet say no then no is what happens for the most part.

 

Though from what I read early on vortex is supposed to be usable for as many games as possible, basically if nexus hosts mods for a game, they want vortex to be able to manage mods for it and the virtual file system from mo, would make that much harder to implement.

[Nazzzgul666]

On 10/30/2018 at 3:01 PM, NotThatICare said:

My impression is problem with the virtual file system in Mod Organizer is that it needs to be configured specifically for the game (hence why MO only ever supported Bethesda games).

Not entirely true, started FNV recently which is Obsidian, not Beth and using MO is entirely fine. But i could imagine it's close enough or something like that.

And the reason why i use MO instead of NMM is quite simple. I've installed NMM, then mods, fucked things up, reinstalled Skyrim because i uninstalling them via NMM still left my game broken. Repeated this 3 times within one week. I switched to MO and didn't reinstall Skyrim once in three years.

It's not like MO would prevent me from making mistakes, but fixing them is so much easier and faster and i still make enough of them that it matters.