Black skin textures error.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Short version:
Loading game that was glitch-free now has a texture error that turns the skin of all the white women we saw into pitch black triangles with light lines separating said triangles. Parts of black texture turn transparent depending on camera, and correct skin texture appears beneath glitched texture. Tried all the obvious stuff, and when launched the game again (which was maybe the fifth time restarting) to grab screenshots for this post, everything was back to normal.

Long version:
So, for the first time ever since playing New Vegas, I saw the black textures glitch. Now, I know that usually means it's running out of memory or VRAM, but the weird thing in my case was that it was only female characters' skin, you could see the polygons separated into their triangles (white lines between each triangle; maybe it was the regular skin colour for just these lines?), and last, it seemed that depending on the distance and the angle relative to the camera determined the opacity of this black texture, which when transparent you could see the correct skin texture beneath it.

This problem started after loading my girlfriend's game a few hours ago. You can see in the thumbnail of her save that the texture on her character's arm was correct (though I'm sure we'd have noticed this had it happened earlier), but in-game it was black when we loaded it. Saving a new save with the glitch yields a thumbnail with the black triangles covering only the skin texture of the arm (wearing Josh's armour--taking off all clothes gives the whole body the glitched texture, but not her face).

So, we tried loading several of her saves, and they all had this problem. I loaded my own save, and everything was grand. In her game, all the white women we met had this texture problem, and in my game, no-one did. My character is female as well with approximately the same skin tone.

Tried turning off all recent mods (none of which were graphical, and I think they'd all been there long before the most recent save anyway), tried toggling archive invalidation, quitting the game to desktop and restarting, exiting the area and waiting and fast travelling and all that sort of stuff.

Then, the last time I launched the game was with the intention of getting screenshots to make this post, and for whatever reason, everything was grand. No more texture glitch.

So, is this a memory problem? I didn't think the skin textures were layered, but if this is a memory problem, I don't know what other explanation there could be but layered skin textures. I do of course have many mods, which you will see below. My only theories are memory problem, too many mods, or normal vanilla glitch I've been lucky enough not to have seen.




My PC specs:
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-8320 22 °C
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 577MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. M5A97 R2.0 (Socket 942) 27 °C
Graphics
S22D300 (1920x1080@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (Gigabyte) 26 °C
Storage
465GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB (SSD) 27 °C
2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1CH166 (SATA) 29 °C
7GB USB 2.0 USB Flash Drive USB Device (USB)
Optical Drives
ATAPI iHAS124 W
Audio
ASUS Xonar DG Audio Device



