Vortex Mod Deployment to Cleanup Game Folder

[AmazoniaRed]

I have been having some issues with SSE just not running correctly (mainly just super slow) and the start up when I run Script extender is about 5 minutes (for comparison, on Fallout 4 the delay is about 10 seconds). I haven't played the game in a while just tried to get back into it, and as a start decided to transfer all of my mods from NMM to Vortex. One thing I noticed was that about half of the mods that I removed from NMM were still installed in the game folder even though NMM said they were now uninstalled (a problem I have noticed before with NMM). The only solution in the past was to uninstall everything and then re-install the game which looks to be what I need to do to clean out the old (outdated and frequently no longer compatible) mods. The feature in Vortex to deploy the mods though I am hoping will save me some time in the clean out. My hope is to delete everything (manual deletion within the game folder) and then have Vortex re-deploy the mods wanted to know if that will work before I try to go through with it.

Edited September 27, 2021 by AmazoniaRed

[Back2friday]

This sounds like expect unnecessary troubles in the future.

If i were you, just start from scratch. Just remove the whole damn folder and start over. Stay with Vortex. 

[AmazoniaRed]

2 hours ago, Back2friday said:

This sounds like expect unnecessary troubles in the future.

If i were you, just start from scratch. Just remove the whole damn folder and start over. Stay with Vortex. 

That's essentially the idea. I will manually delete almost everything in the folder and then use the staging Vortex has to reapply the mods. The mods I want and the configuration they are in are correct in Vortex. That's why I was hoping to delete almost everything and then have Vortex just reapply them to the newly cleaned up folder. I am more asking if Vortex will actually do this, if I tell it to re-deploy the mods/configuration I have set up in Vortex.

[Just Don't]

So what would you gain from deleting things if Vortex will restore everything as it was before? Do you have old/obsolete files on your game folder? If that's the case why? Everything I've read about Vortex seems to indicate that shouldn't happen. Even if Vortex installs things directly into your game, removing said mods should get rid of any unnecessary files, right? So there is something wrong with your computer/files in general or you're doing something wrong about Vortex/mods.

 

Also, slow starting times are a thing when ENB needs to compile shader every time you launch the game (for this you can enable shaders cache from your gpu/enblocal.ini). Some ENB presets with custom weather settings also extend the initial load times, but I'm not sure if that's still a thing. Having an SSD and a OS in shape is general good practice to get the ideal performance for your specs.

[Grey Cloud]

6 hours ago, AmazoniaRed said:

I haven't played the game in a while just tried to get back into it, and as a start decided to transfer all of my mods from NMM to Vortex. One thing I noticed was that about half of the mods that I removed from NMM were still installed in the game folder even though NMM said they were now uninstalled (a problem I have noticed before with NMM).

You should have plug-ins and whatnot in your Data folder with Vortex. The mods are hard linked in a different (user defined) location. 'Deploying' synchs the stuff in the two locations.

By not understanding how your mod manager works you have cocked up and caused yourself a fair bit of unnecessary work.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Grey Cloud

[AmazoniaRed]

1 hour ago, Grey Cloud said:

You should have plug-ins in your Data folder with Vortex. The mods are hard linked in a different (user defined) location. 'Deploying' synchs the stuff in the two locations.

By not understanding how your mod manager works you have cocked up and caused yourself a fair bit of unnecessary work.

Please let me know which part of the this is not correct

 

1. Vortex Staging folder is based on the mods and configuration (mod conflict overrides) installed through Vortex only.

 

2. Vortex then uses the staging folder as it's map for installing the mods into the game folder.

 

It looks like you're suggesting that Vortex will also go in reverse and base it's staging folder based on mods it sees in the game folder regardless of where the installation came from.

 

[AmazoniaRed]

2 hours ago, Just Don't said:

So what would you gain from deleting things if Vortex will restore everything as it was before? Do you have old/obsolete files on your game folder? If that's the case why? Everything I've read about Vortex seems to indicate that shouldn't happen. Even if Vortex installs things directly into your game, removing said mods should get rid of any unnecessary files, right? So there is something wrong with your computer/files in general or you're doing something wrong about Vortex/mods.

 

Also, slow starting times are a thing when ENB needs to compile shader every time you launch the game (for this you can enable shaders cache from your gpu/enblocal.ini). Some ENB presets with custom weather settings also extend the initial load times, but I'm not sure if that's still a thing. Having an SSD and a OS in shape is general good practice to get the ideal performance for your specs.

I have a bunch of old and outdated mods that are sitting in the game folder acting as if there installed manually (which they weren't, they were installed through NMM and then when I went to uninstall them, NMM said they were uninstalled, but the files were still in the game folder). I am hoping to remove all of those files and have all of the mods I installed through Vortex put back as they have been configured in Vortex. Vortex was never the problem. The problem was NMM not removing the files it was told to remove.

 

Good to know about ENB as it relates to the delay. I will double check what mine is set to.

[Just Don't]

33 minutes ago, AmazoniaRed said:

Vortex was never the problem. The problem was NMM not removing the files it was told to remove.

I would've done a clean install when moving from NMM to Vortex. Even if Vortex has ways to import a game and its modded files. Better safe than having-old-files.

 

34 minutes ago, AmazoniaRed said:

Good to know about ENB as it relates to the delay. I will double check what mine is set to.

Easiest way to check this is remove the ENB files (the dlls from ENB and ENB Helper in particular) from your game and compare starting times.

[Grey Cloud]

33 minutes ago, AmazoniaRed said:

It looks like you're suggesting that Vortex will also go in reverse and base it's staging folder based on mods it sees in the game folder regardless of where the installation came from.

