Tracking Down the Plugin Limit

[BruceWayne]

It does that, if you activate the [tweak names] option. Some of the tweak-options don't work particularly well for FNV, so I usually stay clear of them. PN has a prefix option in its MCM as well, so that shouldn't be needed anyway.

 

Seeing as the no. of plugins is in the same ball park as zippy's and my figures, there might be a chance that the crashes could be due to the dreaded plugin limit.

[zippy57]

Zippy, what problem are you experiencing EXACTLY? Describe to me exactly what you do and what happens when the game crashes, ie how, where, at what point, etc.

Problem 1: 155 mods active, game loads normally, proceed to Problem 2. 156 mods active, game crashes during startup load screens.

 

Problem 2: Standing outside Doc Mitchell's. Hitting Esc pauses, using the console to save/load works. Walk to the General Store. Hitting Esc does nothing, using the console to save/load also does nothing.

[ChancellorKremlin]

 

Zippy, what problem are you experiencing EXACTLY? Describe to me exactly what you do and what happens when the game crashes, ie how, where, at what point, etc.

Problem 1: 155 mods active, game loads normally, proceed to Problem 2. 156 mods active, game crashes during startup load screens.

 

Problem 2: Standing outside Doc Mitchell's. Hitting Esc pauses, using the console to save/load works. Walk to the General Store. Hitting Esc does nothing, using the console to save/load also does nothing.

 

Well, I have good news, and I have bad news.

 

The good news was, I figured out what was causing my game to crash on loading a save - rePopulatedWasteland, which coming to think of it, since I uninstalled it my game has crashed dramatically less often. It never did use to crash on load with it installed, but I'm not too fussed about it.

 

Now, the bad news. I have replicated, to a T, the issues you are experiencing. Crash on 156 mods loaded during startup, esc not working inside General Store, and I've even managed to outdo it too:

 

 

 

"Oh my, I probably shouldn't have had that moldy molerat cheese before going to sleep... and the jet... and the mentats. Well, maybe the mentats just a little. Not the cheese though, definitely not the cheese."

 

 

 

 

 

"This is the most lucid dream yet... all the colours! Hey, who's that coming towards me... what's she holding, is that a box?"

 

"DO YOU WANT TO BUY SOME COOKIES!"

 

 

 

 

"Ahhhh! What... what happened to your eyes?!"

 

"Where we're going... you won't need eyes to see!"

 

"Aaahhhhhh! Maybe Chet can help me! Chet, chet! Help, a demonically possessed NCR ranger is trying to sell me cookies! Help!"

 

"Ooh my, things certainly look different in here... all black and red and weird vortexes in the ground, I like what you've done with the place Chet. Say Chet, could you..."

 

 

 

 

"Whoah! Chet, when did you become this beautiful! Oh my... even with those weird black patches you're more rugged and handsome than I ever imagined! Oh Chet, you make me quiver, I just wanna... wanna, rip those clothes of and, and... no, wait Chet, where are you going?"

 

 

 

 

"Muahahahah! Muhahahaha!"

 

"I want to wake up! I want to wake up! I want to go home!"

 

"Shh... Amelia! Amelia! Wake up, it's okay child, it's okay, you were having a bad dream, you can open your eyes..."

 

 

 

 

"This is your home now child! You are home!"

 

"Noooooo!!!!"

 

"Muahahahah! Muhahahaha! Muahahahahahah!"

 

- In the Twilight Zone, no one can hear you scream. - Brought to you by a buggy engine.

 

 

[BruceWayne]

Lol, that is some creepy shit. 

[KainsChylde]

I have no words...

[Bashis]

my limit before the wasteland is plastered with faces also seems to be right around that area of 150-160, kind of sucks because with tale of two wastelands i need 2 copys of awop/momod/dc-nvinteriors to cover it all, which means no way in hell i can have my full sexout plugin list loaded, which leaves me here plucking mods out one at a time until i get greenlit.

