This isn’t a guide, because it’s designed to be an open discussion about which other fan-made doohickeys are best bolted onto Fallout: New Vegas while we wait for the more vibrant Fallout 4 [official site] as much as it is my own recommendations. I want you, the veteran connoisseur of a game I skipped over at the time, to tell me and other readers what the must-have FNV mods are. But I’m also going to share a few I’m using, which have dramatically reduced the severity of the post-apocalyptic RPG’s savage ugly-stick beating. They’ve added some of the fidelity and most of all colour that we cooed at in Fallout 4 footage – a game which suggested an altogether more appealing wasteland.
For context, I barely played Fallout: New Vegas upon release because, despite sterling wordsmiths Obsidian handling it, I found Fallout 3’s engine and especially combat too distractingly wonky to deal with. As much as I wanted to I just couldn’t lose myself to the wasteland, because the wasteland looked and felt like Team America recreating Riverdance on some mudflats. Half a decade later, I can avail myself of the many mods aimed at resolving just that, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally be able to enjoy a game that half the internet is madly in love with. I’ll think about survival, difficulty and new campaign mods some other time: this is about seeing if I can find a way into to the game Obsidian made.
An important and vaguely embarrassing disclaimer is that I can’t be 100% sure if all of these mods are working fully. Several of them overlap each other, including replacing each other’s files, and there’s also a fine art to determining the optimal load order of add-ons. What I do know is that I was broadly happy with the results, and didn’t especially feel that I had to add or fix anything else.
After many and varied types of fiddling, there were three and a half tools I needed before I could meaningfully get going. The first was Fallout Mod Manager, one of several rival tools for (un)installing and managing legions of FNV add-ons. Even that is split into two different forks, which is where the aforementioned half a tool comes in. The most recent ‘official’ FMM is available here, but you’ll almost certainly need to install the 4GB RAM usage patch on top of that. So I went for this custom build which has that built in already, but is only available via (free) registration for the Lovers Lab forum (a place which I should probably warn you is festooned with assorted nudey mods, so possibly NSFW and all that, although the FMM thread itself is clean).
As well as managing mods, I used Fallout Mod Manager to bump up New Vegas’ egregiously limited level of detail fade settings so there was less pop-up and more distance scenery – go to Game Settings – Graphic Settings – LOD, tick ‘override’ on all three sliders and then manually enter bigger numbers. Mine are set to 250 currently, but that is complete guesswork and I’ll tinker further later.
Next was New Vegas Script Extender, which provides infrastructure for some more ambitious tweaks. Get that from here.
Finally (well, not finally – there’s no finally once you venture down this particular rabbit hole, partly because there are always more mods but mostly because you’ll run into all sorts of exciting errors and incompatibilities which will require fiddly fixes) there’s ArchiveInvalidation File Generator, a single-click tool which ensures FNV will load any replacement textures you’ve added. You’re best off running this once you’ve installed all the other mods, as several of them overwrite textures from several others, but in my case I just ran it every time there was a texture change.
I then manually edited Fallout_default.ini in the FNV install directory, changing uGridsToLoad to 9. This tells the game how much of the world to load into memory, and has a big effect on distance detail and pop-up. However, you’re playing with fire a little – it can cause crashes, and once you’ve saved your game while ugrids is set to a higher number, you won’t be able to load it again if you need to set that number lower. So jump up in tiny increments, then thoroughly test that the game’s stable before you commit to it. I can probably go higher than 9 if I wanted, but the other mods pretty much remove the need to do so anyway.
As for mods proper, I started with textures, as there’s always a textures mod for Bethesda games, because Bethesda games always seem to ship with textures that look like someone wiped a dirty nappy on a mirror. I opted for NMC’s Textures, which are available in small, medium and large res – I went for the latter. The pack comes in three parts, then there’s a patch to add afterwards, so expect to spend quite some time extracting large archives. It doesn’t do much to character models, but does makes the world in general far sharper. It’s not revelatory really, but it definitely knocks a couple of years off the old man.
For characters, I went with Fallout Character Overhaul, a modular package which upgrades faces, hair, eyes and other elements and doesn’t appear to be too exaggerated. You even get to choose between dirty desert teeth and Cast Of Friends teeth. I haven’t yet installed anything to improve clothing or weapon textures, so if you’ve any particular recommendations there, please shout ’em below.
