I'm looking for the perfect load order for Skyrim mods.

[Mai72]

Hey all.

Last week, I went on Nexus and got carried away. I downloaded 150 plus mods without testing the load order. The game became very unstable. I was being chased by a tree and the screen would freeze, or I'd crash to desktop. The game looked absolutely beautiful though.

I tried fixing my load order with Loot and BOSS. I also tried using a tutorial that I found on YT. TBH, learning this sh*t is like going to med school. It's just so difficult. Especially with so many mods. I got frustrated and deleted everything. I wasn't too far in my game, and I ordered a 2nd harddrive that I'm going to use just for gaming. I should get the HD sometime today.

So, is there a preset load order that I can copy that is going to make the game look amazing, plus add new features like frostfall and needs and diseases? Maybe a load order that has 50-100 mods. If not, I'll just take it slow and add mods one by one as I play the game.

 

[BSim500]

Chased by a tree? There are so many mods and combinations of mods I'm not sure there is a single "definitive" guide. The order that works for me though is:-

1. Expansions (DawnGuard, Dragonborn & Hearthfires)
2. 4x Unofficial patches (Skyrim + DawnGuard, Dragonborn & Hearthfires)
3. High Res Texture packs (many specific texture mods just get put into the meshes & textures folder as overrides without being loaded as an .esp mod)
4. SkyUI
5. Most other general gameplay tweaks (eg, I have increased carry weight, A Matter of Time, added quest map markers, faster arrows, guard dialogue, etc)
6. ELFX + PureWeather (If using ELFX enhancer, this goes after main ELFX file)
7. Anything else that may be overidden by lighting / weather mods if placed before (eg, Remove Interior Fog, Disable Eye Adaptation or Rainbows)
8. Wearable Lantern / Lanterns of Skyrim (these two always worked better when placed last for some reason)

^ The general rule of thumb is "big mods" like ELFX will override a ton of variables and need to go earlier than smaller ones like "Remove Interior Fog" that change only some of the same variables. So when there's overlap, you generally put the "big" mods earlier and the smaller more specific ones later.

 

[Mai72]

Chased by a tree? There are so many mods and combinations of mods I'm not sure there is a single "definitive" guide. The order that works for me though is:-

1. Expansions (DawnGuard, Dragonborn & Hearthfires)
2. 4x Unofficial patches (Skyrim + DawnGuard, Dragonborn & Hearthfires)
3. High Res Texture packs (many specific texture mods just get put into the meshes & textures folder as overrides without being loaded as an .esp mod)
4. SkyUI
5. Most other general gameplay tweaks (eg, I have increased carry weight, A Matter of Time, added quest map markers, faster arrows, guard dialogue, etc)
6. ELFX + PureWeather (If using ELFX enhancer, this goes after main ELFX file)
7. Anything else that may be overidden by lighting / weather mods if placed before (eg, Remove Interior Fog, Disable Eye Adaptation or Rainbows)
8. Wearable Lantern / Lanterns of Skyrim (these two always worked better when placed last for some reason)

^ The general rule of thumb is "big mods" like ELFX will override a ton of variables and need to go earlier than smaller ones like "Remove Interior Fog" that change only some of the same variables. So when there's overlap, you generally put the "big" mods earlier and the smaller more specific ones later.

Thanks for the input.

The mod put new creatures in Skyrim. He was pretty difficult. I hot him a few times and it did nothing. He watched me one time and I died. Lol

 

[Stg-Flame]

Anytime you undertake a modded Bethesda experience, your best friends are the ReadMe's that come with every single mod. There's also plenty of resources out there that can help you get started. It's a lot to take it all at once, but so long as you take the time to test the stability of your game as you add mods (and you don't try to add 100+ mods at once), then you should be fine.

 

[runzwithsizorz]

Best modding tutorial Gopher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ1JN_X-_Y&vl=en
Also, I try to limit the amount of mods per game. The more you have, the less stable the game.

 

[Red Hawk]

Worth mentioning is the Skyrim Special Edition is more stable for mods than the original game.

 

[HumblePie]

If you are playing Skyrim on PC and playing Oldrim.. stop. Play Special Edition only since it was free in the first place for PC users if you already owned it previously on PC. And if you bought skyrim, not sure why you didn't buy special edition as it costs the same on PC as legendary edition.

So why SSE (Skyrim Special Edition)?

64 bit client = way more addressable memory. Old skyrim would start having problems if you were using a lot of mods, more so of those massive resolution texture mods. The game could only run in a 4GB memory space previously, and really anything over 3 GB started to get unstable. The game itself with no mods could take up to 2.5 GB of memory while running.

Better lighting without ENB. Previously if you liked nice lighting and weather effects as well as a "clearer" look to the game you needed to install an ENB. Special edition basically rolls in an ENB by default as a soft ENB. Still on PC this isn't a big deal because you will probably use a different ENB. I certainly do because I don't like the default. But this is a big deal for consoles as they had no access to ENB like lighting effects and now they have this at least.

More mods and npcs. Since the client is 64 bit now. You can load up far more mods with ease. The base client is much more stable over all too. The engine can handle more things thrown at it including far more npc interactions. Previous engine could only handle 50 enemies in combat for example. Additional enemies over 50 nearby would literally stand in one spot doing nothing because the game engine AI controller couldn't handle that many at once. Now the max amount doesn't seem to have a limit.

Faster load times. For some reason Bethesda really optimized load times with Special Edition. The base engine is the same as the one used in Fallout 4, but not even Fallout 4 has loading this well optimized. Old Skryim would lock you into a loading screen for 10-20 seconds on GOOD machines on average. Fallout 4 locks you in for 6-12 seconds on good machines. Skyrim special edition does 2 second load screens on SHITTY computers. Damn near instant on my system most of the time.

The downside to SSE is the lack of SKSE (Skyrim Script Extender) right now. The author hasn't done it for the new 64 bit client. Which in some ways is a good and bad thing. First off for the bad. Most of the old mods for oldrim used SKSE. So they can't be ported over easy and used in SSE. However, on a good note is that because of that lack of power, there is a lac of conflict between most mods as well. Meaning load order isn't really much of a thing with SSE. There are a couple of mods that don't play well together, but they won't cause instability usually even when using incompatible mods. Usually one overwrites what the other is trying to do and cancels that mod out.

 

[Mai72]

Worth mentioning is the Skyrim Special Edition is more stable for mods than the original game.

I'm actually going to purchase the SE version.