Difference between mod and Plugin in NMM

[Steinschlag]

Hey Guys, i wish u all merry Christmas and I have a Question.

 

NMM can only load 254 Mods. Check. Now my NMM says i have 89 active Mods and 89 active Plugins. Means that i have 178 active "Mods" or is just one of these things important for the "Limit"??

 

Hope u know what I mean.

[Guest]

First, NMM lifted up the limit of installed mods above 255 when version 0.60.+ came out through automatic merging of compatible mods.

 

Second, if you have 89 active mods and 89 plugins that means none of them are merged. For instance: I have 125 active mods and 117 plugins because my mods are merged. For the mods that NMM doesn't automatically merge I use Wrye bash. You can also merge mods using Tes5edit. So, with latest NMM 0.61.4, you can have way more installed mods.

[Aya ॐ]

Oh no sir, that's not it. I'll try to explain from what I know (Probably going to be wrong, but fuck it right?)

 

So, the mod count it's showing you I believe is the mods you actually installed using NMM (I don't use NMM, so correct me if I'm wrong), but it's not always the case that 1 mod= 1 plugin. In some cases 1 mod can install more than one plugin, for patches and other reasons, for example CoT, Frostall and such can prompt to install patches and additional features through an installer (I'm sure you've seen it before) Now each of those patches or additional features are going to take up 1 additional plugin space, but they're not necessarily a whole mod you installed. (Say I chose to install Climates of Tamriel, and chose to install 10 patches on the installer, I'll have 11 plugins, but 1 mod). So no, I don't think you need to sum it up xD the 254 limit I believe is in plugins, but there's methods to merge them together, and make them more stable. Gee I hope you understood that and I wasn't wrong, if I was wrong hopefully someone will scoop in and correct me ^^

[Levionte]

You can only have 255 ESP's.

[Guest]

My apologies, for mixing up mods and plugins in some sentences. Please understand that I do not speak English fluently and I just woke up drinking my first coffee.

Now, when cleared up my mind and collected thoughts let me say this:

 

 

First, NMM lifted up the limit of installed mods above 255 when version 0.60.+ came out through automatic merging of compatible mods.

 

This sentence came straight from NMM technical support team.

 

Second, let me clarify little bit more of what I tried to say:

 

Skyrim(!) only understands 255/256 Bethesda plugins. These would be files that have either ESP oar ESM file extension. Prefix is inbuilt for 32 bit game. Period.

You can pile up SKSE plugins, textures and meshes above that number, because they do not have Bethesda plugins extensions at all.
Load order only understands plugins. It does not care or manage anything else.
Your ability to pile up other mods above plugins depends on your computer. You can have 1000000000 texture mods overwriting each other, but both Skyrim and your computer still needs to go trough each and every one of them. This is why it is recommended to use limited number of mods overwriting each other.

 

While bashed patches can allow for some mods to be intergrated into it, and while in the actual program it marks this as merging mods, this is not a true merge. The only mods that can be compiled into a bashed patches are basic mods that only touch skyrim's setting files or basic information regarding to leveled lists, or very basic fiddling with other base information such as biped slots, so it is more compiling a group of settings changes that previously would need an esp slot to be picked up on by the game.
This is an AUTOMATIC process and you cannot get it to accept at mods that are not set up to be merged with a bashed patch by the author. Some mods (such as multiple floor sandboxing) have an alternate version that is specifically designed for Wrye Bash to recognise it so that it can be intergrated.

[Steinschlag]

Yeah i know. But esp's are plugins right? Not mods. So i can have 255 Plugins maximal but a million mods? xD

[Guest]

Yeah i know. But esp's are plugins right? Not mods. So i can have 255 Plugins maximal but a million mods? xD

 

correct. Your ability to pile up other mods above plugins depends on your computer. You can have 1000000000 texture mods overwriting each other, but both Skyrim and your computer still needs to go trough each and every one of them. This is why it is recommended to use limited number of mods overwriting each other.

 

[EdinMG]

You don't have a limit for mods, you have a limit for plugins (ESM's and ESP's), which is 255 active/inactive plugins. So yeah...you can install a bazillion of mods, as long as you keep the plugin count below 255 !!!

 

EDIT: Beware of one thing, inactive plugins on your load order also counts towards the plugin limit, for instance, let's say that you have 100 active plugins and 10 inactive plugins, so the plugin count will be 110, and not 100 !!!

[Guest]

BTW - thank you Steinschlag for this thread. It reminded me to expand my informations about NMM in my thread which is still WIP.

[Guest]

You don't have a limit for mods, you have a limit for plugins (ESM's and ESP's), which is 255 active/inactive plugins. So yeah...you can install a bazillion of mods, as long as you keep the plugin count below 255 !!!

 

EDIT: Beware of one thing, inactive plugins on your load order also counts towards the plugin limit, for instance, let's say that you have 100 active plugins and 10 inactive plugins, so the plugin count will be 110, and not 100 !!!