My load order:
FalloutNV.esm=1
HonestHearts.esm=1
DeadMoney.esm=1
OldWorldBlues.esm=1
LonesomeRoad.esm=1
GunRunnersArsenal.esm=1
New Vegas Redesigned 3.esm=1
Casa Madrid Redesigned.esp=1
Gomorrah Redesigned v2.esp=1
MikotoBeauty.esm=1
FCOMaster.esm=0
ELECTRO-CITY - CompletedWorkorders.esm=1
ELECTRO-CITY - Highways and Byways.esm=1
Interior Lighting Overhaul - Core.esm=1
Interior Lighting Overhaul - L38PS.esm=1
Afterschool Special.esm=1
NVInteriors_Core.esm=1
NVInteriors_ComboEdition.esm=1
NevadaSkies.esm=0
Lings.esm=0
SomeguySeries.esm=1
DWCNV.esm=1
Purge Cell Buffers.esp=1
Zan_AutoPurge_SmartAgro_NV.esp=0
Convenient Fast Travel Markers.esp=1
casinofix.esp=1
hiddenvalleybugfix.esp=1
ShaddapYaBleedinMutie.esp=1
CaesarsHead.esp=1
ShaddapYaBleedinTribal.esp=1
MusicRecovery.esp=1
Rat beats Squirrel.esp=1
MysteriousStrangerFix.esp=1
New Vegas Redesigned 3.esp=1
MikotoBeauty.esp=1
FCO - Mikoto Patch.esp=0
majormodder's Junk Food to Barbeque Crisps.esp=1
Improved Sound FX.esp=1
Improved Sound FX - Weapon Sharing Fix.esp=1
Improved Sound FX - Merged Major DLCs.esp=1
Improved Sound FX - GRA.esp=1
Improved Sound FX - EVE.esp=0
ILO - PipBoy Light.esp=0
ADAM - NCR Patrol Armour.esp=1
NCRTrooperOverhaul.esp=1
TrooperOverhaul-Dragbody.esp=1
boa ncrpahelmet.esp=1
Boacombat2glove.esp=1
EVE FNV - ALL DLC.esp=1
dD - Enhanced Blood Main NV.esp=1
The Mod Configuration Menu.esp=1
No more giant manhole covers.esp=1
Cut Sewers Restored.esp=1
Strip Wall Billboards.esp=1
Casino Exchange All.esp=1
Too Many Quest Markers - Main.esp=0
Too Many Quest Markers - Dead Money.esp=0
Too Many Quest Markers - Honest Hearts.esp=0
Too Many Quest Markers - Lonesome Road.esp=0
Too Many Quest Markers - Old World Blues.esp=0
pyDoF.esp=0
IMPACT.esp=1
Hanlon dialogue fix.esp=1
NevadaSkies - Basic Edition.esp=0
NevadaSkies - TTW Edition.esp=0
NevadaSkies - Ultimate DLC Edition.esp=0
NevadaSkies - Western Edition.esp=0
NevadaSkies - Darker Nights.esp=0
FNV Realistic Wasteland Lighting - Full.esp=0
FNV Realistic Wasteland Lighting - Darker Nights.esp=0
ELECTRO-CITY - Darker Nights.esp=1
MiscItemIconsNV.esp=1
LFox Sink Bug Fixes.esp=1
Interior Lighting Overhaul - Ultimate Edition.esp=1
47 ENB Weather.esp=0
Lings-PlayableRaces.esp=0
FNV Vanilla hat fix with all storyline DLCs.esp=1
DLM_Dead Money Deans Blackmail holo fix.esp=1
Fiendsfriend.esp=1
Extra-Characters---Fiends-Quest-ENABLED.esp=1
FastSleepNV.esp=1
NewVegasBounties.esp=1
TheInheritance.esp=1
KingOfTheRing.esp=1
NewVegasBountiesII.esp=1
Badmotha♥♥♥♥a.esp=1
NewVegasKiller.esp=1
Russell.esp=1
TheBetterAngels.esp=1
NewVegasBountiesIII.esp=1
Radio New Vegas Always Enabled.esp=1
ExtendedNVRadio.esp=1
TheBetterAngelsAmbientNoise.esp=1
RussellAmbientNoise.esp=1
NVBIIIAmbientNoise.esp=1
NVBIIAmbientNoise.esp=1
CheckpointGary.esp=1
CheckpointGaryAmbientNoise.esp=1
Uncut Bison Steve Trees.esp=1
Uncut Extra Collection.esp=1
Uncut Greenhouses.esp=1
Uncut Skeletons.esp=1
BM Dish Explosion No tab.esp=0
BM Dish Explosion tab.esp=1
Lore Fix - Asian Daniel.esp=1
Less Assertive Raul Speech Check.esp=1
Grim Reaper's Sprint With Ranks.esp=1
MergePatch1.esp=0
kochandbohr.esp=1
athornysituation.esp=1
awilderwasteland.esp=1
lexx_brahmin-betsy.esp=1
NewVegasBountiesFSOPatch.esp=0
originalintroExtended.esp=0
outsidebets.esp=1
Uncut Wasteland.esp=1
rotfacetoriches.esp=1
avangraffscorned.esp=1
Pacersgambit.esp=1
RequirementsMatter.esp=0
ProjectRealityMkIv5HDR.esp=1
ILO - Project Reality Patch.esp=0

I actually don't fully understand New Vegas's mod limits, but NMM says I have:
Total plugins - 122.
Active plugins - 94.
Total mods - 191.
Installed mods - 191.
Active mods - 155.


