F:NV Best Fallout New Vegas Mods 2011

Fallout: New Vegas
Never experienced the latter. The game will sometimes delete corpses when there's a lot of them (for stability), but I doubt that's your issue. on the bright side, deathclaws don't have much of importance, one quest aside.

edit to address your edit: AWOP would utterly destroy your first playthrough. I would still recommend the Underground Hideout as well as Tales however. And maybe a texture pack or two if your computer can handle it. Even just NMC's + the Terrain rock pack would be a big big improvement.
 
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I get very nice framerates. Play on full ultra settings - 1920x1080. But sometimes the close landscape textures don't load. Don't know if that's a resource thing or a bug. I restart the game then. So not sure if I should push it with better textures, along with corpses, items, enemies sometimes disappearing.
 
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That's an LoD issue - the engine isn't loading the higher quality textures in place of the textures you see form far away - you don't have any mods affecting timescale loaded do you? Ie., passage of time/day.

In any case, you don't need to restart the game, just save/reload.
 
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New Mod highlight: Revelation UI!
  • An absolutely top notch UI overhaul that I only recently stumbled upon through my foray into Project Brazil. Comes complete with enough nostalgia to satisfy even the most jaded gamer. *note: Project Brazil not required!

34971-1-1291216034.jpg
 
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Neat! BTW, the 4GB mod seems to have no effect on the glitches I've experienced. Oh well.

Another thing that annoys me is that if I walk away from a group of spawned enemies (and probably into a a new cell), and then walk back the enemies can disappear. If I fast travel to a further cell and then fast travel back, the enemies reappear.

I think I'll try the texture mods anyways. :)

EDIT: What do you think of Nevada Skies?

Also, what mod manger do you use? Nexus mod manager?

NMC is a 3 gig download (1 gig for 3 parts total) and terribly slow manually (56Kbps) on the nexus. :/
 
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The Nexus can be really slow at times. And at other times, you're unable to download entirely. Fun. Best to try grabbing NMC when it's not acting up :p I use NMC large + Poco Bueno + Textures Over Time + 20 other packs for more minor stuff.

Nevada Skies is pretty; I used it for quite some time. There's two new versions available 7.15 URWLified and URWLNV Ultimate Edition . Both of these are on Moddb.com (author lost his patience some time back and got banned on Nexus, but he's still actively updating) and both do slightly different things. The "Ultimate Edition" has ENB support if that's your thing.

Now, having said that, Nskies looks pretty but it will impact your FPS a smidge. An even bigger smidge when it has its custom weather effects running. Personally, I prefer FNV Realistic Wasteland Lighting combined with The Director's Chair. Both of these combine for some truly superb shots that rival ENB setups with barely any performance hit + greater stability. The Director's Chair is actually a shell for other mods: "DYNAVISION, IMAGINATOR and CINEMATECH" as stated on its Nexus page. Here's a test shot I took while configuring it (don't have anything better atm since I'm knee-deep in researching new mods for new install of the game).
x4pb.jpg


Also, I'd recommend watching Gopher's video on visual enhancements - it's what finally convinced me to give Director's Chair a try and I'm truly thankful I did.

On the matter of FOMM vs NMM: the latter is more user-friendly but you don't get the tools (for modding) that you would with FOMM. I'm currently using NMM mostly.
 
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Thanks for the considerate response! Will follow up when I'm off the iPhone and the road. :)

EDIT:

I'll try out NMM. I've used it before with Skyrim without issues. Also I like the idea of new weather in Nevada Skies, like rain and sandstorms, but not sure about radiation rain. Hope I can turn that off. We'll see. These versions look more current than the ones on the nexus, so thanks for the heads up. Will try out 7.15 URWLified and see how that works out.

I watched one of Gopher's videos already. Nice stuff. Director is rather sophisticated. Probably beyond my needs though.

Too bad that NMC isn't on the mod database.

EDIT 2:

All last night was spent getting a small set of mods to work. Now I remember why I don't do these. Still can't get Roberts male body replacer to work, there are blackout rectangles on the upper chest and shins. May require doing all the mesh and texture replacements manually. ugh. There are entirely too many. Probably not worth it, if that's the case.

Below is what I have working and what worked with nexus mod manager and what didn't (or only partially) with FO:NV Ultimate Edition.

Should I try FOMM, and can I be using both it and NMM at the same time?

