Cratthorax

I think I was wrong about the "A fine night of debauchery" crash. I'd spend about 4-5 hours to nail the culprit by: 1. removing all mods and tools(ScriptHook, Rampage, version.dll etc.) and testing against this particular mission 2. adding only tools and prerequisites(ScriptHook, version.dll, mod manager files), but not mods 3. bit by bit adding more mods after each testing session 4. finally narrowed down to "softer.asi" and "hard.asi" I suspect the "softer.asi", because Bolmin70 is a rock solid author, but this mod was just a port from another mod ranging back to pre 2021. So if anyone has contact to Bolmin70, you let him know. I guess it's the "No auto reload in Dead Eye"-feature, because this one acted up when you start the ship's bar gunfight by auto reloading when going into dead-eye first time. The other two features "no glow on objects", and the harder difficulty settings, which I only had no stamina/dead eye-core refill on waking up from sleep enabled, I don't think would affect the mission and in return create a crash. Something in the scripted scene of this particular mission corrupts whatever is happening in the background on this particular mod. However, I can't say for sure and so I removed both mods, since they're only minor additions that do not necessarily make the game significantly more easy on my hardcore setup. Also, testing against this mission was a pita given its long approach and you couldn't save/auto save anywhere. So I had to do the whole scripted scene over and over again...probably about 10-12 times, because I wanted to be sure before making any statements.

I might add a bit more to the"ffff" topic. But in before I would like to ask, how many of you guys with the "respawn" bug are in use of the "Hunting Grounds" mod? There are two "ffff-errors" I can verifie are not caused by any modded state. One you will experience in chapter 4, trying to talk to Pearson to go hunting for Crayfish with him. The second one is also chapter 4 related to the "A fine night of debauchery"-mission. For me it would crash in the cutscene after you jumped in the water(so the one you reach the bay). As of yet I have not found a way around it. It behaves the same, no matter if vanilla, modded, mods removed I'd supspected, or trying to skip scene/abandon through it. Both ffff's are mentioned on dozens of posts all across the internet, and they range across all variants of the game, modded, pre 2022, vanilla etc. So, with a high probability, those two crashes are caused by any of the game updates and not a modded state. The Perason error I've got solved by looking to the opposite side of the camp where he is sitting(at the bay), so that Pearson gets "correctly warped" in his place before moving in to talk to him. Why warped? I don't know, but that's what he does. It's not a coinsidence and it is not random. It happens all the time for any of my testing session(which are a cramp in the anus, because of long loading, random player respawn and no proper manual saving) and it was solved one and the same way for all the states(posted upside). During that testing I again figured my initial statement of not adding any mods that add "new stuff" to the world, is correct. Specifically it had me deinstalling two mods that added "blips" to the map. I don't want to publicy shame those mods, but "blips" should give you a hint. Those two mods were newly installed and not in any of the lists I had provided in my previous posts. A solution for issue number 2 I'm currently working at/trying to verifie. The internet says one solution is to do all other quests of chapter 4 first, then move on with debauchery. Obviously to verifie this I have to play the game and I usually take my time in sandbox RPG's so it's maybe going to take some days/weeks depending how much quest focus I can manage to keep up. It's not easy to not drift off in this game. There's just so much to do, discover, and immersive yourself into. However, virtually every other solution provided by the internet does not work, only works partially(such as the issue would randomly return in a different story scenario). Those solutions include: changing your graphics from DX12 to Vulcan and vice versa, verifie game files on Steam, removing all, some, or mods you deem culprit, shving/trimming your hair/beard inb4 doing the quest(yes, that was an actual proposal). The crash was persistent across all sessions and happened exactly in the same spot when the four leave water and Arthur starts to talk.

I should, of course, have pointed that out, yes. I'm using LML, ScriptHook and the version.dll from this website, not the Nexus. I did then replace the .dll inside script hook with an updated version.dll(not using the dx8.dll coming with ScriptHook), though I can not remember where I've gotten it from. One thing I do however remember, is that I did not use the "updated" version of ScriptHook labeled "2.0"(on the Nexus) or so, because it gave me issues right away. I should also have been more specific about "mods adding new content". By that I primarily pointed at mods that are using the random encounter engine. Those were the major source for FFFFFFF's. Mods that just added probs or "static" peds(like in Harlots etc.) were ok so far, aside from the usual menu interferences. But that's messed up vanilla already, so it's not that of a major impact. I also had a lot of trouble with mods trying to port over specific "online jobs". A couple of them were failing most of the time, some were working ok, but none of them went free of bugs or other trouble that I couldn't cope with. I just installed OpenIV the other day and slow but steadily start to build my own mods, primarily using NP++ to compare files against each other. And while doing so I figured there's a lot of mods that are using outdated table files, with entirely missing content introduced by either any of the game patches, or any of the DLC's&Special versions of the game. There were also mods that just blatantly ignorant used table files build with Offline Mod. They seem to have completely ignored the fact it has some major table edits/additions, that, of course, will mess up the game if Offline Mod isn't present. But they never mentioned that on the description page. Description culture on the Nexus is already bad as it is, even for some of the most decent modders. Then you have comments disabled on a lot of those pages. But comments are vital to allow the community to help themselves. I have no idea who started it, but it is not a good idea at all, specially if some of the mod pages are missing bare bone essential instructions, like installing routine, or prerequsites. Mods I've just added this week: 38. Companion System 39. Rampage 40. Injuries And one mod I omitted from last post is "Predator Rework", which makes it so some Predators will flee if you shoot in the air.

