An informative message from our optimization guru, CrushBoss.

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Why too many Mods can hurt your game

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After reviewing many load orders over the past few weeks I'm concerned that many players are becoming their own worst enemy. The more mods you have the larger your saved games will be. Skyrim stores data in your saved games for nearly every mod that you run. Skyrim doesn't like save games to be very large and some players have enough mods (225+) to exceed what Skyrim can reasonably process. Yes, your game may work fine in the short run but I'd be very surprised if you can get over 40 hours before your game will constantly CTD. This happens once your save game gets over approximately 15,000 KB in size.


Forget about all the compatibility issues, resource usage, and script overload for a minute. I've seen it happen time and time again when saved games hit the sweet spot of roughly 15,000 - 18,000 KB in size bad things start to happen. The game starts having issues and runs poorly at around 15,000 KB and it gets progressively worse until your save game collapses under it's own weight and you start to CTD on launch or frequently in game. The heavier your load order the quicker that this phenomenon happens.

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Recommendation

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For this reason I strongly recommend that most users keep only the mods that they really need and will use on a regular basis. Try to keep your load order to 150 mods or less. I know, I know, you run 255 mods and have never had a problem in your life. You are a much better modder than me, happy now? This is by far the exception rather than the rule! Everyone wants to run tons of mods and show off how great of a modder they are. My experience has been that if you run a lighter and more intelligent mod list that you will actually have more fun and spend less time troubleshooting issues and pulling your hair out. User experience may vary. Again, yes there will be the occasional person who has a 20,000 KB save game and it works fine but this is by far the exception rather than the rule.

Have a fun and trouble free Skyrim experience!