 

Correct. Thank you EdinMG.

 

[Aya ॐ]

You don't have a limit for mods, you have a limit for plugins (ESM's and ESP's), which is 255 active/inactive plugins. So yeah...you can install a bazillion of mods, as long as you keep the plugin count below 255 !!!

 

EDIT: Beware of one thing, inactive plugins on your load order also counts towards the plugin limit, for instance, let's say that you have 100 active plugins and 10 inactive plugins, so the plugin count will be 110, and not 100 !!!

 

Well shit, fuck me sideways. I did not know that xD Thank you.

[Steinschlag]

Finally. After days of googling i have the Answer i want!!! Thanks u all so much.

 

That means too, i don't must merge, cause with 89 Plugins i have enough Space for more I have delete 50 Plugins last days to get more Space...wish i had ask u before xD But ok, a cleaner Skyrim loadorder is fine too

[Veladarius]

Inactive esp's don't count towards the 255 limit, if it isn't active Skyrim does not look at it. Currently I have 253 active and about 30 inactive esp's and the active ones run correctly.

[Guest]

Inactive esp's don't count towards the 255 limit, if it isn't active Skyrim does not look at it. Currently I have 253 active and about 30 inactive esp's and the active ones run correctly.

 

Sorry, and I'm saying this with great respect, but have to disagree. I have red several forums in which some members of NMM mod builders say that NMM counts inactive esm and esp plugins and reads them as a part of group of 255 mods, but just don't load them. If it's inactive the mod is still treated as installed.

 

[Veladarius]

 

Inactive esp's don't count towards the 255 limit, if it isn't active Skyrim does not look at it. Currently I have 253 active and about 30 inactive esp's and the active ones run correctly.

 

Sorry, and I'm saying this with great respect, but have to disagree. I have red several forums in which some members of NMM mod builders say that NMM counts inactive esm and esp plugins and reads them as a part of group of 255 mods, but just don't load them. If it's inactive the mod is still treated as installed.

 

 

 

Really?

 

[Guest]

I was talking about NMM 0.61.+ and you presented NMM 0.56.1.  I cannot remember how older version worked, but the new one works differently.

[Guest]

Edit:

 

To support my arguments that inactive plugins are treated as counted under 255 limited plugins, I just uninstalled Zaz pack and I already had 3 inactive plugins. And here is what NMM 0.61.4 reported. (please pay attention to the numbers in the bottom right corner).

 

[EdinMG]

Inactive esp's don't count towards the 255 limit, if it isn't active Skyrim does not look at it. Currently I have 253 active and about 30 inactive esp's and the active ones run correctly.

 

Yes...they count, I already had 249 active plugins and 31 inactive on my load order and I had to delete all of them, otherwise my game would not even load the savegame, and NMM was giving me annoying alerts about the damn plugins, and as soon as I deleted the inactive plugins, no more problems, game working fine, NMM working fine.

[Guest endgameaddiction]

EdinMG is right. It does count. I've read this before myself. And the reason why it counts, is because regardless if the plugin is inactive, when Skyrim is loading, it's reading and processing everything in the data folder. It doesn't matter if it's the old traditional mod manager or mod managers that use virtual file system. Data folder or virtual data folder is processed the same exact way when Skyrim is loading the game and changing cells.

 

When I first started to get into MO, I used to believe that load order was limitless. I was very excited. But that was my misunderstanding how virtual file system worked. While it doesn't clutter up your actual data folder, Skyrim still process it the same. If NMM is like MO in ways where you can install a mod without actually enabling it (if it contains a plugin) then you can install mods and keep them disabled in the mod install list. Otherwise you'll have to play it safe and just install what you plan to use.

[Veladarius]

Active mods and Active plugins are not the same thing, Plugins are esp/esm's while mods are all mods including ones that are just texture replacers.

 

Currently I have 297 plugins, 253 ACTIVE plugins and 445 Active mods

I have no issues running the game as shown.

 

If NMM V6+ won't go above 255 active mods then it is crap and should not be used.

[Arhon]

Honestly 255/256 is the plugin limit(plugin is any file that ends with the extension of .esm/.esp)

 

Any Inactive plugins in NMM/MO will not count towards the limit.

 

I have used both NMM(latest Version) and MO and they have never be counted towards the limit.

 

If you have used LOOT then it should say how many plugins are Active and the total amount of Plugins.

 

Using Test Preset(testing things).

For example since currently I use MO I have run LOOT and it shows me 148 Active Plugins with a total of 162 Total Plugins(The total counted both the active and inactive).

 

Now using my Main preset in MO i run LOOT and it shows me 234 Active Plugins with 435 Total Plugins(Hooray for the merging....).[seriously i went through Hell and Heaven for these merges.....]

 

Maybe you guys are confusing things? Of course this is simply my experience on this matter so others might have a different opinion but this is my opinion.