Fewer active mods = more stable Skyrim?

[Rokabur]

Was having problems with the Thieves Guild and the main quest so reduced my active mods from 209 to 97 and getting alot less CTD (no window saying Skyrim stopped working correctly, just the window Skyrim is in just outright closes) downside is I had to turn off all the quest, follower and weapon mods. Someone posted on Nexus a .txt file that stated what could cause CTD and one of the reasons was too many mods. Seems to be kinda true cause since I reduced my active mods I've lowered my CTD rate by atleast 70%

[myuhinny]

All depends on what type of mods you install. Armor mods I don't think will give as much of a problem but mods that add a shit ton of scripts or are high script using tend to cause a lot of problems the more of those installed at the same time the higher the chance of CTD'S. I always have a ton of armors installed and have no problem at all but with any mod it all depends on how well it was created by the author to where there are no dirty edits and it's made where it won't break anything.

 

I think it also depends on what your computer can handle.

[TheDriedFinger]

I once ran about 150, then reduced it to under 50. I had a similar experience as you: fewer CTDs, slightly higher FPS.

[Old Book]

Even a very stable install can crash. BOSS & Wrye Bash help, more so if you pay attention when one or the other warns you that a mod has problems. And, yup, too many scripts can screw things up even when the game doesn't crash. Quests might fail to complete because a scripted event doesn't take place, scripted spells might fail to work properly, etc.

There are numerous guides out there on how to avoid crashes. It's worth reading a few of them.   

[Rokabur]

Even a very stable install can crash. BOSS & Wrye Bash help, more so if you pay attention when one or the other warns you that a mod has problems. And, yup, too many scripts can screw things up even when the game doesn't crash. Quests might fail to complete because a scripted event doesn't take place, scripted spells might fail to work properly, etc.

 

There are numerous guides out there on how to avoid crashes. It's worth reading a few of them.   

 

Yeah. For the theives Guild after I shook down the 3 NPC's for the gold, went back to the Ragged Flagon, completed the quest, the next quest wouldn't start, setstage couldn't get the quest to start and I couldn't enter the Cistern cause everybody kept trying to frag me. For the Main Quest during Diplomatic Immunity after I snuck out of the party and was escorted through the kitchen, I grabbed my gear, went through the door then kept getting an automatic CTD in 5-20 seconds after Malborn told me he had to lock the door behind me. The Diplomatic Immunity CTD was completely new to me, 8 characters I got atleast that far in the main quest and only the 8th ever got it.

[trex]

Could armor mods/weapon mods = ctd on looting? I have a bashed patch and only run Immersive Armor/Weapons & UNP Mash up + BBP version of it, and also craftable tavern clothes. I had a crash when I looted a imperial helmet of a corpse in the helgen escape cave.

 

Maybe it's just random ctd though?

 

I think I had a serious improvement in stability (memory wise) when I disabled parallax remastered (the one you can use the TPC with).

[Veladarius]

I think if there are more than a few changes to one thing or area is what causes issues, especially with scripts. I have seen mods that make what may seem like a small change but that change ends up breaking a number of scripts because that item was used as a property for them. I am at 245 esp's and am fairly stable but had to remove a few mods that kept breaking others (still have 1 or 2 to track down). Right now the only real issue I have is some difficulties loading games when first starting Skyrim, once it is open I don't have any issues though.

[Rokabur]

I think if there are more than a few changes to one thing or area is what causes issues, especially with scripts. I have seen mods that make what may seem like a small change but that change ends up breaking a number of scripts because that item was used as a property for them. I am at 245 esp's and am fairly stable but had to remove a few mods that kept breaking others (still have 1 or 2 to track down). Right now the only real issue I have is some difficulties loading games when first starting Skyrim, once it is open I don't have any issues though.

 

There are a few mods I could never get to work no matter how few I ran. Wanted to use a mod to make Amulets, necklaces and rings eightless but it would never work even when merged into the bashed patch.

[Paradox_of_Theseus]

Don't forget that a vanilla Bethesda title is still riddled with random bugs and crashes due to the massive nature of their sandbox game. Back in the day, having 4-5 backup saves in Daggerfall was an understood method of play.

[Veladarius]

 

I think if there are more than a few changes to one thing or area is what causes issues, especially with scripts. I have seen mods that make what may seem like a small change but that change ends up breaking a number of scripts because that item was used as a property for them. I am at 245 esp's and am fairly stable but had to remove a few mods that kept breaking others (still have 1 or 2 to track down). Right now the only real issue I have is some difficulties loading games when first starting Skyrim, once it is open I don't have any issues though.

