Mod Organizer

[superderp]

Well rearranging my priority order so the stuff I wanted being overwritten had a lower priority fixed my mining script.  So, huzzah

[RitualClarity]

Yep.. that priority is good stuff huh... You would have been fooling around countless times loading it with NMM to get that same level of control. Eventually you will also learn to "hide" a file so that it won't become an issue later if needed.

[superderp]

Yeah that's how I got rid of the SkyRe one.  This has been a headache but that's due to my own misunderstanding, not the program.  I can't think of an NMM solution that wasn't a headache in itself.

[RitualClarity]

Now you are just getting spoiled with MO.

 

I remember the days of old when everything was manually installed and you had to make your own Archive Invalidated files...

[gvman3670]

Uggh! I've manually installed for Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout. Then started using NMM when I get to playing Skyrim on PC (already played it over 1000 hours on XBox by then ). Then I tried ObMM and FOMM as well. Now MO is all I need and I can mod all those games, not just Skyrim.

 

MO is BY FAR the very best way to mod a Bethesda game. No doubt about it.

[AwfulArchdemon]

@superderp:

Didn't you notice how MO installs each new mod at the bottom of the load order? That's because it assumes you want it last. Just because it's newer, which usually means a patch or something, or a mod replacer, like CHSBHC Black Rose armor conversion for CBBE body, for example.

 

Bottom = last mod read by MO, and thus will take superiority. This is what defines MO's purpose best. It reads files in whatever order you put it in, without doing anything to the skyrim\data folder, so nothing ever goes wrong with the actual install. You'll never have to reinstall Skyrim again.

[RitualClarity]

 

You'll never have to reinstall Skyrim again.

However sometimes you will have to "verify cache"

 

 

[tuxtuxtux]

Reading OP convinced me MO is the way of the future, and besides NMM always felt kind of like the best of the worst.

 

I discovered the NMM auto-import feature about 30 mods in. *sigh*  After I already had disabled all my mods in NMM.

 

Really grateful with the feature that shows which mods where used in a savegame. Really hoping after having spent the last 30minutes importing mods that it will only take another 30 minutes getting it all to work again.

[RitualClarity]

Take your time.. have patience the first time opening MO. Remember that once they are included and functional you don't really have to do anything else with them ... ever until they become obsolete and need to be removed. (or upgraded). A few minutes now can make a world of difference.

[tuxtuxtux]

First start up went better then expected.  Successfully loaded a saved game, which then CTD'd a few seconds in.   

I know that doesn't sound good, but I honestly expected to have to spend hours finding mods I missed.

 

(*In before I spend hours finding out why it CTD's*)

[RitualClarity]

If you are using the 1.2.1 version use the sort button to see and sort the mods. Perhaps even load LOOT and set it as In exe and use it. It gives more info. Finally TESedit5 is a must to run to help. These tools do help solve the problems quicker than just hunting for them yourself. Finally if still having problem and all is good with those post the load order here for the experts inSkyrim to find the problems.

[tuxtuxtux]

Thanks for the offer. So far however the CTD seemed to have been caused by a conflict between schlongs of skyrim and realistic forces. (The conflict tab made it very easy to find that out)

 

I ended up disabling realistic forces which solved it.

 

So so far so good.

[gvman3670]

Yeah, those little lightning bolts sure are handy!

[tuxtuxtux]

Btw, I just discovered the "look for updates" button.  It seems this doesn't work for LL mods.  Is there perhaps a LL plugin to add LL credentials and check for updates there as well? Seeing as MO isn't really nexus specific.

 

It looks like this happens trough the meta.ini file. Which seems to be fairly generic other then some Nexus specific fields, but I see it gets added to all modules so it's MO uses it, or at least MO makes sure all mods have one.

 

It would probably be feasible to have plugins that knew about mod sites, then have a field in the MO that defines a mod as coming from a certain provider, and let MO simply ask the provider plugin if a new version is available. 

 

Granted, it would probably take some pretty fragile guessing games on the part of the provider to find out if there is a new mod on say LL, but not entirely impossible I'd wager.

 

Anyway, the later part of this post just assuming there isn't one. But just throwing up an idea. 

[AwfulArchdemon]

That's exactly what I want! I want to be able to dl mods using LL, and I even started a thread about it, but it turns out it would be a giant pain to make (according to a few credible sources). The best you can do is make a link to the mod in the 'info' section of MO. Then, at least you can click that from MO to be able to go starit to the mods page, to se if there's been any updates or new versions.

 

MO be with you.

[tuxtuxtux]

Hmm, I guess the giant pain would be on detecting newer version on the LL site. Because I see while browsing the source a bit that there's a plugin pretty much like I meant for a site called TES Alliance.

 

Well I guess the LL download system isn't really set up to handle revisions. Which isn't necessarily a problem, where it not that some mod makers don't exactly keep to sane version naming either. Each putting pretty much their own twist to it. 