OK, the next – and, frankly, overriding – priority was to add some colour to the sea of grey-brown. Just because it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun, or that people have forgotten how paint works. Doing this isn’t as simple as chucking in some green trees or extra-shiny Nuka-Cola machines, however. The game needs a fundamental rethink in terms of lighting and skies. Let’s start with the latter, which I addressed with the Nevada Skies mod. Of everything I installed, this was the one I was most struck by. Huge, dramatic skies, with huge dramatic weather. Even when it’s not besieging the wasteland with heavy rain or sandstorms, it just seemed to open the game right up, as well as amping up the sense of the scale. There are various versions of NevadaSkies, but I went for the one designed to work with all the DLC.
Next I stuck on Wasteland Flora Overhaul, which greenifies the desert substantially, but without preventing it from still looking like a desert. Possibly not for everyone, particularly The Road enthusiasts, but I much prefer the game this way.
Then, assorted mods for indoor and outdoor lighting.
I also stuck on Essential Visual Enhancements, which primarily adds graphical bells and whistles to combat animations and particle effects. Haven’t noticed anything especially jumping out at me with it yet, but I suspect I’d notice if it wasn’t there.
Then there was the Electro-City Imaginator, which I primarily installed because it adds depth of field effects to distant scenery, softening far-off hills and whatnot so their more limited polycounts and sparse detail isn’t so glaring. It’s a really lovely and helpful effect, because it’s pretty in its own right as well as masking some uglies. The Imaginator’s also a bunch of fun in other ways – it also appears as an in-game item, and one which allows you to add various ‘cinematic’ filters.
If you want to play in Western sepia or monochrome, if you want to make everything look like Star Trek Love Scene Vaseline Lens Effect, if you want to amp up the colour even more, those options are there. They don’t entirely play nice with some other mod I’ve got installed, but I can make it work more often than not by fiddling with load order and whatnot.
She offers a wide variety of horse gear, including:. Saddles – increase carrying capacity via saddlebags. Caparisons – purely visual. Bridles – increase horse control. Spurs – increase horse control (if you shell out a bit more, they can also influence your charisma). Kingdom come repair armor.
Finally – at least in terms of graphics – there’s ENB. This highly tweakable post-processing tool is available for several games, including multiple Bethesda offerings, GTA IV & V and Deus Ex. It applies and improves various modernish effects, including HDR, superior anti-aliasing and depth of field. ENB is its very own rabbit hole – there are a gazillion different user-made presets available to try out, or you can adjust settings yourself with the alt+enter in-game menu and by editing the ini file. It’s not an essential, but you get out what you put in.
After that, I added one non-graphical mod, which was the project designed to restore Obisidian’s own cut and unfinished content. There are several parts of this, all of which I ended up adding, but specifically, I wanted the one which sewed the ‘Freeside’ Strip environments back together into one whole rather than the bitty, restrictive parts of the released game.
The results? Pretty good. There’s a certain shonkiness to the Gamebryo engine which I don’t believe could ever be chased out – indeed, aspects of it are still evident in the Fallout 4 footage we’ve seen – but all this stuff modernises New Vegas hugely, as well as making it look much more as though it was designed to be a PC game first and foremost. It doesn’t quite look like Fallout 4, but it looks much more like Fallout 4 than it did, and gets rid of some of Fallout 3/New Vegas’ most dispiriting visual aspects.
It took a lot of effort, and indeed this run-down skips over most of the trial and error I experienced getting it all to run, and it is well worth reiterating that you might run into any number of problems I didn’t. I got there in the end, and it was worth it: I do feel like I finally want to play New Vegas now. It no longer suffers from a ubiquitously sickly pallor and blurry surface, and once in a while I’m stopping to admire the scenery rather than pulling a face at it. And, of course, there’s a whole buncha stuff I haven’t tried yet, which is where you come in. What else, to your mind, are the essential New Vegas mods?