 

There are a few mods I could never get to work no matter how few I ran. Wanted to use a mod to make Amulets, necklaces and rings eightless but it would never work even when merged into the bashed patch.

 

 

Wrye Bash only merges a few types of information into a bashed patch, primarily leveled lists. If it would not work then there was probably another mod that changed the jewelry somehow and would override the changes from the other mod. I know that there are people that swear by BOSS and Wrye Bash as the answer to anything but they are only useful for certain things. I have not run BOSS for several months as most of my mods have been in place longer than that (since March, I think) so everything in install now I place manually in my load order.

[xboronx]

I have lots of mods, and Skyrim is stable enough, usually i only occasionally crash during sex animations, but that is much rarer with sexlab 1.31. Overall i'd say i get 1 ctd every 2-3 hours which is good enough for me.

But i got the issue that my savegame has already gotten somewhat big, 31 mb after 25 hours of playing. The problem is that now saving the game takes about 10 seconds.

 

I've done some searching already, and there is this helpful LL thread:

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/15574-skyrim-savegame-bloat-remover/

 

But are there other tools?

 

I found this one on the nexus:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15054/?

 

It looks useful for a quick estimation what causes bloating, but according to it 27,65mb of my save are papyrus stuff and 2,5mb formids. That would leave only 1mb for everything else, which seems hard to believe.

 

One problem is that i am a "quicksave whore" and a mod hoarder. So i quicksave after every prostitution act because sometimes the dialogue gets broken. How do you handle the savegame problem?

 

 

 

[Veladarius]

I have lots of mods, and Skyrim is stable enough, usually i only occasionally crash during sex animations, but that is much rarer with sexlab 1.31. Overall i'd say i get 1 ctd every 2-3 hours which is good enough for me.

But i got the issue that my savegame has already gotten somewhat big, 31 mb after 25 hours of playing. The problem is that now saving the game takes about 10 seconds.

 

I've done some searching already, and there is this helpful LL thread:

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/15574-skyrim-savegame-bloat-remover/

 

But are there other tools?

 

I found this one on the nexus:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15054/?

 

It looks useful for a quick estimation what causes bloating, but according to it 27,65mb of my save are papyrus stuff and 2,5mb formids. That would leave only 1mb for everything else, which seems hard to believe.

 

One problem is that i am a "quicksave whore" and a mod hoarder. So i quicksave after every prostitution act because sometimes the dialogue gets broken. How do you handle the savegame problem?

 

My saves are 9-10 mb with my character at level 14. I use an Autosave manager which is set to save after sleep, wait, travel, character level up, learning a word of power and every 5 minutes.

 

The mod I have the most issues with now is v1.31 of SexLab - primarily the free camera causing issues with Defeat and freezing my character. Some mod types I don't use that I think a number of people do is either player houses or custom followers, I even removed the mods that let you customize homes by adding or removing items or making a home entirely.

 

Most people would probably say I don't properly maintain my game - I don't use BOSS anymore, I have not reinstalled my game since March (and that was due to a bad version of NMM), I don't always do clean saves and I uninstall and install mods as I go. I do pay attention to where/when my game does crash and check the papyrus log for anything that is hitting it hard and remove any mods that may be causing trouble.

[Rokabur]

 

 

I think if there are more than a few changes to one thing or area is what causes issues, especially with scripts. I have seen mods that make what may seem like a small change but that change ends up breaking a number of scripts because that item was used as a property for them. I am at 245 esp's and am fairly stable but had to remove a few mods that kept breaking others (still have 1 or 2 to track down). Right now the only real issue I have is some difficulties loading games when first starting Skyrim, once it is open I don't have any issues though.

 

There are a few mods I could never get to work no matter how few I ran. Wanted to use a mod to make Amulets, necklaces and rings eightless but it would never work even when merged into the bashed patch.

 

 

Wrye Bash only merges a few types of information into a bashed patch, primarily leveled lists. If it would not work then there was probably another mod that changed the jewelry somehow and would override the changes from the other mod. I know that there are people that swear by BOSS and Wrye Bash as the answer to anything but they are only useful for certain things. I have not run BOSS for several months as most of my mods have been in place longer than that (since March, I think) so everything in install now I place manually in my load order.

 

 

Only thing I can think that modifies them is a mod for unlimited amulets, rings and necklaces.

[Guest Ragna_Rok]

 

But i got the issue that my savegame has already gotten somewhat big, 31 mb after 25 hours of playing. The problem is that now saving the game takes about 10 seconds.