 

One might get somewhere with looking at the file id though, which seems to be sequential.  But that already would mean scrapping the download page for links, then using some regex fu to find likely version variants. Hmmm and it seems MO does versioning by date, or at least the meta.ini does, which is just plain weird. Version 1.3.5 (for SL 1.34) might well be released later then version 1.6.2 for (SL 1.5).  That's just an accident waiting to happen.

 

Actually, some mods do seem to just have version numbers. But only a handful it seems.

 

Oh well, I guess giant pain it is then.

 

I hope Bethesda will supply a better framework for mods with their next non-mmo TES game. Now everything had to be made by the community, which isn't necessarily a problem, but clean solutions take time and buy-in from mod makers, and by that time there's already bound to be a dozen quick&dirty things everyone has been using.

 

Just something simple like allowing mods to live in their own directory instead of dumping everything in data/ and overwriting each other, sure mod mangers have fixed that, but bethesda could have facilitated it from day one. They could also have required a metadata file, with some fixed required attributes, name, version, publish date, requirements + versions. It's not like we haven't had package managers solving this exact problem for decades now (albeit poorly since it's not an easy problem).

 

Oh well, I guess they had better things to do. (like actually making the game)

[RitualClarity]

I would be happy with

A stable game,

 

Clean the Game. No broken references and the such. There is no reason that we have to clean a game before modding it for best stability. That is just unnecessary. It takes about 5 minutes for a tool to do it.. They can do it in about the same time I am sure. (or not leave the junk in it as they go along. I am sure they have better tools than we do to make these games)

 

I am find with them leaving the modding and tools to the modding community. I am sure we can do a better job anyway provided they leave the assets and other things open so that we can see what is going on.

 

[AwfulArchdemon]

 

Hmm, I guess the giant pain would be on detecting newer version on the LL site. Because I see while browsing the source a bit that there's a plugin pretty much like I meant for a site called TES Alliance.

 

Well I guess the LL download system isn't really set up to handle revisions. Which isn't necessarily a problem, where it not that some mod makers don't exactly keep to sane version naming either. Each putting pretty much their own twist to it. 

 

One might get somewhere with looking at the file id though, which seems to be sequential.  But that already would mean scrapping the download page for links, then using some regex fu to find likely version variants. Hmmm and it seems MO does versioning by date, or at least the meta.ini does, which is just plain weird. Version 1.3.5 (for SL 1.34) might well be released later then version 1.6.2 for (SL 1.5).  That's just an accident waiting to happen.

 

Actually, some mods do seem to just have version numbers. But only a handful it seems.

 

Oh well, I guess giant pain it is then.

 

 

I hope Bethesda will supply a better framework for mods with their next non-mmo TES game. Now everything had to be made by the community, which isn't necessarily a problem, but clean solutions take time and buy-in from mod makers, and by that time there's already bound to be a dozen quick&dirty things everyone has been using.

 

 

Just something simple like allowing mods to live in their own directory instead of dumping everything in data/ and overwriting each other, sure mod mangers have fixed that, but bethesda could have facilitated it from day one. They could also have required a metadata file, with some fixed required attributes, name, version, publish date, requirements + versions. It's not like we haven't had package managers solving this exact problem for decades now (albeit poorly since it's not an easy problem).

 

Oh well, I guess they had better things to do. (like actually making the game)

 

Ever think Tannin42 is simply a visionary, with talent that Bethesda lacks? Not every has skills like fore and Tannin42.

 

It's possible that Bethesda's release deadline was cut a bit thin, and the save method is a bit flawed, considering that we need a script cleaner to keep our game from breaking with script-heavy mods, but making the game this easy to mod was a very good thing for Bethesda to do, so my complaints are pretty limited. I'm sure they've heard all about how much more they could've done for modders by now. I'm just glad I'm able to make mods for Skyrim.

[gvman3670]

Something I am pondering....

 

If I was to unpack my .bsa files could I see any noticeable difference in performance? I am always looking for performance from this potato. I don't think anything would be overwritten (right?), so I could still just order the virtual overwrites I want.

 

What I am wondering is, I guess, is if there's a performance increase and a downside to go with it.

[AwfulArchdemon]

Something I am pondering....

If I was to unpack my .bsa files could I see any noticeable difference in performance? I am always looking for performance from this potato.  I don't think anything would be overwritten (right?), so I could still just order the virtual overwrites I want.

What I am wondering is, I guess, is if there's a performance increase and a downside to go with it. 

 

 

It depends how much info is in the bsa. If it's a huge mod, then there may a noticeable difference, but if your comp is a beast, you may notice nothing. My memory's maxed out, but my sheer performance power makes it unnoticeable. I never unpack bsa's, unless I want to make an add-on for a mod.

[RitualClarity]

I have both extracted and created BSA( mod content not  original game content) and found generally the game performed better with BSA's installed over loose files. Loose files allowed more control of what was presented to the game world as they would overwrite the files of any BSA .. Loose files win every time.