- MTUI (not NMM compatible, manual install required, relatively easy once I figured that out)
- Underground Home (only the base mod is compatible with NMM, mods for DLCs and other addons needed to be manually installed, otherwise it crashes FONV, in addition, chems mod completely unusable - crashes FONV even when installed manually).
- Essential Visual Enhancements (NMM compatible, easy install with NMM, yay!)
- Wasteland Flora Overhaul (NMM compatible, easy install with NMM, yay for vurt!)
- Nevada Skies URWLNV Ultimate Edition Beta 1.0 (NMM compatible, easy install with NMM, yay!)
- Interior Lighting Overhaul (NMM compatible, loaded after Nevada Skies to override the NS interior lighting mod, easy install with NMM, not sure if this one is properly overriding Nevada Skies and working completely, but it appears to be OK, light switches work).
 
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Ah well, I had to educate myself with a couple of gophers's videos to figure out how to properly install mods without installation scripts that have multiple options for installation, use of archive invalidation in NMM (which is odd to say the least), use of FNVedit for understanding conflicts better between mods, creating my own customized / merged mods, etc.

So it looks pretty amazing now. Although, there were some conflicts, and I just had to wing it, pick a winner, and hope for the best. I used pretty much all of Drithius' listed texture / face replacement mods plus most of the other stuff that didn't change the gameplay or add new quests / areas except for the Underground Hideout. Nevada Skies really is amazing. There are some pretty freaky weathers.

From what I've seen, NMM/FOMM needs to improve the user and modder experience. It really should be smart enough to know when one mod is a patch for another or when a mod has multiple optional files or combinations of files that must be properly combined to improve the user experience. A modder shouldn't have to write an installation script to do these kinds of basic things. It should be in the FMOD file or file structures.
 
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Sorry, was away, Thrasher. I'm glad you got it working ok. Most of the time, installation order won't matter; however, there are a couple exceptions here and there - UI's being one of them. For reference, my prior list is in order of installation and set up so you can just hit the "yes to all" when the manager asks what you want to overwrite. Conversely, you can hit "no to mod" if you realize you've installed something in the wrong order and don't wish to overwrite another specific mod's changes.

Also, after replacing textures, if you ever run into odd textures as you described, the first thing you should try is toggling archive invalidation off and back on again.
w3ku.jpg


AFAIK, MTUI is compatible with NMM but I only use the manual download option on the Nexus and can't comment on the whole "download with NMM" stuff.

Underground Hideout does indeed require you to go rooting around in its contained subfolders and picking out what you want. It's worth it. Personally, I did the whole rooting around thing once and then moved the plugins I was interested in into the archive's base folder so that I wouldn't have to do it again for later reinstalls. BTW, the CHEMS plugin is simplistic and arguably dead weight, but the bobblehunt plugins, both the main file and the Hideout plugin, are pretty fun and balanced.

For load orders, I would really recommend B.O.S.S.. It is a one-click standalone app that sorts it all automagically.

Enjoy your game :)
 
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Thanks for that!

Yeah there were some cases where textures came from multiple mods, and in surprising ways. For example, Vurt's flora had meshes/textures? for buildings in Boulder City surprisingly, as did NMC and Ojo Bueno (not suprising). In this case, I picked OB since it made the most sense, even though its load order is earlier. But who knows with this stuff.

In general though, I followed your order since it appeared to make sense that way, except for a few exceptions like the above.

BTW, I did use the manual download method with NMM for MTU, and still got crashes, so had to install it without NMM. It may have been an archive invalidation issue, though, since that was before I learned the NMM AI toggle trick from gopher's video.

One thing bugs me is that the rocks on long outcroppings have a long line of shadows along seams that shouldn't be there. This is from Textures over Time (I think). ToT is one of the mods where I had to pick and choose a set of rock, sandstone, and patch textures to zip up together and install all at once using NMM and which ones not to include, to avoid overriding Ojo Bueno and NMC, except for rocks. I'm betting that ToT didn't properly overwrite/remove some of the shadowing from those other mods. Note this problem persists even after toggling archive invalidation off/on. ToT is also one of those mods with no FMOD, esp, nor esm files. It's pretty raw, but the granite-like rock textures are so much nicer than the others.