 

 

how is that possible? i just checked, i reached 27 mb, after i dont know how many hundred hours with my main char, all hearthfire houses build, my orc just reached level 232, i got stuff from falskaar, wyrmstooth, the moonpath to elsweyr, blackland, salem, the rabbit hole, pitfighter, plus some other new land mods i didnt play yet, the dlcs, about 2 dozen armor mods and maybe three dozen weapon mods, plus i maintain my orc-horde with ufo on lakeview-manor (about 8 custom equipped chars id say).

 

from all the armors and weapons that are not unique i collected 2 dozens each sorted nicely in my treasury, magerobes and clothes i collect what i find cool (but try to have everything like 3 - 6 times minimum in stock), soul gems i got average like 400 empty and 300 full (from all sizes each), ingredients i aimed at 1k each (which i reached with all stuff you can plant in your greenhouse), clutter i went for 50 each (except skulls, need those for my own mods ), and i just levelled smithing from 15 - 100 like 6 times in a row to legendary 28 and still got about 2k iron ingots stored, other ingots are down to about 200 - 300. gems like flawless diamonds about 600 each (prowlers profit )

and i also got my own mods that raise the number of different weapons by another 100 round about.

 

last time i took all my stuff for fun on my char (only the gear stored in lakeview) i had about 600k weight and about 7 mio septims.

 

 

now how the f is it possible that you beat all of those dozens of thousands of items i got stashed away after like 25 hours of gaming???? (oh, quicksave done in between one / two seconds)

[xboronx]

Hm, i started a new game now with much fewer mods, since so many updates came out today, SD+ especially.

But care to share your load order Ragna_Rok?

I suspect it has either been script conflicts with too many mods running or maybe the obis bandit hordes, but only wild guesses from me.

[Mana Yakushima]

I have lots of mods, and Skyrim is stable enough, usually i only occasionally crash during sex animations, but that is much rarer with sexlab 1.31. Overall i'd say i get 1 ctd every 2-3 hours which is good enough for me.

But i got the issue that my savegame has already gotten somewhat big, 31 mb after 25 hours of playing. The problem is that now saving the game takes about 10 seconds.

 

I've done some searching already, and there is this helpful LL thread:

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/15574-skyrim-savegame-bloat-remover/

 

But are there other tools?

 

I found this one on the nexus:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15054/?

 

It looks useful for a quick estimation what causes bloating, but according to it 27,65mb of my save are papyrus stuff and 2,5mb formids. That would leave only 1mb for everything else, which seems hard to believe.

 

One problem is that i am a "quicksave whore" and a mod hoarder. So i quicksave after every prostitution act because sometimes the dialogue gets broken. How do you handle the savegame problem?

 

31mb?! Wow. My my main character (lvl 67) I've got almost 300 hours of play time, and my save files are only around 18mb. Do you have clearinvalidregistrations in your skse ini? And my saves take barely a second to save. I've got 215 mods active, and I crash rarely. I can literally play for HOURS and not one crash.

[xboronx]

Yeah clearinvalidregistrations is enabled.

 

Problem is that i am especially a fan of scripted mods and try to run as many of them as possible. But i am now trying a minimalistic game, cut down the number of mods used from ~150 to ~60.

 

If i disable mods but leave them around they do no harm? Or might Skyrim activate scripts despite the mods the scripts are for are disabled?

For example i have currently disabled working girl and defeat and only use radiant prostitution and submit, so as long as i never activate them accidently during startup skyrim doesn't execute the scripts of the disabled mods nontheless?

[Kashiroi]

The scripts are stil baked into the save. If you disable a mod, you need to start a new save. (This is why for a lot of the SexLab mods I generated a character I didn't care about.)

[Rayblue]

I install a scripted mod only when it's very vital in the completion of the game, such as SkyUI, iHud or Convenient Horses. In recent times it becomes necessary to use MO to test scripted mods in a "sandbox" to ensure stability before being used regularly, but in my case I make a hard save (and renamed, like, "before RBT" or something) before installing such a mod so that if shit happens I go back to that hard save.

[Kashiroi]

Ah, MO. I actually dislike it because it's a pain to remove without your Skyrim install exploding.

[Guest]

Sometimes all it takes to get horrible instability is one badly behaving mod or two, the thing with having a lot of mods is trying to pin down which ones are the culprits, it's often a sort of cascade effect.

 

 I've been running with 180 or more plugins for a long time now and the difference between a bad time and a good one has been the composition rather than the number of them. When I ran with more scripted stuff like major overhauls I had nothing but headaches. Getting rid of most of them resolved most of my pains.