Essential Mods&Tools For Fallout New Vegas

A guide to show all performance and stability boosting mods that are essential to making Fallout New Vegas a more stable game and tools and mod managers to help with modifying your game.

2024 NOTE
This guide was made a long time ago and I have updated it every now and then, but since 2018, Fallout New Vegas has had much more attention drawn to it and thus, mod guides were made that far surpass anything any Steam guide could do. In 2018, this guide was a good resource for getting the essentials needed for the game, but nowadays, just use Viva New Vegas. It is the best modding guide for this game, gets constantly updated, and is made by someone who knows what their talking about. If you only want the basic setup and essentials, then you can get only that from the guide. If you want gameplay overhauls, UI mods, and visual mods, then that guide has it all too. I will be keeping this guide up as memorabilia, but yeah just use Viva New Vegas lol.

https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/index.html

Introduction

This guide assumes you have basic computer literacy and know how to at the very least find your New Vegas folder. Be aware that your game can crash if mods are installed incorrectly.

New Vegas Anti Crash (NVAC)

New Vegas Anti Crash

New vegas Anti Crash is a mod that is absolutely essential no matter what. Even if one is doing a vanilla playthrough they should still get this mod. It will get rid of many of the crashes you will experience throughout the game. This is however a NVSE plugin so you must have the script extender installed.



https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/53635/

New Vegas Script Extender (NVSE)

New Vegas Script Extender

New Vegas Script Extender is another absolutely essential mod that is required by most other mods. A lot of mods on the nexus require the script extender including some of the mods on this list. Installing New Vegas Script Extender should be done manually. Installing it is a simple drag and drop into your game folder.

DO NOT PUT THE FILES IN YOUR DATA FOLDER
The NVSE files must be dropped into the main directory where your exe file is located.

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/67883

Yukichigai Unofficial Patch (YUP)

Yukichigai Unofficial Patch

This is a unofficial patch which is a giant compilation of patches and bug fixes for Fallout New Vegas and it's dlc's. This is STRICTLY a compilation of patches. There is no restored uncut content or balance tweaks.

Here is a list of just some of the fixes from the nexus page-
- Fixes the Dead Money perk In Shining Armor so that it actually does something
- Corrects the female mesh for the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion so that it's not held at an angle
- Fixes Boone's head tracking and stops him from holstering his weapon every 5 seconds in combat
- Alters Fixer so that it cures addiction temporarily as it says, not permanently
- Ultrajet addiction can now be cured by doctors
- Stops various NPCs and creatures who begin the game dead from miraculously resurrecting 3 days later
- Ensures the Brotherhood of Steel Explosive Collar won't detonate after its removed from your neck
- Prevents the Old World Blues trait Skilled from being taken, then removed to leave a permanent +5 to all skills.

This is all with only 1 ESM!


https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/51664/

New Vegas Tick Fix (NVTF)

New Vegas Tick Fix
New Vegas Tick Fix aims to solve a few issues. The first is micro stutter which is a constant annoyance when playing the game. This can be easily noticed by going in-game and strafing side to side. The second thing it does is help increase performance and decrease menu load times. Lastly, this lets you play the game at frame rates over 60 without worrying about the physics breaking. The engine the game was made on had many core parts of the game tied to the frame rate, so going above 60 would cause major issues. This mod gives you the option of going above 60, which can be nice for users with higher refresh rate monitors and powerful computers.


https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66537 - NVTF

Better Saves (BT)

Better Saves
Previously, I recommended that people should install Manual Save Key. This mod works fine however the keybind is set to F11 which I don't really like, and the mod doesn't have the feature to allow for auto saves. This led to me constantly reaching across my keyboard to spam F11 and whenever I forgot to save, I get sent back all the way to the last time I pressed it. For those who don't know, auto saves in Fallout New Vegas (and every Fallout game that has them) are very buggy and can cause save file corruption, leading to lost progress or even an entire character gone. CASM was the go-to mod that people recommended however me and many others believe it to not be as stable as some people think it is. I recommended Manual Save Key but it lacks auto saves. Better Saves is the solution I have been looking for. It creates a manual save using the keybind that is set for your auto save and it has a MCM menu so you can customize when it does auto saves and how many saves it should create before deleting the previous ones. If setup properly it will function exactly the same as the default save system but instead it will all be safer manual saves.