First of all, make sure your system is prepared:
Good! Before you'll start, watch the video below. Don't pay attention that it's recorded in Skyrim - all the terms and base principles are literally the same in both games. Watch this video completely, from start to finish. Even if you know most of terms explained in it - you'll still find something new, and for modding newcomers it will answer on most of basic questions:
Now, let's make your New Vegas ready for modding and stable! Attention #1: all steps in this section are obligatory. Do not skip any of them until it's separately mentioned. Attention #2: U.L.T.I.M.A.T.E.'s stability section contains absolutely everything you need to make your game free of crashes and stutters. This means you don't need to use any other guides/tutorials together with it - some guides are good, but just outdated, most 'super secret tweaks' you may find randomly in web are placebo or even directly harmful. Stability mods and tweaks, and their exact combination listed here has proven itself to give the best performance and stability - tested on different PCs, different Windows versions and by many different players. Similar applies to mods in the list - if you don't see some mod while you was expecting it, most likely it's just forward in the list due to better installation order. Or if some, maybe even really popular mods with a lot of endorsements are not listed here, that simply means they either have stability issues or just have a better and newer alternatives :) Some really great but sort of very much matter of taste/cheating/highly conflicting mods will be also mentioned in own section in the end- but using mods from this section, you're doing this at your own risk and I won't be able to provide troubleshooting support for them. 1) Install a mod manager per your choice. Choose between these two mod managers, choice is absolutely a matter of taste. I'm using NMM, but choice is completely up to you: - Nexus Mod Manager - simple and effective. NMM is recommended for modding newcomers - very intuitive with close to zero learning curve, minimalistic and clear interface while having 100% of features needed to build even the heaviest mod list. It's also 100% fine with installing mods that have so called 'fomod installer' (when a popup with options to choose appears during installation). NMM is also much easier to manage certain 'point' conflicts when overwriting mods. On the page, get the .exe version of latest NMM file. While NMM is very easy to get into, you can also wathc this amazing video tutorial about its setup and usage. - Mod Organizer - mod manager on steroids, packed with huge amount of cool features. Has longer learning curve, but allows more powerful customization while building the mod list. Many players with advanced modding skills are choosing it, and that's well deserved. It has 2 versions - MO1 and MO2 (both can be downloaded from the files section linked - and don't worry it's Skyrim SE section - it's just hosted there. MO fully supports New Vegas). MO2 has even more features, but it was developed for 64bit games in first turn (like FO4 and Skyrim SE, while NV is 32bit one). MO1 (Mod Organizer 1 Legacy) is complete without additional glitches MO2 may have - so if you're not yet very experienced, but you liked MO, get the MO1. If you're an experienced modder - try MO2. You can also watch some super useful series of video tutorials for MO1 and MO2 here. Important note about MO usage: this mod manager stores mod files and .ini files in own way, so to edit your ini files you'll need to open them through MO itself. What about Vortex and FOMM, you may ask? Vortex - while looking really fancy in Win 10 style, it's still glitchy and doesn't have some fundamental features for 'serious' modding (for example, manual load order sorting, which is crucial for big mod lists), making it dysfunctional in some aspects. I won't be able to provide a troubleshooting support if you're using Vortex, please take that into account. FOMM - the oldest mod manager for NV. It has 2 versions - older one wasn't updated since 2010 and it's just too outdated and unsupported at all. The updated version of it has many it's issues fixed, but still has a lot of another issues and glitches, from minor to major. Correct installation of mods is not guaranteed and I won't be able to provide troubleshooting support for it as well. Tldr: choose between NMM or MO and have a stable game :) If something will change in a good way for any of FOMM/Vortex, I'll let you guys know. 2) Install LOOT. Your best friend to organize load order - the way in which order your mods are going one after another. Loot also shows some useful information - missing masters, dirty records, which can be useful to you. Proper load order is very important to run your modded game without conflicts, as mods (especially gameplay mods) compatibility often depends on it. Download the LOOT.Installer.exe file via the link provided (image showing file version needed) and isntall, then run it. LOOT usage is very simple - just run it, choose New Vegas as a game and click 'Sort