Quick Question on how AE impacts Previous SSE mod deck

[Thane Baldur]

Based on the explanation/discussion of AE here:

 

I'm uncertain how game performance will be affected by the new DLC mod scripts you download in AE.

My Village Idiot n00b understanding of game engine script limits: The more script intensive mods included in the vanilla base game, the less capacity exists for 3rd party (translation Nexus based) script mods.  If this hypothesis is false then please correct me. Since the following wall of text is based on this assumption.

 I haven't yet downloaded any CC content in AE  from Steam as yet. I only have the 4 free mods that came with AE update.  I'm starting a brand new game with no saves to simplify any issues.  However while researching gamer feedback on Steam/Nexus, it appears Steam users like me are still encountering mod deck issues. Even after starting a new game.  Per Arthmoor's post above, AE is just a super sized DLC like HF/DB/DG on steroids. However, if you decided NOT to rollback with the SSE patch to play your original SSE game AND  bought the AE version, then ppl are reporting many issues. I've some questions as a Steam user

Us Steam users need to voluntarily login to CC and download the additional mod content in AE.  If you DON'T do this, then you only get the 4 free DLC to show up in the game.  This is good news if you don't care for any of the CC added content in AE. But if say, you only wanted a couple CC mods from AE, then you need to voluntarily download ALL of the CC mod suite.  Which will overwrite any changes existing Nexusmod content made to the game in your mod deck. To fix this, you'd need to first update the game with all AE mod content. Then d/l the newly updated versions of your Nexusmod mods. This should allow the game to run (with whatever known game engine bugs USEP cannot fix).  HOWEVER, it seems there are many Steam users (who play on PC as well as console) who've reported CTD on PC platform, even after installing the latest versions of their mods/patches in their load order to date on PC. 

After reviewing the "improved" DLC that comes with AE, I've come to the conclusion some 95% of this CC, is undesirable and superfluous content that adds zero value to my pre AE game. And is also inferior to all existing mod quality content I've been tweaking to working perfection over the past decade. There are only a couple of CC mods I want to add to my existing updated mod deck. But before doing this, I'm concerned about the extra content we got with the AE update patch.

Basically, my pre AE load order had already exceeded the max limit at some 325+ mods. The hard mod limit was exceeded by combo of a lot of texture mods and some very simple script mods (over 90% food/recipe based mods). Which was made possible from me getting lucky using tools like TESVEdit and MO2 to compact mod content into a smaller number of plugins and/or by creating patches. However,

Even if I restrict the new AE content to using only the 4 free DLC that come with the base game, the newly updated mod content still poses a potential problem with my existing & updated load order. 

Q1. How does the additional scripting that comes with the 4 new free DLC in the base game (specifically  the new fishing mini game questline, Curios game mechanic, and Survival mode) affect my original (but updated) mod deck that was already at the hard limit?  Since I have the following existing and heavily scripted mod content which already modifies the same record assets in the base game? 

My biggest concern is with the heavily scripted, DLC sized nexus mod plugins in my existing load order. Which have a global scope in my pre AE mod deck. The top DLC sized Nexus mods of concern are:

• Chesko's Frostfall/Campfire: How does scripting in the new Survival mode affect this if you need to have it enabled? Or is this base game feature optional so you can disable it so it doesn't conflict with Chesko's mod suite?
• Beyond Burma - basically all Bruma and 3rd party DLC plugins associated with this global world space mod

