I know someone mght be offended by this topic, but I have spend a lot of time setting up a modded game, which keeps crashing or freezing, so I'm starting to wonder, if I should play the game unmodded.

Last year I bought Fallout3, finished and spend probably 150hours playing the game alltogether, but I wanted to play the DLC's, so I waited for GOTY to play again, and now I have GOTY, and I'm ready to play the game.
But since I'm used to playing with mods from Morrowind, I wanted to play with some mods, so I found http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1056342 , which seems wellupdated, comprehensive and limited to quality mods. From this list I downloaded and installed everything interesting, which was most of the questmods and a lot of mods adding small things.

Initially my game just crashed imidiately, so I installed FOMM and sorted the mods by the modlist from Boss. The game then crashed when entering a bus, so I removed busworld, which according to the modlist from boss is known to cause crashes. Then I crashed near dike's farm, which I solved by removing frienly neighbours after advise from it's creator. Now the game keeps freezing in reds clinic, where there really shouldn't be happening a lot.

So I starting to think, will these annoying modrelated crashes continue until I have removed every mods? What is the generel quality of mods? and have I just been unlucky or bad at installing mods? So are most people playing Fallout without major freeze/crash issues or is this just how it is. And in that case, is there any known issues with the cell reds clinic.

Sorry about sounding so negative towards mods, but I'm starting to think, that I should just play without mods, to have reasonable stability, eventhough, I would like especially the questmods.

Crashing because of mods is almost always because of the user's mistake.. I'm using around, what, 60 mods and I haven't had a single mid-game crash for weeks. Especially after I moved to FWE-WMK-MMM pattern my game has been perfectly stable.

Mods ruining people's Fallout 3s is nonsense. Mods don't kill games. Inadequate users do.

^ - The above post is accurate, if unnecessarily rude. How about you post your load order and we can help you set it up properly.

only time i get crashes is when using a certain feature of a beta mod, so that one is my fault. other than that i dont have any problems with crashing

I'm using over 100 mods at the moment. Occasionally I will have an ingame crash, but usually my crashes are due to editing one of them in the geck (minor edits or corrections from errors) then forgetting to reset my load order afterwards.

Where do I find the modlist? I can only find it when starting Fomm or the Fallout launcher, but I guess there is a ini-file with the list, but I can't find it.

Right click on your mod list in FOMM, then click copy loadorder. And paste it in a post here.

According to FOMM, I'm running 0x81 mods, which totals to 129. My game doesn't crash, pretty much. Yesterday I played through the reasonably heavy escape from project purity (It's heavy with MMM's feral ghoul rampage!) among a fair amount else for about three and a half hours without a freeze, and I've put very little care into my LO (My Oblivion load order felt much more love).

To get your mod list, hit "Load Order Report" in FOMM.

edit: That works too.

Ok, I found it now. This is my modlist:

How many did you add all at once? It's usually better to add them one at a time, otherwise you'll likely have frequent crashes and/or other problems. Most mod readme's include something about where to put them in your load order. Once you get a couple sorted out and playing nicely together then you add another.

I've 111 mods (not including texture packs) all playing happily together. The odd times I get CTD's are usually related to some of MMM's plugins that perhaps my system can't cope with. Most noteable is MMM's IIS with Feral Ghoul Rampage and trying to enter Metro Central. I just can't do it. I CTD every time. But, disabling one or both 'fixes' that.

:)

I got like 100 mods and i got a crash one in a while. The main thing with mods is:

1. Proper load list. ESM before ESP,and so on. BOSS-F is a good mod sorter out there.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10193

2. Use only completed / stable mods. Some interesting mods can be fun but they also may be in WIP or early BETA stage. Its good to read a few comments / forum about a certain mod to be sure it does'nt conflict with another you are using etc.
Unfortunately with mods its not like " plug and play". Sometimes u have to spend some time on working out the best load list and so on. I don't want to scare u - mods are great. I cant play withou them now.

U might try big "overhaul mods" like FWE or FOOK. They are compilations of mods, and that makes sure they are no conflicts, less crashes etc.

Didn't read the whole original post, because I'm about to pass out from lack of sleep, but I have to say this: The experience between crashes is well worth it.

I haven't installed Boss, but I have sorrted my mods using the list from Boss.
My intention is to use stable mods, but for a noob it can be hard to determine, whch mods are unstable. As I said, I used the list from Mez, which looked like a very thorough list with recommandations, but it had included at least two mods, which caused crashes, when I was told from other sources.

I have read about FWE an I like the idea of a compilationmod, but I have avoided FWE because it seems to mainly focus on making the game difficult with scarce ammo, stimpack etc, but maybe I should take another look.

In my opinion, most of the crash issues are resolved by using Fo3Edit's MasterUpdate mode. I have over 150 mods and almost Never crash once MasterUpdate is run on the mod list.

Given that its as simple as clicking an Icon to run MasterUpdate and MasterRestore, it really couldn't be much simpler. If you have any questions, the manual for it is in my sig.