https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66121

FNV 4GB Patcher (FNV4GB)

FNV 4GB Patcher

There have been many patches and solutions to make Fallout New Vegas 4GB. Fallout New vegas by default used only 2GB. By using this patcher you can simply run it and it will patch your exe file to run at 4GB instead allowing much smoother gameplay especially with high resolution texture packs such as NMC or Ojo Bueno. The front pages for these texture packs actually stongly recommend or even require you have your game 4GB. This patcher DOES NOT go in the data folder. It goes into your main directory with your exe file and you run it once and it will patch your exe and create a backup. Once that is done your game will be patched. With your game being 4GB it will not get out of memory crashes (unless you really mod the game with 2000 8k texture packs) and will run much smoother even if you decide not to install the high resolution texture pack mods.


https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62552/?

Mod Configuration Menu (MCM)

Mod Configuration Menu

The Mod Configuration Menu is a menu that is added when you pause your game and allows you to tweak options with mods that are supported by it. For example a mod may have a MCM menu for adjusting the damage values or hotkeys of whatever items/features it adds. Essentially the mod is adding a user interface for you to adjust mod values without exiting your game and adjusting INI files. Instead you can do it in the game, as long as the mod supports it.


https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/42507

What Mod Manager Should I Use?

Mod Organizer 2
Mod Organizer 2 was once too buggy and broken to use effectively due to memory leaks. The developer of Mod Organizer left to work on Vortex, the new replacement for the old Nexus Mod Manager. The problem with Nexus/Vortex is they lack features Mod Organizer has, they don't have an effective way of organizing overwritten files, and there isn't a feature to inject the files and instead they just dump everything in your folder. This can cause problems if you have a few mods that overwrite each other/

Example
Lets say you have all your essential mods installed and want to get into installing some graphics mods. You install NMC's Texture Pack as a base and want to install Ojo Bueno and use those textures to overwrite the NMC Textures. The reason people do this is because Ojo Bueno doesn't cover as many textures as NMC's, so usually most install NMC's first and anything Ojo Bueno doesn't overwrite is already covered by NMC's. If you install NMC's first and then install Ojo Bueno, Vortex will ask you if you want the files overwritten. This sounds like a small issue but when you have 40+ graphics mods, then you will have to make sure that you only overwrite the ones you want and don't accidentally overwrite something you don't want overwritten. A small mistake in overwriting means you now have a bunch of files in your game directory and you have lost track of what is what. Think of it like counting money, you lost track halfway through and its easier to just start over from the beginning. Except wiping your game directory and reinstalling 100 mods takes almost your entire day and is unfeasible to do every time a small mistake is made.

What Features Does It Offer?
The main feature Mod Organizer 2 offers over other mod managers is that it doesn't actually just dump the files into your data folder. It instead "injects" the files from the mods you have once you run the game through it. This means no actual files are inside your New Vegas folder, there all applied when you run it through the Mod Organizer. This feature leads to so many possibilities such as profiles where you can have your Grognak melee build use a bunch of combat overhaul mods and animation mods, and then switch profiles for a vanilla game if you want to start your speedrunning career. You can do all of this with no crashes or worry about overwritten files getting in the way, and there is a neat section in the Mod Organizer that tracks all your save files and what mods are used on each so you don't get them mixed up.

Is There Any Reason To Use Something Else?
If you only want performance mods, the essentials, and never plan on heavily modding the game, you could get away with just manually installing the mods. If you install graphics mods, overhauls, and all the other stuff, you should use a mod manager. As far as I know, no mod manager out there uses the same method Mod Organizer 2 uses and because of that, Mod Organizer 2 will remain the best choice. If you ever plan on installing more mods than what is on this guide, then I would use a mod manager.