 

as an added bit of info when i was damn near close to my modcap, but not over so the game would start, even if the game launched normally (i could use the menu/save and freaky texland didnt exist), those 2 issues poped up after going through 4-5 loadscreens, i was confused with that for a long time, though it was a mod doing it, but if i removed 3-4 plugins, didnt matter which ones, it fixed it. so just cause you can start your game without those errors doesnt mean it wont crap out on you later. borderline modcap seems to be just as bad as over.

[Halstrom]

Super Creepy

[KainsChylde]

my limit before the wasteland is plastered with faces also seems to be right around that area of 150-160, kind of sucks because with tale of two wastelands i need 2 copys of awop/momod/dc-nvinteriors to cover it all, which means no way in hell i can have my full sexout plugin list loaded, which leaves me here plucking mods out one at a time until i get greenlit.

 

as an added bit of info when i was damn near close to my modcap, but not over so the game would start, even if the game launched normally (i could use the menu/save and freaky texland didnt exist), those 2 issues poped up after going through 4-5 loadscreens, i was confused with that for a long time, though it was a mod doing it, but if i removed 3-4 plugins, didnt matter which ones, it fixed it. so just cause you can start your game without those errors doesnt mean it wont crap out on you later. borderline modcap seems to be just as bad as over.

With the new version of ttw (v2.21a) theres a conversion script that can be used through FNVEdit. I asked in their forum, and if you convert the FO3 version using the script, you can then merge the FO3 and FNV versions into one and reduce your load order.

[Bashis]

i have them converted, but i never realized it was safe to mash them together, ill have to try that

[ChancellorKremlin]

Zippy, it seems to me that the "sweep spot" for me is at around 136-144 plugins, loaded AND unloaded. I had problems even with 136 loaded and 11 unloaded, it seems that if you go over that limit things start going wrong, first with a glitch in the loading screen icon when you change maps, and then textures go missing, the esc button stops working, and then all hell breaks loose as shown above, with the game ultimately failing to start.

 

I'm curious, to what setting have you put the

 

bUseThreadedAI=

iNumHWThreads=

 

functions?

 

Mine are set to 1 and 8 respectively, because I have eight cores. To be honest though, I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever. Maybe we can try reducing these values to 4 and then 2 and maybe even 1 to see if there is a difference? From what it seems to me, the more cores you actually have the less plugins you can run.

 

I've seriously been considering lately just buying a Pentium Presler XE 965 at 3.7ghz (single core) just to run older games like these, with an oldish nvidia card I have and 2-4gbddr or ddr2 ram. It would probably cost less than $200 and it would allow me to play quite a few games that just don't run well at all these days. Rome Total War (which has a heavy modding community) is another... the thing is WORSE on my new PC now than it was on my old one... its just infuriating! 

[zippy57]

Well. Did a reinstall. First, the plugin limit is still 155. Second, running 155 mods now causes graphics issues (it didn't before) so the actual limit is now 154. Third, the pause menu issue still exists. So now I'll be treating it as a plugin issue and will be testing that, but for the moment I've lost my patience with FNV so will be trying that later (probably tomorrow).

[ChancellorKremlin]

Have you tried altering the number of threads the game uses and so forth?

[zippy57]

I tried 4 becuase I now have four cores, and I did at one point go back to 2 like the old system but was still getting the problem. I did forget to try limiting it to one core, though, so I'll have to try that.

[ChancellorKremlin]

Well if that doesn't work either I think we can eliminate that function as helping or hindering us - like I said, I never noticed any change whatsoever when using it (then again, nor have I with the 4gb replacer either) so it could just be on my end, but if you don't notice anything either... well, then maybe we're just unlucky!

 

The 130's seem to be for me where my game stays stable. Anything over 140 or so and I start getting issues, and over 150 it's basically CTD o'clock. 

[Halstrom]

Mines around 130 too, I haven't hit it for a while to be sure .

[ChancellorKremlin]

I never realised how close to the limit I was, that's a shame, because now 130 seems like very few, especially for things like WMX and Mission Mojave which have upwards of 5-8 plugins each.

 

 

[BruceWayne]

Actually, this is exactly where the bashed patch comes in handy, as most of the optional WMX patches (or compatibility patches in general) are completely mergeable and can be removed from the data folder after being bashed in. Just remember to put them back in, if you are rebuilding your patch.

