So, I went on a mod bender the other night, and after all was said and done, I had 153 mods active in my load order. Pretty large, but I've done up to 254 in Oblivion (which is its natural limit), so I felt pretty good about it. But a lot of small things went wrong. Textures wouldn't show up correctly, or I would get the red exclamation point boxes. Okay, I thought, I'll just figure out what mod is doing this, and fix it. But no matter how I deactivated and reactivated my mods I couldn't figure it out. It wouldn't work right with everything in there, but would work right if I simply deactivated enough. In other words, I could get every single mod in the load order to work just fine, just not all at once.

So, is there a hidden limit on how many plugins you can use at once? Anything past 140 gave me issues. Note: I am using FO3MasterRestore, so all my plugins look like master files.

You could try not using FO3MasterUpdate so there aren't so many masters. Alternatively you could use BOSS and Gary Bash to create a merged patch and have it deactivate some .esps while not losing any of their functionality.

When I first released my needs mod there it had like 11 files once all the modular options and compatibility patches were added in, and I had at least one person complain that it was pushing them over Fallouts limit. I'm pretty sure he said at right about 140. The only sensible explanation for a limit is the form ID numbering system - the mod's load order number is used to determine the first two digits of the form IDs of anything added by that mod. The digits are in hex, so you end up with 16 times 16 possible combinations, or ~256 mods tops. Why Fallout tops out so far below that sort of a mystery, I think.

I've got 169 active plug ins right now and the game is working perfectly fine, so I wouldn't say it's concrete that it tops out lower than that.

I'm already doing both of these, otherwise I'd be well over 140 already. I did find this thingie: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5104. So hopefully that can merge out some of the mods as well.

I'm like Mr Gary, 153 active plugins. The game runs fine.

I have 170+ active mods and and if I count the ones merged into the bashed patch 207. And I have no crashes and no need of masterupdate.

I'm very picky about what mods I install and have found that even though it is a confusing mess of what conflicts with what it is possible to get that smooth as silk load order. I'd bet if you posted your load order others could find issues.

And just to contribute to the general knowledge pool - it was discovered with Oblivion (very similar game) that there was indeed a limit to the number of esm/esp/bsa files that the game could handle and that hovered between 360 and 400. What happens after the limit is reached is what was termed directory thrashing where the engine would loose track of all it was scanning and errors, crashing, etc would occur until that number was brought back under. This is different than issues with dirty mods or heavy conflcits.

This is what motivated Wrye to implement the ghosting feature of of Wrye Bash (also in Gary Bash) where after a mod is imported in the bashed patch it can be left deactivated and then if ghosted an extension is added to the file that prevents it from being scanned.

The short answer is if that is the limit with Oblivion it is very doubtful that it was lowered with the newer game.

Fallout has the same mod limit as Oblivion. If you're having problems it's because of a conflict somewhere, not just the number of mods you have.

I should have been clear that yes the 255 hard limit is the same for F3 as Oblivion, but for those that use more advanced tools (Wrye/Gary Bash) then you can extend that with mods that merge into the bashed patch.

The limit I was referring to was the limit of even bsa type files + all the allowed esp/esm files.

The point being that even though an esp is not active it is still scanned by the game engine and can contribute to instability.

So bash users can ghost the inactive and merged mods and even further extend the allowable amount.

My Oblivion game will auto crash within 2 minutes if I don't ghost the merged files because without ghosting the inactive (yet merged files) + all the mod added BSA go over the thrashing threshold amount.

Thank you for confirming that.

It isn't a conflict with any mod. I've thoroughly tested it. If I activate the first half of my mods. No issue. If I activate the second half of my mods. No issue. If I activate any combination of 140 or fewer mods. No problem. Any time I go over 140, there is a problem. Again, every mod I have has been made a master through FO3MasterUpdate, and that appears to lead to the issues.

My latest test was to create a blank.esp that contains 0 records, esmify it through garybash, activate and run the game. Problems. Ghouls who forget to wear their textures, and run around in their bare polygons. De-activate my blank.esp (which is really a master), and everything is fine.

I can only conclude from this, that most likely there is some sort of limit on master files. And that limit would appear to be 140 active master files. I'm not an expert, but that appears to be what is happening. Unfortunately I get an instant CTD if I use FO3MasterRestore on the whole load order in my latest save game. But knowing the rules will help get around them. I can merge up some similar files (armor mods, etc.), or de-master some mods that don't edit the exterior world, which is where I understand the problems come into play anyway.

On further testing, I'm not so sure what is going on. Any time I go beyond 140 mods, I get weirdness. *sigh*

Load order?

I still bet you are only running into problems because you are trying to combine incompatible mods - such that the issue is not there when Mod A is active nor when Mod B is active ... but it is when they are active together.

I got things to work fine by merging up the armor mods I was using. I feel like I'm holding things together with duct tape at the moment, but it's working, so I'm happy enough. Thank you, though.

Oops. ignore this. (after re reading the thread. lol)