Maximum number of "Scripted" mods

[Ailsa]

I am currently running with 198 mods working fairly smoothly thank you.  However I noticed that most of the mods that I like are activated by scripts (auto un-equip arrows, and others of a similar nature).  In the opinion of the experts here what is sensible limit on the number of mods that use scripts please 

 

Thank you in advance for your advice 

[Ark of Truth]

It depends on the specs of your computer and if the author coded the mod correctly.

 

You can only have a maximum of 255 mods regardless.

[Koko.Hekmatyar]

It depends on the specs of your computer and if the author coded the mod correctly.

 

You can only have a maximum of 255 mods regardless.

You know I wonder which Brain donor over at Bes thought that one up?

 

"Hey lets give the players the ability to mod the game"

 

"Ok but only give them a max of 255"

 

"OK" 

 

Seriously though I wonder if 255 is because that is all the game can handle or if it was just an arbitrary number. 

[gregathit]

Oddly enough that number has been "THE" number since Oblivion.  It may even date back to Morrowind but I can't say for sure.  It just seems to be a number they pulled out of their collective asses and said "There....that is the max anyone can have!".  Kinda the way that 640k should have been enough for anyone jazz. 

 

Regardless, with the tools that are out there, you can combine mods to get around the limit with just a little bit of work, so in the end it is just a minor hassle.

[Vioxsis]

I always thought it was due to using hexadecimal to order DLC/mods

[Ark of Truth]

I think the limit is due to the engine being used instead of a hard coded limit.

[DoctaSax]

Vioxsis is right on the money. 255 is  one less than 256, the max hex combination you can make with 2 digits. The other one's reserved.

[Ark of Truth]

Vioxsis is right on the money. 255 is  one less than 256, the max hex combination you can make with 2 digits. The other one's reserved.

 

So yeah it's an engine limit.....

[Ailsa]

If memory serves me Morrowind had the same limit.

 

I consider myself a moderately competent user of my pc as a tool to do what I need it to do but I am not happy using many of the tools that are available for editing and/or merging mods.  I can do things like design embroidery and convert it for my computer driven embroidery machine so I am not a total dunderhead .

 

I find that many of the instructions assume a level of competence and understanding way above mine.  Also at my advanced age I cannot remember even half of the acronyms for many of the tools involved.

 

I have TES5Edit and I have cleaned mods with it, but have failed to understand the instructions for combining/ merging mods.  My fantasy is to find clear and simple to follow read-me/instructions for all game tools and mods written with the pc illiterate in mind

 

Thank you all for your input , you have been very kind.

[Brigade]

It's dangerous and highly annoying to run more than a handful of mods with Skyrim. This isn't Oblivion, where you could run 250 heavily scripted mods with only minor performance issues.

 

This is Nam baby: You load one bad mod, you lose your save file.

[Ailsa]

I am in the process of re-installing Skyrim because my FPS has gone below 45 FPS in Solitude and the loading screens were up to 25 seconds.  I don't know the specs of my pc but I do know that once the slow down starts it is time to refresh (lucky me having a kid brother who builds me a new pc for each new Bethesda game) 

 

I plan on not re-installing some of the original mods that date back to Jan 2012 (without having been up-dated).  

 

If anyone can point me in the direction of some clear and easy to follow instructions on combining mods I would be very grateful Indeed 

[Dee383]

255 Mods Might Be The Maximum Limit But Ive Never Had Even Half That And As For Skyrim It Doesnt Seem To Want to Load Any Save If I Have More That 47 Mods Active .....

[Veladarius]

I have hit the max a few times when trying out armor mods that have a single armor but I am currently at 240 esp/esm's active. I have not had too many problems and found most of my issues being an overload of textures or too many mods changing the same location/items. Oblivion I would run about 160 esp/esm's before random mods would just not load and had to combine a number of armor mods so keep using them and I am starting to do the same with Skyrim. As far as the max number of mods I don't think they thought anyone would ever be able to use that many. Hopefully they will fix that (1 more character for the mod number is all we need).

 

But looking into the way the game handles everything most of it is scripts. I think the point that things start to break is where you have inefficient scripts or scripts that modify standard scripts and end up breaking them. So long as they don't step on each others toes (or just knock em down and kick them in the head) the only issue would be too many running at once and slowing things down.

[Rayblue]

The following values from skyrim.ini determines your Papyrus performance and capacity:

 

Papyrus]
fUpdateBudgetMS=1.6
fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.6
fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=1000.0
iMinMemoryPageSize=256
iMaxMemoryPageSize=8912
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=8388608
 
;fUpdateBudgetMS=1.2
;fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.2
;fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0
;iMinMemoryPageSize=128 
;iMaxMemoryPageSize=512
;iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=76800
 
bEnableLogging=1
bEnableTrace=1
bLoadDebugInformation=1

 

The lines that were commented (marked with a semicolon) are the normal values.

 

Those three values determines how much memory should be allocated to Papyrus scripts:

iMinMemoryPageSize=256
iMaxMemoryPageSize=8912
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=8388608

 

More information about those settings and tweaking are here:

http://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=352

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/633229-less-ctds-maybe-none/

 

Personally, 2gb is the minimum limit as far as loading Skyrim is concerned (I've noticed that playing the game consumes some 1.25gb when looking at Task Manager).

 

Since 255 seem to be the limit, the solution is to either deactivate some least-used mods, or merge similar mods (i.e. armors) into a bashed mod (use Wrye Bash) to free up some slots and reduce memory usage.

[Ailsa]

I would LOVE to merge some of the armour mods however I fail totally at understanding how to do it with Wrye Bash o_O >>.<<  I feel that it is a wonderful tool created by experts for use by other experts.

[gnr8]

I would LOVE to merge some of the armour mods however I fail totally at understanding how to do it with Wrye Bash o_O >>.<<  I feel that it is a wonderful tool created by experts for use by other experts.

 

See http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/904953-how-to-merge-multiple-mods-with-multiple-master-files/ for a tutorial on doing this easily with TES5Edit.  Don't forget to enable your merged mod esp and disable the original esp's when you're done.

[Ailsa]

Thank you very much gnr8, I will take a close look at that