plugins'. Wait until sorting is finished, click 'Apply' and close the program. Here's an image showing the buttons needed. Do this each time you've installed a few other mods, and one more time when your mod list is finished. LOOT is smart and has own database, so in almost all cases automatic sorting is enough - but don't worry, for cases when some manual load order rules are needed, I'll notify you and provide simple instructions :) 3) Install New Vegas Script Extender. Download the archive (using the first link on the page shown on this picture) anywhere at your PC. Unpack it. Place nvse_1_4.dll, nvse_1_4ng.dll, nvse_editor_1_4.dll, nvse_loader.exe, nvse_steam_loader.dll files to your NV root folder (the main game folder, where New Vegas launcher exe is, [not] the Data folder). From now on and always, launch the game only via nvse_loader.exe. Make a shortcut of it for your desktop and launch game only with it. 4) Install 4GB Patcher. 4GB Patcher increases amount of RAM available for game to use. To install - download the archive anywhere, unpack and place FalloutNVpatch file to your NV root folder (the main game folder, where New Vegas launcher exe is, [not] the Data folder). Run it. Bingo, your game is patched! Only install it - we'll deal with .ini file tweaks later in one-click way ;) Note: if you have GOG version of the game and your game launches via vanilla launcher no matter what - it's fine for GOG version. 5) Install New Vegas Anti Crash. This mod is a pure magic. No other words for that. One click installation. Bang. Almost all engine crash issues disappearead. Essential and amazing mod. Just download and install with mod manager. 6) Install New Vegas Stutter Remover. This mod main feature is to greatly reduce amount of stutters in your game. But, it helps against crashes and with memory allocation as well, working in team with previous mods with a great synergy. Just install with mod manager. Don't do anything else for now. 'Anything else' is alredy pre-made for you in the next steps :) 7) Use my New Vegas .INI files (Fallout.ini and FalloutPrefs.ini) Go to Files section of the guide (showed in this image). There you'll see file named 'Base INI Files'. These .INI files are [already] pre-configured for ENB usage - you don't need to do anything yourself. Download the archive, unpack it anywhere, grab the Fallout.ini and FalloutPrefs.ini and place them to DocumentsMy GamesFalloutNV, overwriting if asked. Now you need to make only 2 tiny adjustments. You can open them with any text editor tool (notepad for example, but I humbly recommend to use this amazing editor - it makes editing the .INI files x10 easier and more comfy for your eye, and it's totally free). So, do the next: - In Fallout.ini, find iNumHWThreads= value. Change the value to the amount of your CPU cores (it's set to 6, so if you have 4 cores - set the value to 4, etc). Save the changes (press CTRL+S) and close the ini file. - This step is 'floating'. During your mod list growing, if you'll be experiencing sound lags and/or some sounds not playing at all from time to time, you need this step. If you don't such issues, then don't change the values mentioned in this step. In Fallout.ini, find iAudioCacheSize= value. It's set to 2048 by default. Double it, setting to 4096. Now, in the same file, just in the next line, you'll see iMaxSizeForCachedSound= value. It's set to 256 by default. Doubt it, setting to 512. Save the changes (press CTRL+S) and close the ini file. These settings should have with sound lag issues in most of cases, but in case that won't be enough still, you can double respective values again (to 8192 and 1024 respectively) - but this most likely will never be needed. Save the changes, close the ini file. - In FalloutPrefs.ini, find sD3DDevice= value. Change it to your GPU name. Note: this part is important. The thing is - yes, you can change that in NV launcher as well, but if you'll launch it first time while different GPU is listed there, NV launcher will reset all other settings to default as well. - In FalloutPrefs.ini, find iSize W= and Important note: after you've finished with settings for these two .INI files, set them to 'read only' mode. It's also very recommended to not use NV launcher to change ingame resolution and other settings in general - it's reported by many players that even simply launching NV launcher without doing anything reverts some settings (like for grass density, for example) back to vanilla values. Just get a habit to make those changes directly in .INI files - it's much better :) Also, if you want to return game starting intro (it'd disabled to save your precious time because c'mon, how many hundreds of times you saw it already haha), just change values of 'SMainMenuMovieIntro=' and 'SIntroSequence=' back to 1 instead of 0. Optional additional settings to disable mouse acceleration and for more realistic decals/blood/shooting fx visibility range/time (tinker with these settings only after you've finished your mod list completely, sure that everything is running fine and your FPS is fine): Disable mouse acceleration: In your