Luck,

Miax

It's more of an immersion/rebalance mod. It's bloody difficult at times, true, but you could put it on very easy (Don't feel bad - I can imagine very easy is about vanilla very-hard), but it's really really nice. You might love it anyway

Given the number and varying quality of Fallout mods out there, I am actually a bit shocked by some of the responses you've received....

I agree that many instances of CTDs can be attributed to bad load orders, missing compatiblility patches, and some other things on the userend (generally associated with not reading the readme), but that certainly cannot be used as a 'catch-all' reason for CTDs.

In answer to your question, the "general quality" of mods is excellent (which speaks volume about the talents involved in the Fallout modding community), but there is a certain 'threshhold' for mods, past the point of which you simply can no longer expect a 'CTD free experience.' Fallout updated to 1.7 + Unofficial Patch can -almost- still provide that (minus the issues I've read about people experiencing CTDs with UFP: BS). The more mods you use, the less stable your game becomes. A game might seem stable for 160+ hours before you start to experience persistent CTDs with seemingly no recourse. The problem isn't mods per se but the need for more 'meta-mods' or utilities that might help stabilize those using an extensive list of (often conflicting) mods. It is, however, possible to have a 'reasonably stable' game using an extended mod list (and yes, I think it is "worth it").

My advice is simple: start small. Don't drop 3 overhaul mods with 40 smaller mods into your load order all at once and expect them to work perfectly with each other. Start with the minor modifications you deem essential and gradually work your way up. It is important to remember that the majority of mods are stable--when used by themselves. The main issue is that they don't always work well with each other and in an extended load order (hence the need for compatibility patches).

You're using a bunch of mods that I'm not familiar with, but I'm guessing that you're using a number of mods that either conflict or that are not in the correct load order.

Reading and following the mods' ReadMes would likely solve much of your crashing issues. I can't speak for other modders, but threads like this really annoys me, because you've pretty much done everything wrong (by just installing a bunch of mods all at once, without spending the time to understand what each mod does), and then you basically blame the mods (which is the same as blaming the modders who made them) for your problems.

I spend a LOT of time writing my mods' ReadMe and providing a website and a support forum, and I do my best to explain exactly what my mod does, possible conflicts (and compatibilities), and load order. Yet many users don't even bother to read my documentation. As I clearly explained in my ReadMe, you are NOT supposed to use my Arwen_FULL_Tweaks.esp with my other Realism Tweaks modules (the only exception will be my new Reduced Quest XPR module, in v.3.4).

My own load order is posted on my Fallout 3 Journal: http://amito.freehostia.com/Fallout/FO-mods-order.htm

I expected criticism when starting this thread, I've learned that from the morrowind modding forum long time ago.
The reason I asked about the mod quality, is as I stated, that for the first two problems I encountered, I was suggested by reliable sources to remove the mods causing the problems. When I found my third problem, I figured there might be a trend here.

The most popular mods don't tend to cause many problems by themselves, otherwise they wouldn't be as popular. And many are updated regularly to solve issues. But as said before, if there are conflicts between two (or more) mods that can cause problems. Obviously the easiest way to fix the conflict is by not using one of the two mods anymore, so that's generally the first given advice.

It tends to be the combination of certain mods, rather than specific mods on their own, that cause crashes/glitches/etc. Or what Arwen mentioned, when you install something the wrong way. Some mods include multiple esp files that are not supposed to be used along each other, but are alternatives to each other. If you use them all together you can be sure there will be problems.

i'm just about to add some mods to my game to extend replay value.So i guess it is worth it if you look at it that way.

Also i was wonding if i need to download fo3edit to mod my game with the 1.7 patch or if its been fixed.(didn't want to start a new thread for this)

im a newb at this i just saw it in the FAQ thats all.

you really should've made your own thread for this, but to answer your question, most mods don't need FO3 edit, but there are a few that just don't want to work without it.

EDIT: don't get me wrong, it is a useful tool, but not absolutely necessary for most mods to function.

Most mods will tell you in the readme what mods or metamods are required in order to get the mod working properly (eg. a master, FOSE, a FOIP patch, FO3MasterUpdate, etc.). If you are not sure, you can always post your load order and ask for advice.

Well, there is the point of "does a mod require FO3MasterUpdate to function properly", and then there is the prevention of crashes/stability just because of what FO3MasterUpdate does. They are seperate things.

For example - one time during the testing of my mod (I do not use FO3MasterUpdate during my short testing sequences), I had a savegame that would immedietely crash upon game load. My mod was not doing anything at that point which should have technically required FO3MasterUpdate. But, when I ran FO3MasterUpdate against the mod list, this crash disappeared.

An example of "required" FO3MasterUpdate use would be a particular interior cell in my mod. "The Black Hole" has a shape which causes the navmesh to malfunction if it exists in an .esp, but it's fine if it exists in an .esm. So, to use this cell properly, you do actually need FO3MasterUpdate (it converts .esps into .esms internally, without changing their names) because I do release in .esp format and not .esm.

i'd take an evening or two to learn how to use fallout edit to create a merge patch to resolve conflicts, running mods in MUM helps to

MUM? What's that?