Sleuthing to figure out how to best resolve conflicts or glitches can be a real time eater. At some point you've got to say good enough, and accept it's better rather than unmodded. This one glitch is annoying me though. I'll try some googling. Otherwise I may try out ditching some of the mods to resolve it. Hopefully won't have to dig in and cherry pick textures/meshes to delete.

EDIT: One more thing that seems to be out of whack, is that faces are way over saturated and bloomy, so much that they look like they are glowing. Kind of ruins the nice new details from Redesigned 2. I'm guessing this has to do with the updated lighting in URWLNV Ultimate Edition and Interior Lighting Overhaul?

EDIT 2: Yeah it looks like this is a common issue with Nevada Skies, et al in all its versions. Multiple posts regarding this at the nexus, with no offers from modders on how to fix it. boo hoo. I'd rather not want to drop all the cool weather effects to get non-glowing faces. :(
 
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For heads: in your \Documents\My Games\FalloutNV Fallout.ini & FalloutPrefs.ini files, set bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1.

I'm not sure what you mean by shadowing on the rocks though. Could you post a picture? If you're possibly referring to long lines of disparate shading at certain places in the ground, did you happen to install Ojo Bueno Environmental files? If so, that's the problem; I used to have those as well until I elected not to install that particular package over NMC. If, instead, you're referring to localized 'corners' of differently shaded textures, that's a vanilla game issue. Post a pic please ;)

Textures Over Time is great.

If you're ever feeling adventurous, there's plenty more re-texturing out there! You can even use textures from the Fallout 3 Nexus for FNV's same items.
 
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Yes, I have made that ini file edit. Also one more place, the fallout game folder.

What I see are long lines of what looks like shadowed rock. And I did install the OB environmental files. So looks like all I need to do is uninstall that particular pack in NMM since I didn't merge the separate OB packs before installing. Should be an easy fix then. :)

Thanks for the tips!

Now if only I could stop the faces from glowing!

Ooh, I may look at more textures from your list. Thanks again!
 
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Your sky, she looksastrange ;) Cool angle.

A high percentage of my images actually take place in and around Goodsprings; I've spent quite a bit of time in the starting area, testing new mods, etc.

Here's a pretty one:
6thg.jpg


If I had a better processor, the first thing I'd consider would be changing the uGrids ini setting from its default, in order to get more high quality terrain loaded around my character. That and increasing grass density.

Did you fix your Nite Brite heads?
 
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Nice!

My odd sky is one of the strange weather's of URWLNV Ultimate Edition. Neat thing, is that each weather changes the lighting to match the sky color (in this case the grayish pink? color). Really adds to the mood. Thankfully most weather is like your shot. Realistic and clear. But the occasional freaky sky/lighting, rain, and snow flurry keeps it interesting, even if not realistic. No sandstorms in this version. One can disable weathers you don't like in game through the apparel menu, but for now I have everything enabled.

I tried to search for a fix for glowing heads, but to no avail. I wager it's an interaction with the heads in redesigned 2 and the lighting mods, but who knows?
 
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Really shouldn't be NVR2 - it mostly just changes proportions, hair styles, etc. Did you have them before you started with URWLNV? I have practically nil experience with that version of Nskies.
 
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I don't remember but I don't think so. I should try disabling it and see what happens. Hopefully my laptop won't explode in my face. ;)

EDIT: Follows-Chalk in Honest Hearts, doesn't face glow. But he isn't a bone white caucasian like Boone and Veronica.
 
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URWLNV is the only imagespace modifier you have running, right? No Fellout or even URWLified ?

At the very least, you could try disabling it, making a new save (a 'clean save'), reactivating it, and seeing if you still have the problem.

Also, not sure if you said or not - but did you have an ENB running? ENB causes ALL sorts of issues. Good for screenshots, bad for everything else. I realize Marcurios is striving to make that version of Nskies ENB-friendly, but there's problems intrinsic to ENB itself.
 
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I will try that. Thanks. Didn't know about the requirement for a clean save and reloading.

No ENB, no Fellout, no URWLified. Mainly just the stuff in your mod list. Except, of course, I may have picked the one different mod (this one) that does weird shit. My luck. So predictable. ;)

BTW, did you get the Bobblehunt mod to work with the underground hideout? I've collected 3 so far, and only one will add/display in the Hideout. So I use the one in Novac, instead. Too bad.

I did install the Bobble Head new vegas retexture mod, too. Tried uninstalling it but to no avail. But didn't try a clean save and restart.
 
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