game main directory (where game .exe files are), in a file called Fallout_default.ini, find [Controls] section and change it's content to these lines: bAlwaysRunByDefault=1 bBackground Mouse=1 bBackground Keyboard=1 fForegroundMouseAccelBase=0 fForegroundMouseAccelTop=0 fForegroundMouseBase=0 fForegroundMouseMult=0 Better decal settings: In Fallout.ini, make the next changes to values (or just paste the lines if you dont have some of them): fDecalLOD0=155000.0000 fDecalLOD1=155000.0000 fDecalLOD2=155000.0000 fSkinnedDecalLOD0=155000.0000 fSkinnedDecalLOD1=155000.0000 fSkinnedDecalLOD2=155000.0000 bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1 iMaxSkinDecals=12 bAllowProfileDecals=1 bProfileDecals=1 fDecalLifetime=180.0000 [Decals] uMaxDecals=575 uMaxDecalCount=575 uMaxSkinDecals=500 uMaxSkinDecalPerActor=50 bProfileDecals=1 bDecalOcclusionQuery=1 That's it! 8) Install my .INI files for New Vegas Script Extender and New Vegas Stutter Remover. Go to Files section of the guide. There you'll see file named 'INI Files for NVSE & NVSR'. Download the file and add it to your mod manager. Install. When asked about overwriting the files - approve it. That simple, you may ask? Yep! These .INI files are pre-configured with actually working settings for each and every PC. As well as for Windows 7, 8 and 10. Yes, you may have read that NVSR doesn't work properly on Win 10. This issue is also fixed. Unlike from other random settings that can be found in web, these inis also don't have any harmful values, configured in that way so you don't need to bother about adjusting anything no matter what rig you have and on which Windows you are. 9) Install The Mod Configuration Menu. Allows to configure mods via special cozy menu straight in game. Required for many mods to work properly and makes your modded game life much more easier. Fallout New Vegas Hd Graphics ModNote: don't forget to intsall the 'MCM BugFix 2' file from Updates section in Files tab. Download the update file and simply add the archive to you mod manager and install with mod manager, overwriting when asked. 10) Install JIP LN NVSE Plugin. This mod is like a required 'core' for each second amazing gameplay mod, being an extension to NVSE and adding hundreds of new functions. Basically, without it most of great mods listed below most likely would never appear or work same good. In addition, it also fixes many notorious bugs from vanilla game. Download and install with mod manager, no other actions required. 11) Install Ogg Vorbis Libraries. This tiny but effective fix greatly helps with audio lags and stutter in the game caused by audio issues, by improving the method how game decodes audio. This needs to be done manually. Just follow the steps: - Make an empty folder anywhere on your PC and name it 'NV Vorbis Backup', for example. - Go to NV main folder (where game launcher is located) and find the files called libvorbis.dll and libvorbisfile.dll. Take these two files and place them to previously made backup folder. In this way, we'll simply backup these files, just in case. - Download Ogg Vorbis Libraries main file. - Unpack it. - Take libogg.dll, - Bingo! 12) Install ENB binaries and my enblocal.ini file. 'But wait! Last time I installed those pesky ENBs my PC turned into ash', you may say. The reason for this was incorrect installation and nothing else :) Until your PC isn't something like Pentium Core 2 Duo with Intel HD integrated graphics, you can run at least performance-friendly ENB, just with proper ini settings - they make a huge difference. My gf, for example, is running NV with decent amount of texture mods and ENB on laptop with 750m GPU (which is really weak as for modern PC standards). So, as you can see, there's literally no reason to not use ENB today. Secondly, unlike a often-met misconseption, ENB is not just a 'thing that changes colors and blurs background'. ENB is a complex post-processing engine - meaning it adds visual effects and shaders that game itself simply doesn't support. True antialiasing and actually working ambient occlusion, beautiful detailed shadows, water shaders, godrays, qualitative HDR and much more. Besides that, ENB if easily and fully configurable through ingame interface. But there's even more - and that's a main part! Even for some personal reasons you won't use ENB itself (meaning ENB presets for graphics enhancement), you still need this step. The thing is, so called Enboost (and actually, just proper settings in enbloca.ini) is [improving] your game performance and eleminating memory-related crashes thanks to it's ability to increase total amount of memory game can use, literally bypassing part of 32big game engine limitation. But for this to work, you need to have ENB binaries. In this case, ENB itself as graphics enhancer will not work, but will drastically improve FPS and overall game stability. Now, we can continue to installation itself: - Download the archive from the ENBdev website. Scroll down till you see the black pixelated-like arrow. That's a download button. - Unpack the archive, go to WrapperVersion older, take only d3d9.dll and