• LOTD Museum mod -- has a HUGE global functional game play impact. By default of being a compilation of TONS of smaller (and officially integrated) mods like Moonpath to Elsyweyr etc.  Specifically because it is impacted by new AE DLC like Curios. And also because best game play performance cannot be achieved without the support of immersive Nexus mods like LAL
• Wet and Cold, CoT, Volumetric Fog, and Vivid Weathers - How does the new Survival mode affect scripting in these environmental mods? Do the scrips that come with the new updated AE weather system improve/tweak existing SSE weather script content? Or is it an ADDITIONAL amount of scripting? If additional scripting, then is there a workaround to reducing this added quantity of scripts? I'm concerned pushing the game engine script limit will adversely affect already existing scripts like Isoku's Wet and Cold mod. This mod has extensive integration with Chesko's Frostfall and other popular weather content mods like iNeed, Wyrmstooh, Beyond Bruma etc etc. 
• Trade and Barter. This was one of the best Skyrim economy trade mods ported to SSE. Given the nature of the economic scope for this pre AE mod, it shouldn't present much problems with post AE addition of Curios in terms of scripts.  However, the last update by mod author was back in Feb 2019. It was left to the player base to update this mod since being abandoned to the Bot Curator. I tinkered with this mod using combo TESVEdit & CE to get it working with my pre AE deck.  But now its post AE functionality has been adversely impacted (as verified by recent player comments on mod page). So there's a 99.999% odds this mod has not been updated to accommodate the additional Curio DLC content. Which means the Skyrim economy will be adversely affected as a result. If additional scripting on my end  (on top of the newly added Curio DLC scripts) is necessary to fix this mod, is there a workaround to increase the game engine's scripting capacity? Seeing that my mod deck is at the game engine's mod scripting limit?

Q2. How does the additional paid for CC content affect the game engine's scripting limits? Complaints about CTD/game performance are being reported due to added CC DLC. This is from players who don't have mods and updated their game. Yet are still experiencing CTD from this added scripting content? A lot of CC DLC consist of new weapons and armor. Apart from the added quest script content, this new texture content would've been fine. Except it potentially impacts global texture mods in my load order like:

• Immersive Armors/Weapons: Apparently Hothtrooper44 created/endorsed a IA patch that fixes all the omissions Bethesda failed to include for new armors/weapons added to the base game. So the new content will be compatible with his existing content. But I couldn't find any feedback on whether this new IA patch will recognize/be compatible with Frostfall/Campfire? Because it is a separate esp from the unofficial Campfire/Frostfall patch.  And yet ANOTHER additional plugin in my load order has to accommodate (if this is even possible using MO2) 

TL DR: My concern is after all the time expended in installing/updating my deck, that I'm STILL going to be unable to play. Because base game AE (with only those 4 free mods) will add scripts that will exceed the capacity of the game engine.  So I'm basically wasting my time and need to roll back to the backed up non AE version of the game. :\   Any insights on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks for surviving this wall of text. I'm neurotic by nature, and so typically suffer from literary diarrhea when placed under emotional TES duress. 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Thane Baldur
because I'm a neurotic n00b dammit

[Arthmoor]

First: There is no hard limit on scripts. Any information out there claiming there is is false.
Second: Any information out there talking about "script lag" or other script based performance issues should be ignored. Case in point: The vanilla game alone would have crippled you long before any mods could have since there are 15000+ scripts in the vanilla game. No mods come anywhere close to this, not even megamods like BS: Bruma. Dawnguard and Dragonborn have more scripts than those do and their addition to the game had no impact at all on this.

The Anniversary Edition Upgrade DLC pack is only required if you want to purchase all 70 of the additional DLCs the base game doesn't currently ship with. If you want individual DLCs from that selection you can still go to the Creation Club section on Steam and buy them individually. There is no requirement to buy the whole package.

If, however, you do purchase the AE package, you CANNOT safely use any of the various downgrade patchers. You will end up with an unpredictable setup that hasn't got the Papyrus functions in the .exe some of those DLCs may need.

Downloading any of these DLCs will have no detrimental impact on any mods you have downloaded from Nexus or anywhere else. The worst you'll see is some conflicts here and there. Stuff maybe overlapping with content from mods etc. Things that are pretty easy to address with patches or updated mods if need be. As far as the quality of the content, IMO you're going to have less problems with official content than you will with content from mods in most cases.