Yep that's what I'm saying.

e.g. 1:

You install a mod from here or Nexus. Vortex will install a hard link of the mod to the staging folder but also install a copy into your Data folder.

 

e.g. 2:

You edit the esp of a mod. The esp in the Data folder and the hard link esp are now different. When yo deploy, either automatically or manually, Vortex will ask whether you want to keep the changes (in which case the staged esp is made to conform to the deployed esp (in Data folder) or revert (in which case the changes are abandoned and the staged folder will replace the edited esp in Data).

 

31 minutes ago, AmazoniaRed said:

NMM said they were uninstalled

In your OP you said "to transfer all of my mods". Do you mean you exported from NMM or did you do something else?

 

As far as NMM was concerned they were uninstall because they were uninstalled from NMM. I'm guessing but I would assume that Vortex creates the hard links first as it imports from NMM then deploys to the Data folder once it has all the relevant info.

[AmazoniaRed]

4 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

Yep that's what I'm saying.

e.g. 1:

You install a mod from here or Nexus. Vortex will install a hard link of the mod to the staging folder but also install a copy into your Data folder.

 

e.g. 2:

You edit the esp of a mod. The esp in the Data folder and the hard link esp are now different. When yo deploy, either automatically or manually, Vortex will ask whether you want to keep the changes (in which case the staged esp is made to conform to the deployed esp (in Data folder) or revert (in which case the changes are abandoned and the staged folder will replace the edited esp in Data).

 

In your OP you said "to transfer all of my mods". Do you mean you exported from NMM or did you do something else?

 

As far as NMM was concerned they were uninstall because they were uninstalled from NMM. I'm guessing but I would assume that Vortex creates the hard links first as it imports from NMM then deploys to the Data folder once it has all the relevant info.

I manually download all mods and keep an organized storage system for all of them. This is how I had my mods installed in NMM. The way I transferred the mods was to simply do a straight uninstall from NMM and then re-install from the file (or install the updated version) in Vortex. I did NOT do a mod import to Vortex.

 

The problem arose when the straight uninstall from NMM did not result in the mod being removed. This is a bit beside the point though.

 

At this point, I guess my best option to clean everything out would be to deactivate all mods and then delete everything (a few custom files that I made will be kept) and then re-activate all of the mods. I imagine that's the best way forward.

[Grey Cloud]

7 hours ago, AmazoniaRed said:

I manually download all mods and keep an organized storage system for all of them. This is how I had my mods installed in NMM.

Sorry but I have no idea what that means.

 

7 hours ago, AmazoniaRed said:

The problem arose when the straight uninstall from NMM did not result in the mod being removed.

In 4 years of using NMM I never experienced that although lots of people claim it happens.

 

7 hours ago, AmazoniaRed said:

At this point,

At this point I would suggest you start completely from scratch including a complete reinstall of Skyrim.

 

Follow these and a good guide on Vortex to get a stable game.

 

https://www.loverslab.com/topic/136543-mod-organizer-2-other-tools-from-zero-to-hey-sexlab-is-working/

 

https://www.loverslab.com/topic/118460-skyrim-se-for-beginners-v-319-3bbb-hdt-smp-hph/

 

 

[Back2friday]

24 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Sorry but I have no idea what that means.

 

 

It means he has all the archives (mods) on his computer or portable hard disk. I also did this. So i know wich mods i had in the game in case i ever have to start all over again on a new ssd. So i dont have to search and download it all over again or miss out some mods mid game. 

[Grey Cloud]

18 minutes ago, Back2friday said:

 

It means he has all the archives (mods) on his computer or portable hard disk. I also did this. So i know wich mods i had in the game in case i ever have to start all over again on a new ssd. So i dont have to search and download it all over again or miss out some mods mid game. 

I always download to my PC and keep the archives there but the "keep an organized storage system for all of them" part doesn't make any sense. Nor does "This is how I had my mods installed in NMM". At best, both statements are irrelevant.

 

 

[Back2friday]

38 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

I always download to my PC and keep the archives there but the "keep an organized storage system for all of them" part doesn't make any sense. Nor does "This is how I had my mods installed in NMM". At best, both statements are irrelevant.

 

 

 

 

[donttouchmethere]

11 hours ago, AmazoniaRed said:

The problem arose when the straight uninstall from NMM did not result in the mod being removed. This is a bit beside the point though.

I use NMM for years, but if I would change to another mod manager I would highly recommend to uninstall NMM and Skyrim and check the Skyrim folder for leftovers.

After that create a fresh Skyrim install (either from steam or from backup) and use your new mod manager from there on.

 

After deleting all mods via NMM (not deactivate or anything else, DELETE is they way mods get removed from the data folder, if you use deactivate you basically just deactivated the mod (duh!) but the files stay for reactivation) following files/folders can be left behind:

• empty folders created for formerly installed mods
• any scripts of mods that add new scripts to the game folder after install during gameplay (rare, usually some alpha/beta mods can something like that)
• if you used batch files to install files unconnected to NMM
• if you renamed files
• *.json files to save mod MCM settings, because NMM didn't install those so it doesn't know that it should remove them
• you installed mods or files manually (duh!)
• if you interrupted NMM during install/uninstall/deleting of mods
• if you only deactivated the mods before uninstalling NMM instead of DELETING them via NMM (2xduh!)
• you installed Skyrim in windows root folders and NMM has no rights to remove those
• you used 3rd party patchers for mods that aren't activated via NMM
• modified and saved presets (if they end in the skse plugin folder)
• TES5edit backup plugins after modification
• basically everything you are able to sneak around the NMM install procedure, because NMM only removes what it knows

 

If you want to know what is worth keeping I tried to make a list here:

 

• Backup and preparations before uninstalling Skyrim

 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by donttouchmethere