I usually play with well over 125 mods, up into the 150 count, with no problems at all. So no mods is to much for me. Plus, if I ever run into issues, I can just merge a load of them together

Yeah, I'll also put in that you should only merge mods that you know are going to be compatible, and you know exactly what they do. For instance, I have a huge merged esp of all the weapons and armour sets I deactivated to make space for patches or more ambitious mods.
I personally wouldn't try to merge anything that's at all complex or expansive, that's what the space left by the giant one-weapon/armour .esp borg is for.

OrmrSnaethorsen wrote:

Quote :

There are ESP/ESM. BSA and "loose files". Each take their toll on the game as you add them. There is an actual max for the plugins (ESP/ESM) that cannot be broken. I believe it is 255 total

Incorrect, man. That's the theoretical limit for Skyrim, not Fallout 3/NV. Who play with over 140 plugins anyway and enjoys a stable game? Few people I should think.

Double check your info. The Gamebro engine can indeed accept a max of 255. Fallout 3, NV and Skyrim all run with the same engine but has been tweaked. The 255 mentioned is the is the total max engine limit as I stated in my response to the OP. However individuals rarely if ever reach this limit and depends on the game, mods, scripts and other factors including hardware and setup and even what changes Bethesda has done for that engine . I myself have had more than 170 perfectly stable and played through the entire game as well as others. The "plugin limit of 140 for FNV" is a myth. It is just your rig cannot handle the added mods (stress) based on your config, mods, and what Bethesda has done to the engine. Oh and it doesn't matter if you have a supercomputer Multi-core monster. There is some theories of thought that this actually makes the game more unstable.

I personally try to keep my load order ~100 to 120 plugins and the textures needed to run. I haven't run ENBs or custom .ini except when absolutely necessary and I also rarely run 4gb patches as they aren't needed for my setup. As a result.. I have a rock solid game play each and every time and can play until my hand cramps up without any crashes. Yes. this is for FNV .

mods that murder framerate are texture mods and mods that add npcs to the game. to keep things stable im running only nmcs small pack, some weapon and clothing textures and factions reloaded.

I can use about 135 different ESM/ESPs before I run into issues so you can just merge some mods to one ESP to go around the ESP limit problem.

In my opinion, you can never have enough mods.

I try to keep mine >100 in most cases, this goes for all Bethesda games that I mod.

When you start getting too many exclamation marks lol that how iIaways check

Depends on what you are installing it also depends on how many of those mods have BSA's in them from what I have read that many think that BSA's also count towards your load order limit.

Silly fool, there is no such thing as "Too much mods".

As as many as your computer can handle!

I like to keep my active mods at around 120, if I go over  140'll start getting red and white exclamation points around the world space..

Some bugs in the past infuriated me, I said I'd quit, I'd go play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Skyrim, and not come back, but so far I've always came back to it

Thanks to FNVedit & merge plugins script it can be a lot! Right now my merged armory alone (weapons & apparel) is over 80 merged plugins. Not to mention that I use a bunch of common mods too & I merge them if possible. I merge anything that seems sensible to merge like race mods, hairpacks, skill boosters, town re-edits, house mods & lighting overhauls. I leave heavily scripted mods alone. I also painstakingly edit to remove leveled lists & item containers & just use item browser which helps avoiding clutter & conflicts (otherwise, doc mitchell house is not a pretty sight.) Although I do use quest mods, I made it a habit not too keep them. I play them one at a time & then revert to my backup save once finished. Right now I think I have 45-50 plugins in my load order but in totality it's probably over 200+ mods actually used, thanks to the merges.

Gotta agree with @soap_is_dope, AS MANY AS YOUR COMPUTER CAN HANDLE!

Well,

Around 100 in New Vegas, its kinda stable... I try to keep it around 100 because of obvious issues with the actual engine, not my computer.

I had over 230 mods installed into Skyrim, along with a ENB. It actually ran pretty smoothly and I was beyond surprised, had a few hiccup textures here and there, but I was satisfied. Then my hard drive decided to corrupt and I lost the entire mod folder, and I haven't been able to reconstruct that beauty of a abomination I called my mod list.

Fallout NV plugin maximum is around 130-140 and other bethesda games have I think around 200 so I think I helped a little

I never fully understood how Merged patches go. I just use it because YouTube and some forms told me to make them but I never really saw a difference in my game.

Uh rex i think he just playing fam but uh go ahead and regulate @Cpt.Rex

Depends entirely on what you mean by too many mods. Does this mean plugins enabled at one time, does it mean mods overall, as some mods don't have esms or esps. Personally, it depends on how well you can manage them.

If you have say, 160 mods enabled and in a perfect world each mod had 1 esm or esp(I said perfect world jeez), and you start experiencing slow downs, then some people or most would just start disabling ones they don't need or even ones they feel could be causing problems.

For me, I find the best thing to do is combine a number of what I like to call "addon" esps, or esps or esm that just change or add content to an existing mod, into one. So for example, I would combine all mods that are wmx esps into one, drastically reducing the load order. Generally, I haven't found a huge difference when combining addons together, only problem I can get is the weird "engine has shat itself bug", where textures and everything just mucks up. Other than that, you can have as many mods as you like, especially if they're texture mods with no esps or esms