Staged mod activation

[Tiress]

Hey guys!

 

Staged mod activation. What do I mean by this is activating mods in groups of...let's say 20, 50...or even one by one.

 

Is there any benefit doing it this way?

 

For example if I have 255 active mods and start a new game, would there be a difference if I started a new game with 50 mods, saved, activated another 50, loaded...etc? Would that be more stress friendly to Papyrus or it doesn't matter at all?

 

I'm just wondering, since start of a new game is kind of crucial as it loads all elements, variables and sets everything, whether is it possible for some of this data to not get set up correctly, because so many things are initialized at the same time.

 

I realize it's not exactly a technical problem I'd be experiencing, but it still fits the technical section in my opinion.

 

So....if you have any knowledge regarding this and are willing to share, I'd love to learn more.

[Nazzzgul666]

 

For example if I have 255 active mods and start a new game, would there be a difference if I started a new game with 50 mods, saved, activated another 50, loaded...etc? Would that be more stress friendly to Papyrus Definitly

or it doesn't matter at all?

Depends.

 

Script stress isn't bad - until it's too much. It's totally possible to install so much mods at once that their installation process will break. But it's also possible to install 400 (merged) mods without breaking anything. A lot of mods (like new textures and stuff) don't have any scripts, so that should be fine. Some mods like sexlab and Defeat have their installation (at least most of it) disabled by default and you need to press the button in the MCM to start that. But in general it's good practice to install some basic mods first, specific mods later. That way you can also go back if one or some of the mods don't fit your expectations, or conflict with each other and you need only to load the save before installing the last ones instead of starting a complete new game again.

[aim4it]

But doesn't shifting indexes become a problem for long term stability as well though?

[Veladarius]

I have changed load positions of mods a number of times without issues, the only issue I can think of is that if a mod uses a script to find another mod to use parts of it and saves that information. This is most likely to happen to a mod that saves the information outside of the game itself such as in a json file or something and not as a property.

 

As for starting up with all mods active it depends on how many mod you have that all do script intensive actions when initialized the first time immediately and if your system can handle it. There is no right or wrong answer on this but it requires some experimentation on your part and looking to see that everything started properly.

[Tiress]

Script stress isn't bad - until it's too much. It's totally possible to install so much mods at once that their installation process will break. But it's also possible to install 400 (merged) mods without breaking anything. A lot of mods (like new textures and stuff) don't have any scripts, so that should be fine. Some mods like sexlab and Defeat have their installation (at least most of it) disabled by default and you need to press the button in the MCM to start that. But in general it's good practice to install some basic mods first, specific mods later. That way you can also go back if one or some of the mods don't fit your expectations, or conflict with each other and you need only to load the save before installing the last ones instead of starting a complete new game again.

 

I see. It happens to me from time to time when I'm trying new combinations of mods, that one or two of them get...weird. From what I can remember now, EC+ just couldn't register animations through MCM, but when I started a new game again, it was suddenly ok. I'll try to split the installation in 2 parts at least, see if I can notice a difference. Thanks for the tip.

 

As for starting up with all mods active it depends on how many mod you have that all do script intensive actions when initialized the first time immediately and if your system can handle it. There is no right or wrong answer on this but it requires some experimentation on your part and looking to see that everything started properly.

 

I have an old Nehalem i7, but it gets the job done just fine even today. From what I understand (and I might be wrong of course), it's most of time limitation of Papyrus itself.

[Slorm]

As a rule I install mods in small groups, particularly if they're script heavy. For a main playthrough I don't see any point in taking a chance just to save an hour or so.

 

If testing and it needs a new game then I'll let them all load together and most of the time it works fine, though I have had problems once or twice (though that was on my older pc).

 

The other useful feature of a staged approach is that if you keep all the earlier saves and a note of the install order than if you find one of the mods is playing up in your papyrus logs then it's easy to jump back and try another reinstall to get it right.

 

 

[Veladarius]

 

As for starting up with all mods active it depends on how many mod you have that all do script intensive actions when initialized the first time immediately and if your system can handle it. There is no right or wrong answer on this but it requires some experimentation on your part and looking to see that everything started properly.

 

I have an old Nehalem i7, but it gets the job done just fine even today. From what I understand (and I might be wrong of course), it's most of time limitation of Papyrus itself.

 

 

Considering I am running an i5 2500k and have no issues I would say your processor is fine.

 

Yes, papyrus is the issue and some mods do quite a bit at startup. If you have issues I would start it in these groups in this order:

1- non SexLab / DD mods  - activate any mods such as Defeat during this

2- SexLab mods - activate SexLab

3- DD mods - Remember that DD Integration will not activate itself until after you save, quit and reload the save.

[Nazzzgul666]

 

Script stress isn't bad - until it's too much. It's totally possible to install so much mods at once that their installation process will break. But it's also possible to install 400 (merged) mods without breaking anything. A lot of mods (like new textures and stuff) don't have any scripts, so that should be fine. Some mods like sexlab and Defeat have their installation (at least most of it) disabled by default and you need to press the button in the MCM to start that. But in general it's good practice to install some basic mods first, specific mods later. That way you can also go back if one or some of the mods don't fit your expectations, or conflict with each other and you need only to load the save before installing the last ones instead of starting a complete new game again.

 

I see. It happens to me from time to time when I'm trying new combinations of mods, that one or two of them get...weird. From what I can remember now, EC+ just couldn't register animations through MCM, but when I started a new game again, it was suddenly ok. I'll try to split the installation in 2 parts at least, see if I can notice a difference. Thanks for the tip.

 

I have an old Nehalem i7, but it gets the job done just fine even today. From what I understand (and I might be wrong of course), it's most of time limitation of Papyrus itself.

 

Some mods require you to load a save before they're fully initialised, EC+ and DD are only two examples. Doesn't matter if you quit and start a game, quick save & load will do it usually.

 

Papyrus has it's own limits, but it also depends a lot on your system. If the tasks in papyrus aren't handled fast enough by your CPU, they will be skipped what can break quests or any other scripts in mods.

System in this case means your whole system... if, which and how many programms are running in the background leeching CPU power, settings in ENBoost, papyrus,... That you won't notice it immediatly if something breaks is imho the worst part, it can happen that you notice a mod or a part of it stopped working properly some RL days after it actually happened. And there is little you can do to fix it except loading an old save or start a new game. That's the main reason i became quite carefully how much script mods i install.

[Tiress]

Some mods require you to load a save before they're fully initialised, EC+ and DD are only two examples. Doesn't matter if you quit and start a game, quick save & load will do it usually.

 

Papyrus has it's own limits, but it also depends a lot on your system. If the tasks in papyrus aren't handled fast enough by your CPU, they will be skipped what can break quests or any other scripts in mods.

System in this case means your whole system... if, which and how many programms are running in the background leeching CPU power, settings in ENBoost, papyrus,... That you won't notice it immediatly if something breaks is imho the worst part, it can happen that you notice a mod or a part of it stopped working properly some RL days after it actually happened. And there is little you can do to fix it except loading an old save or start a new game. That's the main reason i became quite carefully how much script mods i install.

 

 

I usually quit the game to clear the memory from Skyrim, no other reason. Just something I got used to.

 

As you say, my biggest fear is that everything will seem just fine and once I get half through the game, it breaks.

 

 

 

Anyway, my question was answered so thank you everyone for satisfying my curiosity.