enbhost.exe and place them into Fallout New Vegas main folder (where FalloutNV and FalloutNVLauncher .exe files are). Not the Data folder! - Go to Files section of the guide. Now, get the file named 'Enblocal INI File'. Unpack it, and place file called enblocal.ini to your NV main folder (same folder where you've just placed ENB binaries). This file, same as NVSE and NVSR inis, it's already pre-configured and only one parameter in it [maybe] will need to be changed. Read below. - Now, check if you need to change that single parameter in enblocal. Download VRamSizeTest. Unpack the archive, and run VRamSizeDX9.exe (exactly this one, not the DX11 one). If the 'Video memory available' value you see there is 10500 or higher - congrats, you don't need to change anything at all! You don't need to read next steps. - If it's lower than 10500, substract 170 from value you have if you're on Win 7, substract 350 if you're on Win 10 and don't substract anything if you're on Win 8. For example, your value there is 9000. Correct value needed for Win 7 will be 8830, same 9000 for Win 8 and 8650 for Win 10. - Now go to your NV main folder and open enblocal.ini file with any text editor (notepad for example, but I once again humbly recommend to use this amazing editor - it makes editing the .INI files x10 easier and more comfy for your eye, and it's totally free). Find the VideoMemorySizeMb= line. Change it's current value (10240) to value you received in previous step. But remember that 10240 is [maximum] value, so if your test will show you bigger value - just keep 10240. Press CTRL+S to save the changes and close the file. Done! - In your videocard driver/control panel, for New Vegas, set the Antialiasing, Anisotropic Filtering, FXAA and Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) to 'Application-Controlled' (Nvidia) or 'Use application settings' (AMD), or to just 'Off', in case of application-controlled options are not available. How to play in borderless windowed mode (working Alt+Tab): set the next values to True instead of False: ForceBorderless=false ForceBorderlessFullscreen=false Very important note #1: after you've made these steps, NEVER change your enblocal.ini. Yes, that means if some ENB preset you will be using has enblocal.ini file in it as well - do NOT use it. Simply don't paste it with other ENB preset files, leave it be. This file contains only technical settings related to memory and stability, that's why you should always have only your own one, which is adjusted for your rig. Very important note #2: My enblocal.ini file already has fps limiter set up. If vastly majority of cases, it's the best way to limit fps in your game (which is needed to prevent some physics glitches and stutters). Make sure that V-Sync and/or other similar FPS limiter features are disabled for New Vegas - check your GPU program settings for NV, tools like Nvidia Inspector and so on - ENB has own FPS limiter which works better with the game. If you'll have multiple sources of FPS limitation for NV, this will cause stutters. 13) Install ENB AO Hair Transparency Fix. This is a tiny, but needed mod to fix sometimes happening weird visual glitches with hair. For some reasons, while mod has correct structure, author only made it to be manually downloaded. Don't worry! Donwload it manually somewhere, then, if you're using NMM, use 'Add Mod From File' option like shown on this picture and choose this archive. Mod will be added to you mod manager and you can install it as usual. MO has similar feature too. 14) Install Yukichigai Unofficial Patch. YUP is same as Unofficial Patch for Skyrim or Oblivion. It's an immense compilation of bugfixes - thousands of them! Absolutely titanic work and a must have and essential mod for core bugfixing. Important note: you don't need Mission Mohave mod. YUP completely superseds it in terms of quality and amount of bug fixes. Besides that, Mission Mohave contains many subjective changes to the game which are not actually bugfixes. Use YUP and only YUP. 15) Install Unofficial Patch Plus. Another great compilation of bugfixes that's made to be used in team with YUP. Grab it! Optionally, but very recommended - also install Addendum addon from this mod Files section - it contains several other improvements that are not complete bug fixes, but change really notorious things, and change them logically. Note: if for some reasons you don't want to have UPP own additions that are not directly a bug fixes, but rather a changes to notorious vanilla mechanics (they all are absolutely fine and logical tho, in my opinion), you can use Unofficial Patch NVSE instead :) But use one or another, not both. 16) Install Navmesh Fixes and Improvements. Criminally underrated and absolutely amazing mod that does how it's named. It improves and fixes a lot of navmeshes in the game, fixing a lot of issues related to them. Navmeshes is a pathfinding parameters for NPCs in game, so mod helps greatly with many cases when NPCs were acting like a robots. 