[zippy57]

Update time...

 

Load limit: 155 plugins

Asset limit: 154 plugins

Ability to save game limit: 139 plugins

 

I am annoyed.

[zippy57]

I am more annoyed. I merged my extra plugins together to get down to 139 and the issue is now happening again. Apparently it's a record limit, not a plugin limit.

[Halstrom]

I am more annoyed. I merged my extra plugins together to get down to 139 and the issue is now happening again. Apparently it's a record limit, not a plugin limit.

 

Wow that is annoying and confusing because I did the same ages ago and it seemed to fix the problem.Perhaps it's because when I merged all my non-SCR clothing mods, I moved them all to the same containers in Docs house rather than having multiple objects spread across worldspace, I also dumped a lot of the outfit effects that were similar. Perhaps in doing so I dumped a lot of scripts, though I wouldn't imagine they were very large. So perhaps it is more size related than number of records.

[Bashis]

looks like my plugin limit is not as finicky as yours, I've got my game fully stable, (can save and no texture/crashing issues) right at 140 active plugins, with probably a little over 100 merged ones. data folders sitting right at 60 gigs, and i'm running ALOT of heavy plugins, including the whole fallout 3 (TTW).

[ChancellorKremlin]

Well, I reached 142 plugins and I started getting the "buttons don't work ingame anymore" issue like E not working, or the pause menu, or esc, or having the loading map icon at the bottom get corrupted ingame. 

 

So I reduced my iNumHWThreads= from the original 8 to 2, and it seems to have fixed it. I don't know by how much, ie I've not tried installing loads more plugins to see how far it will go, but seeing as my game was breaking at 142 and now its not I'm calling it progress. Extra reading on the internet even says you can force it to 1 and that reduces crashes, so if nothing changes much I'll go on to that. 

[lazaurus]

I've had a similar issue, mainly when upgrading hardware. I custom build all my own systems.

 

After a modest hardware upgrade I fought with Fallout 3 for a couple weeks, just to get it work, and I was running only 2 or 3 mods. Bull-headed person I am didn't even think to re-install game.

 

When I built this current system, I upgraded everything, even operating system XP 32bit to Win 7 Pro 64bit. And, after all the previous grief and aggravation, I saved copies of all the .ini files from both Fallout 3 & NV, as they were where I ended up making a crap load of changes just to get FO 3 playable again.

 

When I was done loading all my software on my new HD, I was tired, didn't even think, just clicked on... I think it FO NV for some R&R. Lo and behold, worked perfectly, as installed no changes needed. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I tried FO 3, same thing worked fine.

 

To get to the point, sorry, I discovered that there are many game settings, normally "hidden" and set by the game's installer program, at the time of installation based off of a "snapshot" or view of your systems hardware at the time of install.

 

I'm not sure if they're still on Nexus, but I found a configurator program for each game there. But, be aware, it's a real eye opener when you run them, the sheer number of settings there "truly" are.

 

After hunting for 20 minutes on Nexus, finally found it:

 

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/40442

[RitualClarity]

Well, I reached 142 plugins and I started getting the "buttons don't work ingame anymore" issue like E not working, or the pause menu, or esc, or having the loading map icon at the bottom get corrupted ingame. 

 

So I reduced my iNumHWThreads= from the original 8 to 2, and it seems to have fixed it. I don't know by how much, ie I've not tried installing loads more plugins to see how far it will go, but seeing as my game was breaking at 142 and now its not I'm calling it progress. Extra reading on the internet even says you can force it to 1 and that reduces crashes, so if nothing changes much I'll go on to that. 

@CK

I have done the same thing before when I had trouble with graphics. I also used the iFPSClamp=60 or in my case at the time iFPSClamp=30.

For the iNumHWThreads= ... I would try restricting it to 1 just for testing. FNV was able to run well on single core processors provided they had enough speed, yours should be fine.

 

@zippy57

In order of easy to insane..

I don't want to state the obvious but have you dialed down the graphics and other settings as low as possible? Just for testing of course.