Of course, the problem seems to be gone now, but if anyone knows what is it or how serious is it, I would love to know. Thanks in advance. Cheers.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

I hope this isn't frowned upon but...

anyone?

[Dustin81]

Add bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1 in your inis under [General] or just set it to 1 if its already there.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Thanks for the suggestion but that was set months ago. I'm after checking all the .ini files and they haven't reverted or any thing, so it's still there.

Any other suggestions? Are you familiar with the mod limits? I know I'm getting close to the limit if I haven't passed it. Near the end of my post you can see I have 191 mods installed and 155 enabled, in NMM, but a lot of these are textures, and I don't believe any thing counts towards the mod limit besides .esp and maybe .esm files. Never got confirmation on that, though. And then there's the issue of whether it counts towards the limit to have an .esp that isn't enabled, as I have 122 'plugins' but only 94 enabled.

Could mod limits cause this?

Only other thought I had was memory, but the fact that the skin texture rendered beneath the glitched one makes me think otherwise (unless the skin is made of several layered textures as a result of some mod).

My major concern is that a lot of people on-line that have had objects start turning black, eventually could never use those files anymore, so I'd like to sort this out before it gets to that point if it's a danger.

Thanks again.

[Ladez]

Pushing the mod limit or a memory issue are good bets, I think

If you haven't made your game 4GB enabled, you should, with that many mods, a lot of which I'm guessing are texture replacers. With the new 4GB patcher released last month it's easier than ever. Run it once and it's applied forever. I think RoyBatty mentioned that the old loader version doesn't work reliably on Windows 10 anymore, so if you are running 4GB but using the old version on Win10, I'd make the upgrade.

The mod limit that people talk about is actually a plugin limit. Only ESP and ESM files count against this, not your actual number of mods which includes things like texture replacers. Unloaded plugins reportedly count as well.

There's a hard cap at 255 plugins because the mod index assigned to every plugin is an 8-bit integer. However, in practice the cap is at 139 because FalloutNV.esm loads much later than it's supposed to for reasons that nobody can be sure about. It may be a bug, or it may be that Obsidian intentionally or inadvertently reserved that adress space for something else. So you won't come anywhere near the theoretical hard cap.

It tends not to be exactly 139 for everyone, for some it's lower. Although I can't say for sure whether your issue was related to the plugin limit, with your 122 plugins it is entirely possible that you're pushing what the game can handle for your setup. So, I'd keep the unloaded plugins out of the data folder if I were you. May also be worth it to merge some of your smaller mods into single plugins if you're planning to add more mods to your setup.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Thanks a million, Ladez. That was some good information.

Is there a way to confirm that the old 4GB launcher is doing its job? I'm using the old one and I am on Windows 10. I've had basically no other problems that point to this, so I think I want to wait before switching to the new 4GB patcher in hopes that I can test whether or not 4GB is working next time I have this type of problem.

Also, I was correct in my thinking that skin textures are only the one diffuse texture, was I not? Unless only the spec map or something was turning black? I wouldn't expect those to be rendered in a way that that would be possible but I don't really know.

Thanks again.

[Ladez]

Observe the game's memory usage with Windows task manager. Ctrl+Shift+Esc, go to processes tab, sort by memory usage. I don't know if there are better ways of doing it, it's not something that I've personally had cause to do.

As for your second question, I don't really know about that.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Thank you very much. I'll do some research, remove some disabled .esps, &c. Cheers.

[capricorn1971ad ® ٿ]

The 4GB launcher isn't used anymore, but there is a patch that does the same things, from the same guys that did the launcher.

part of it is the Nvidia drivers.

http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62552/? < the patcher.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Thanks, Deo. When I'm satisfied with my tests, I'll grab that.