Extra Tools To Help With Modding

Now that you have chosen your mod manager/organizer, you can get some extra tools to help make your game more stable!

Tool #1 Load Order Optimization Tool (LOOT)
The Load Order Optimization Tool (LOOT) is used to do exactly as it says, optimize your load order! Your load order is the order in which your mods will load. If your load order is incorrect, mods can get overwritten or messed up and even worse crash your game and make it unstable. LOOT is usually really good at determining your load order, however sometimes it can make mistakes and in that case manual action must be taken. Some people may say LOOT is bad because manually configuring the load order always leads to greater stability, which is true. However, asking every user to manually edit their load order when starting out can be a burden, and LOOT usually gets it good enough to run through the game with no issues, unless someone has a truly large mod list. For this reason, I can still recommend it.
https://loot.github.io/ (Load Order Optimization Tool)

Tool #2 FNV Edit
FNV Edit is a program that lets you check for errors such as mods that are incompatible and also allows you to create merged patches which can help make mods work nicely together. Make sure that if you create a merged patch that is on the BOTTOM of your load order. LOOT will detect merged patches and will automatically put them at the bottom. FNV Edit is a really useful tool :).
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34703/ (FNV Edit)

Conclusion

This guide took a really long time to make. That's okay though because it was fun. I also edited this guide to update some new mods and adjust some of the sections since they were dumb. - November 2019

My final words are don't buy Fallout 4. It is sucks. Also make sure to maintain vitamin D level and drink plenty of water bros.

[BadaBing]

@sebine go back to playing roblox or what ever it is you children play then lol

[catloaf]

The script extender has no possible way to make your game crash. If it is installed improperly, it simply wouldn't load at all, if it does load, it makes the game have more tools to work with. This is the same for the other tools.

[Klootzak]

i only download light mods that does not require the script extender or any other bullshit cause the game crashes over and over again and if you would go to nexus mods and look at the post people make there are a insane amount of problems that come with the anti crash and patcher

[catloaf]

I have played this game for thousands of hours even without a single patch, and have never had that happen. I guess you got unlucky

[Sebine]

it's kinda moot now.. the game fucked me and i deleted it.

Stole all my weapons when I entered a club
"You'll get them back."

yeah well i fucking didnt... and then the game froze me in place for some reason

so yeah.. fuck this game.
Fuck the piss poor programming and fuck everyone who puts it on a pedestal it doesn't deserve.

[catloaf]

@Serbine I don't see how item durability is dumb, but the stealing from powder gangers losing karma is dumb, but I don't think there is a mod for it. There's a mod to hide the notification and sound of karma changes which is good, and in vanilla FNV, you have to try extra hard to get anything close to evil karma due to how the values of the karma system are written (they aren't bugged but not working as intended, which is why your karma seems to always be good).

[Sebine]

Are there any mods that remove all the fucking autism from NV?
item durability
karma loss for stealing from GANGS OF MURDERERS

etc

[catloaf]

@bulger I have a lot of mods, and a lot of them are textures and not really plugins. I don't think I could really show the load order and show what I am using accurately. I made a graphics mods guide but I kind of disagree with some of the opinions now and some mods have changed for better and worse. I say just download the patches and bug fixes recommended here, download the basic texture mods, get nevada skies and interior lighting overhaul for lighting, and get Justmods for gameplay changes. If you really want some more advice send me a friend request and I can try to help you out.

[mike]

@Dogloaf damn drop the load order

[catloaf]

@bulger In my own modded game, I have pretty much 0 crashes or major frame drops. The game will always have slowdowns in areas like Vegas and Hoover Dam, but it's pretty stable for the most part. I have around 150 mods installed total. It is a very unstable game though and no matter what anyone says, no matter the mods, you will never have a completely smooth and bug-less game. You can get very close like I did, but even mine will have a few occasional stutters and frame drops in big battles, with some clipping of NPC outfits and hairs. Vanilla New Vegas is still fine and the only thing that I have gotten used to from the mods is using DarnUI. I can't stand the bulky, console port, vanilla UI lol.