The "hard limit" you ran into of 325 mods is probably more or less correct. The game engine itself is bound to a limitation in the Windows API calls it uses and cannot have more than 512 active file handles reserved. This count includes any .esp/.esm/.esl files you may have as well as .bsa archives. Official content DOES count toward this, regardless of whether or not it's got the ESL flags set on it. So if your load order is this big, this problem is the first thing you need to find a way to address. Right now that apparently can only be done by using the SSE Engine Fixes mod and enabling the file handle limits options it comes with. The downside to this is that particular mod also comes with a bunch of other things which have been known to cause problems of their own, rather than fixing them. My own personal experience with it and the supposed Riften fix it includes is that it actually caused the problem it claimed it was fixing. So you need to be careful with these things and don't take them at face value. ALWAYS check it yourself before committing time to a lengthy playthrough.

So for your specific question about how the 4 new DLCs will affect the limit, that's 8 more file handles the game will need to reserve. If you're already at 512, then you've got work to do. I would not concern myself with the number of scripts included in any of the larger mods you're using. That's not a relevant benchmark.

LOTD will not be affected by the upgrade itself, but as you have already realized, its scope of content means it's going to run into a lot of those minor conflicts I mentioned earlier which will then require patching, which of course then means even more files in your Data folder that the game needs to reserve handles for.

Wet & Cold didn't have issues due to the number of scripts. It had issues because the visual effects it was applying are expensive systems. This has not changed with the 1.6 updates.

I don't know what is involved with CoT, Volumetric Fog, or Vivid Weathers - I don't use those. If they're anything like most other weather mods, they probably don't have any scripts, or have very few, but again, this isn't the issue with those mods. The visual effects they generate are. If they're comparable in performance to the True Storms mod that I'm using, you should have no problems with keeping those.

I also don't know what's involved in Trade & Barter but chances are nothing it's doing is going to be seriously impacted beyond not knowing about any of the new content in the 4 free DLCs. Which is going to be the same issue for many mods due to the 1.6 updates.

The bottom line though is this: If you have already taken up most or all of the 512 file handle limit the game engine has, you're going to have a rough time trying to incorporate new content of any type, be it official or otherwise. There is no need to roll back due to scripting issues, because there is no scripting issue. You either need to trim some fat from your load order, or you need to use an SKSE extension that raises the file handle limit. Without doing this it isn't going to matter, even if all you did was add 70 completely empty .esp files.

 

[Scythe Bearer]

Just one additional point. It is my understanding that should you purchase and download any or all of the "AE CC Pack", you are not required to use all of the content.  You can still activate/deactivate the CC mods individually using your mod manager.

[Thane Baldur]

HUGE THANK YOU to both of you.  Will D/L and be exclusively testing that SSE Engine Fixes mod for a while. Also relieved the CC mod pack form AE consists of individual mods instead of a  merged compilation. Given this modular setup, then it's just a matter of enabling the specific AE CC mod(s) I want. Then after playing through the DLC, delete all associated saves and use Wrye to indicate when I've reached the first save game without the CC content baked into it.

[phatbassanchor]

Still awaiting my CC opt out button, Mr. Howard...

[Thane Baldur]

Wait what???

What do you mean opt out?  Are you saying by d/l the AE upgrade, Steam dumps ALL the CC into your game folder? i.e. leaving you to toggle which CC to use? Instead of allowing you to cherry pick which ones to d/l?

Oh lord. It's going to dump everything straight into the base game folder.  Just like it did the other base game DLC. When all my nexus mods are in the MO2 folder. Giving me a  hot mess to waddle around in right out the damned gate.

This is really going to suck. I thought this would be similar to HF/DG/DB where you had the option to enable which of these DLC you wanted to install BEFORE d/l (again using Steam platform). Looks like they changed that.

  

Great. So I get to add being a virtual garbage man to my list of additional curation duties cleaning up my game folder.  SMH

[Scythe Bearer]

You may safely ignore the phatassbanchor.  Reads this instead.