 

 

Mod Organizer has a built-in BSA extraction feature. In v0.12 of Mod Organizer it will ask whether you want to extract a BSA when you install a mod with one. When the "Extract BSA" prompt appears when installing a mod, simply click [Yes]. Deleting the BSA after extraction is a good thing, it forces the associated ESP to rely on the newly extracted loose files. 

 

http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:BSA_Extraction_and_Optimization#tab=Unpacking_BSAs

This also allows MO to manage the loose files more easily and directly. Allows you to access the files through the explorer and change or even delete them. I believe if you are using the newest beta 1.21 version you get the benefit of performance of the BSA and still get the manageability of loose files.

 

 

With MO, BSAs checked in the BSA tab are treated exactly as if they were loose files. That means their priority depends solely on the mod priority order and not on the plugin load order. If a BSA is not checked in the BSA tab but its corresponding plugin is active, the BSA shall be loaded, but in default plugin load order conflict resolution. Any checked BSAs will override any unchecked BSAs. Checking a BSA in the BSA tab turns the conflict resolution for that BSA to act like loose files. 

 

http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Mod_Organizer#tab=Priorities

So you basically have exactly that. Your game files have the best of both worlds if they are BSA. The benefit of BSA stability and performance while having the flexibility and file override capacities of loose files.

 

Hope that helps you make a decision..

 

Yea MO!!

[Furball]

Highly compressed BSAs extract into memory far faster than loading a file from an SSD

So they are more optimal especially when cached than loose files are.

 

http://obge.paradice-insight.us/wiki/NIFopt

 

 

 

A little calculation

So lets see a little calculation for two operations of reading data from disk, uncompressed and then compressed:

1. Harddisk-throughput: 20MB/s
2. Memory-throughput: 2000MB/s
3. zlib-throughput: 80MB/s
4. uncompressed size: 100MB
5. compressed size: 60MB

This yields:

• Reading 100MB at 20MB/s from disk takes 5s.
• Reading 60MB at 20MB/s from disk takes 3s, decompressing 60MB at 80MB/s in-memory takes 0,75s, so a total of 3,75s.

In case the data is very small it's probable that seeking time will start dominating the times:

• Reading 1MB at 20MB/s from disk takes 0,05s.
• Reading 0,6MB at 20MB/s from disk takes 0.03s, decompressing 0,6MB at 80MB/s in-memory takes 0,0075s, so a total of 0,0375s.

Seeking may be as much as 0,002s. Nevertheless it doesn't change the fact that reading compressed data is faster as long as the decompressor is faster than the disk. It's a rather theoretic notion, but when using compressed solid archives even the seek-times go down as the disc-head has to reposition a smaller distance while bulk-reading from the same archive.

Also, in reality with a modern system the decompression speed of zlib reach realistic 250-500MB/s (as you can see here), which can be far beyond any SSD-speed.

 

Is the Mod Organiser programmer ever going to do a Bashed Patch .. Seems like its the only thing missing, and Wrye Bash does not seem to be being developed ( maybe wrong, not sure )

The programmer seems like he would be talented enough to do this, call it a MO Patch

[AwfulArchdemon]

Hmm...I'll ask him.

[RitualClarity]

Highly compressed BSAs extract into memory far faster than loading a file from an SSD

So they are more optimal especially when cached than loose files are.

 

http://obge.paradice-insight.us/wiki/NIFopt

 

Yea. when I tested it for other games than Skyrim I could see more stability.. That stability could be a result of faster caching.. Makes sence. Good link.

[Furball]

Hmm...I'll ask him.

 

Cool, hopefully he will, because all over the place people are using TES5Edit to make a patchwork nightmare ..

 

The more helpful mod authors along with other people helping are making a patch for their mod if mod a is also installed, then there is another patch for if mod b is installed, then what if I have mod a, not mod b, but mod c makes the original mod not work .. oh okay, lets have another patch plugin for that scenario .. etc etc

 

Its ridiculous, the game as I understand it only allows so many esp / esm and bsa before its brain implodes or something, and when you get a few big mods combinations which rack up the patching needs total, instability fast approaches.

 

Wrye Bash for Oblivion can solve all of those problems with one plugin ( bashed patch.esp ) which you create by selecting what mods in your load order to include and intelligently merge into the one plugin

 

We seriously need the same for Skyrim, but Wrye Bash dev seem to have left the planet. It can make Levelled lists into a bashed patch, but none of the extensive list of mergeable record types that Oblivion bash was capable of.

 

Thing is, I think the ground work for that ( TESDump, which helped decypher all the new Skyrim records for TES5Edit to do its thing 100% accurately ) .. Is done.

 

So Wrye Bash could take it up from there if someone knew how.

 

Thats where I think Tannin could hop in, if he was not stepping on anyones toes.

 

 

Edit : Oh hey, dont know if anyone noticed but BTW TES5Edit just got an update.