 

When building the computer did you transfer the old .ini files? if so can you "refresh" with a new set created using steam or a clean install and overwrite everything except the .ini setting files. In the past I have had an issue especially moving from a very week 4850 to a GTX670. and went from a simple ATI 840 processor to the current 8150 8 core.

 

Another shot is try to pack the texture files from some of your clothing mods into companion BSA files.? Less fragmentation and can help. I have read several modding advice articles and it is stated that this can help improve stability in FNV. Not every one just a few of the larger ones with lots of files and little scripts accessing them. (clothing mods, body mods etc) Remember to remove any "merged" esps created. The mods with scripts might not like having a BSA.

 

You did turn off the crossfire option for your gfx cards correct? Do you have access to a decent ATI or Nvidia Graphic card that isn't duel GPU? Can you borrow one from someone to see if the Duel GPU Graphic (crossfired on the board) is causing some issues even if you turned off the Crossfire

 

While we are on hardware have you disabled the "boost" option on your processor. Sometimes FNV dosn't like having overclocked processors. I overclocked my current processor and would crash like a motherf***er. All sorts of problems arose. Stopped the overclock and returned to normal again no changes to settings or game.

 

Another issue with FNV/Oblivion etc is the game is coded badly and often doesn't recognize the graphic card correctly.  I have used a "fix" before and it worked well. Mailamea also had a graphic problem that I helped her with and the "fix" helped her turn a IntelHD4200 equipped  Sony into a gaming computer. The game (Oblivion) in this case wasn't recognizing the card correctly even though it stated the card "name" in the Settings. In this case you will "fake" a dll file to make the game think it is running something older but similar to what you have. Something from the "supported" graphic list.

 

Please forgive my input if you have already tried it or you are sure that the above is not applicable or something you will not do. I just wanted to give some input to possible ideas since none of the ones you have tried have worked yet...

 

I know it sucks to no end when you get this great machine and you start having trouble running some old game.. Hope you are able to fix this soon. Good Luck.

 

 

 

[zippy57]

I don't want to state the obvious but have you dialed down the graphics and other settings as low as possible? Just for testing of course.

Nope. And it's not gonna happen. I didn't buy an expensive computer to not run things at full. The results I might get from that test are irrelevant since I'd rather run with less plugins than less graphics.

When building the computer did you transfer the old .ini files? if so can you "refresh" with a new set created using steam or a clean install and overwrite everything except the .ini setting files.

Originally I had copied over everything, from the data folders to the .inis, wholesale. However, I recently performed a complete re-install of FNV. Nothing changed.

Another shot is try to pack the texture files from some of your clothing mods into companion BSA files.? Less fragmentation and can help. I have read several modding advice articles and it is stated that this can help improve stability in FNV. Not every one just a few of the larger ones with lots of files and little scripts accessing them. (clothing mods, body mods etc) Remember to remove any "merged" esps created. The mods with scripts might not like having a BSA.

I don't really use clothing mods that aren't basic replacers, the exception being SCR.

You did turn off the crossfire option for your gfx cards correct?

Yep, one of the first things I tried. Nothing changed.

Do you have access to a decent ATI or Nvidia Graphic card that isn't duel GPU? Can you borrow one from someone to see if the Duel GPU Graphic (crossfired on the board) is causing some issues even if you turned off the Crossfire

Nope. It's a 7970M card, this thing is a laptop. Can't mess with the hardware. All I know is that FNV can handle around 71 more plugins on the incredibly outdated nVidia GTX 260M.

While we are on hardware have you disabled the "boost" option on your processor. Sometimes FNV dosn't like having overclocked processors. I overclocked my current processor and would crash like a motherf***er. All sorts of problems arose. Stopped the overclock and returned to normal again no changes to settings or game.

I don't overclock and never have. I'm not willing to risk the possible hardware damage for a few more FPS.

Another issue with FNV/Oblivion etc is the game is coded badly and often doesn't recognize the graphic card correctly.  I have used a "fix" before and it worked well.

I'm pretty sure FNV recognized the card as it defaulted settings to Ultra.