I received a recommendation to install OVAO2 and am wondering if it is a good idea. Lots of the individual mods in the package are out of date, and I wonder if using old versions will give me problems or cause conflicts with the other mods I wish to use. Audio-wise, everythign I want is there; video wise, you can see how it stacks up with my target list below. Should I go the OVAO2 route or install everything individually?

World Improvements
Quarl3 - included
Automated Windows Lighting - included
Natural Environments - included
Detailed Terrain - not included
Enhanced vegetation - not included
Really AEVWD 1.7 and its SI addon – included but is Qarl's LOD normals 4096 better?
OBGE – not included. potential conflict?
Beaming sunglare - included
AliveWaters 0.6 and its AliveWaters Grass Bug Fix - not included
Real lava - not included
Book jackets - included
Enhanced water - included
Elven Map Redux - not included
Unique landscapes - not included
Bananasplit's Better Cities - not included

Install everything individually. It may seem intimidating but it's much easier to resolve any issues when you install one thing at a time and can determine how each mod affects the game. And you don't want out-of-date mods.

This is probably why I should finish my mod website that covers this domain thoroughly and points you right to everything you would ever need to overhaul the game's aesthetics. Everything! And that's the reason it's taking me forever to finish it, heh. It's the next best thing to some compilation that installs a bunch of stuff for you, anyway. And you avoid the whole issue of outdated mods and mysterious unexpected problems. Well, you can never truly avoid the latter, but it's always best to minimize, hehe.

Yeahm you should really do them separately, for the reasons stated above. Plus, I can tell you rightn ow that the version of RAEVWD iso ut of date by quite a bit (the current release is 1.9; 1.91 if you include the update patch). And you virtually always want to be running the newest version of mods due to bug fixes, possible new features, often better performance, and sometimes increased compatibility. Plus a mod of mod makers don't particularly like helping out with problems with older releases of their mods when there is a newer version that fixes those issues (or just a newer version in general, really), and I don't blame them; it becomes a lot of extra work.

Thanks everyone. Looks like I will be doing things one at a time and managing a huge mod list Hopefully it isn't too painful.

I'd suggest starting with reading this: http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/?page=intro_to_mods as well as many other sections to that website. Great source of information.

If your machine can handle the high graphics and you want to try a visually enhanced vanilla game then give OAVO a try. I played it over a year ago. It ws noce to get all the stuff in one download.

Now, I create the visual myself as everyone here suggested.

Oh, and no, I do not think it is outdated. Qarl is still the same. The other mods, well, some I can't find anymore and there are no replacements, like more trees. The sound changes and IC changes, these are still around and nothing better has really been produced. So I do not consider it outdated in that sense.