17) Now install the Great Collision Trio! - Precision Collision - Clutter NV - Unnecessary Physics - Collision Meshes These three mods will greatly improve the look and behaviour of many colliding objects in the game - food lying on tables, corpses lying in cars and hanging towers, grenades bounces etc, making position of hundreds of such objects more logical and their physics looking much more realistic. Install the mods in the same order as they are listed and overwrite when asked. Note: also download patches for Hectrol Tumbleweed compatibility, OJO BUENO Texture Pack compatibility & PrecisionCollisionClutterFix. Install only PrecisionCollisionClutterFix patch now. 18) Install Placed Creature Corpses use Vanilla Skeletons. This little mod will prevent many weird glitches related to corpses, especially when playing a modded game. 19) Install Wrye Flash. Wrye Flash is a NV version of popular Wrye Bash program. It' an essential tool you need to update leveled lists in your game. What is leveled list? Simply said, everything you can buy and loot - traders inventories, containers loot, items you can loot from fallen enemies and so on. The thing is game itself does not update leveled lists at all by default, so when you're adding mods that adds a new weapons and armors distributed to the world immersively, new items to traders and so on - you need to make a Bashed Patch to update leveled lists. You will need it later, when your mod list is finished. It's usage is very simple and will be explained below :) For now, just download the 'Wrye Flash 18.0 - Standalone Executable', unpack the archive and place Data and Mopy folders to your NV main folder (where game launcher is). 20) Install FNVEdit. An amazing program that allows you to edit mods directly. Download the archive, unpack it and place the folder anywhere, it doesn't matter. You will use it later. This is very easy and comfy to use tool for fixing some certain mod conflicts. It's also needed to make so called Merged Patch - special mod that will handle most of mod conflicts and merge same records. You need both Bashed and Merged Patches in your game. Here's a simple explanation why. Let's say several mods in your load order are affecting same NPC. One mod gives this NPC a new gun. Second mod gives this NPC a new facial details. Third mod gives him a fancy hat and several items that you can loot from him. If you'll be using only LOOT, only the last mod from these 3 will have effect, basing on the load order - so you will see him with a fancy hat only, without new armor, weapon and loot. With Bashed Patch, you will also be able to loot new items from him. And with Merged Patch, you will also see him with new facial details, new gun and that fancy hat, together (as it should be). Great compatibility and all mod features possible to see in game. Another great feature of FNVEdit is, as it allows you to directly modify mod records, you can make balancing tweaks - for example, nerf some OP modded weapons/armors, or make them stronger, and so on. Instructions of Merged Patch creation and usage will be provided below. 21) Install Merge Plugins. Yes, it's hosted at Skyrim mods section - don't worry, it's working absolutely the same for NV. Download the archive and unpack it anywhere you want. Due to NV much lower .esp plugins limit and how amount of plugins are affecting stability, it's very much recommended to always keep amount of plugins below 130. Perfectly, around 100. That's why merging your mods is almost an essential thing for NV, especially if you'll be aiming on a heavy mod list. But dw, there's nothing hard in this at all. Details will be explained below. Optional stability tips (in 99% of cases, you won't need them so just skip this part - use them only if you have stutters no matter what): #1 - If you're on Win10 and settings provided for NVSR in the Files section are not giving proper effect no matter what (and only in that case), try NVTF - New Vegas Tick Fix. This mod is an alternative to NVSR - it greatly remakes part of its functionality (meaning you should not use NVSR if using this one). The drawback it's ofc doesn't provide same 'coverage' as NVSR - so some stutters will still be there. #2 - ReservedMemorySizeMb= value in enblocal.ini - if you'll still be getting stutters with 1024 value, try diferent ones - 512, 384, 256, 128. #3 - DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB= value in NVSE_Config.ini - while the value in .INI file in Files section has proved itself to be the best in most of cases, if you want to experiment, you can change it a bit to see if it give better peformance results. #4 - In some very rare cases, for some rigs, ENB fps limiter causes stutters. It happens really rare, but if you are 100% sure you have made all the rest of stability adjustments correctly, this may be a culprit. In this case, try to disable fps limiter in enblocal.ini (by setting 'EnableFPSLimit=' line to 'false'), and instead, limit your fps to 59 using your GPU control panel or Nvidia Inspector (this option is recommended).
Done! You're ready to build your ultimate mod list - with a stable game & packed with tools needed. Hey ho! :)
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