See, that's the problem. You don't "warn", you fuzz up people for the wrong reasons. And it's not an author witchhunt, but a "not" user witchhunt, which it is supposed to be. Is there a circus in town? See, the general issue is the game itself and how mod authors need to utilize tick based injection, to forward their scripted changes/additions. Unfortunately the issue gets amplified by the fact that some script mods were never updated(addressing changes in the script variables introduced by game updates), or were updated falsely due to the incompetence of some "updaters". Some of them basically just took the Github source and recompiled under a new version sign, never addressing the issues caused by the old script vars and functions. Then you are having the same issue with texture creating authors. Some create(d) unique content, some never update, some just took the old format, repacked and posted on the Nexus. Some textures were updated with game updates, some of the authors addressed the update, others did not, and authors simply repacking or porting to new game versions certainly in most cases did not do it correctly. Then you are having authors messing with streamed or replaced table files. Some of them use the .ymt's and .meta files from the RDR2 Offline mod, some others were using outdated tables from mods developed before the "big crunch" 2022 update. Some authors just didn't care enough to create updated content and sometimes didn't even care to address the fact they were using Offline mod tables, or "sourced"(repacked *cough cough*) from other mods. This game is not the mod authors/user's paradise we get for games with support of official tools, like virtually everything Bethesda, or Witcher, or Valve games etc. and it certainly doesn't get any better if you try to utilize online content introduced in a rather hacky way(because the game doesn't leave you no other option). One has to consider how sensible one is to bugs, crashes, and other things that one feels "are not right". And only if one is a really hardcore sadomasochist, he shall go on adding an uncountable quantity of mods. You've been warned after all!!! So? Sounds like a crazy mess, doesn't it? Because in essence that is what RDR2 modding is. One "sane" way to do it right is to not make use of any mods pre 2022 update, unless you 100% for sure verified they are working fine and dandy. How do you do this? Well, the only way is to restart the game over and over again with a set of mods and trying to verifie issues. Some .asi based mods are save to install/deinstall mid game, but not all, so it's up to the user to maybe start with a core set of mods and then only adding mods one at a time. And by one at a time I literally mean that. Add one mod, play with it for a week, then move on adding the next one. Do not deinstall but up on experiencing bugs, keep playing the game until it breaks, then start a new. The issue is also, the game does not only suffer from malfunctioning spawns due to most certainly wrong table files, preferably blaming the metapeds.ymt or any other table files, dealing with spawns for example. But it also has the issue to create the notorious FFFFFFFF error, on randomly adding and removing .asi based mods. Some of those .asi mods have table files packed inside, so you can't even say if one of the files you suspect causing issues is present, unless the author has open sourced their development on Github. Hence why you, as a mod user, will not get around the tedious job of verifiying every single mod in your list, against all the others by playing the game and starting over...and over...and over again. I did that by the way. Here's my mod list and aside from the usual "random encounter engine ruins immersion by fudging up menus, or other interaction"-vanilla bug, there isn't an awful lot of really serious problems. I mean, ok, there are Robin's...but that's a different story. You will notice some things: 1. no texture replacers whatsoever, unless part of a mod that had it 2. most mods are by one and the same author, and that's not a coincidence, but reason 3. I avoid mods adding new content either via Map Editor and/or .asi injection like the plague...again...for a reason based on trial and fail 4. I do not use any Online content enablers...also reason, not coincidence The reasoning for 3(and maybe expandable to 4)? FFFFFFF, and FFFFFFF, and FFFFFFF. Random btw. Not controlable or fixable by rearranging mods in the list, removing mods, or use different versions from different authors. Exceptionally every mod that I was testing that added any new form, and it wasn't limited to random encounters, at one point started to mess up the game. Very often FFFFFFFF'ing near camps, often crashing for no reason and without log. Rather frequently creating menu or interaction based issues, less frequently but still annoying simply messing with spawn, like spawn appearing right in your face, randomly disappearing right out of your face, randomly disappearing if you had looked the opposite direction for 3-4 seconds. I mean, literally ghosted those peds out of my sight. And it doesn't stop here, because, unfortunately, the game is in a "typically ported from console to PC" broken state of art. The menu, hotkey and "immersive" animation(I mean, why can I interrupt the initial Domino animation, but not the inbetween for a shortcut? <- one of many examples) shenanigans are often outrageous by design, and so is the way they implemented AMD/Nvidia based graphical enhancers(you best keep it turned off and use Tridingsbums). But the worst of all: that damn cracklig sound bug. Luckily I finally seem to have found a solution to the latter. Start the game and have it running for some minutes before loading a savegame. This fixed the crackling in virtually 100% of my testing since I've found that solution(workaround). So my recommendation: 1. understand that the game itself is a mess and extremely fragile and sensible to "content overload" vs "machine capacity"(aka your computer specs vs how many thousands of mods you use) 2. all .asi mods use tick injection...this means ALL code is executed on a time based update tick...and we are not talking about every minute, 10 seconds, or second etc...we are talking about thousands lines of code injected into the game virtually in real time, because the majority of native scripters for RDR2 chose a high tick rate...most probably because they DO NOT overload their games with thousands of mods, and so couldn't care less...you know, less is more... 3. high resolution textures will produce more workload and eat up virtually all memory regardless of GPU, CPU(cache), or RAM. It also doesn't care if you vary your buffering size or whatever comes to mind that can potentially increase performance, because it's literally David fighting Goliath, only Goliath has a bazillion of bits fired at your system in real time with a big ass Railgun as amplificator 4. "My system can run it and probably eat the game for breakfeast, even when using thousands of mods" is the wrong attitude, because it has to be more like "system can run it but still want to keep a decent buffer to counter the to be expected peaks and spikes in workload" As I said before, I'm not posting a wall of shame, but there are two particular mod authors that you absolutely do not want to use mods from, because their content is producing memory leaks in virtually every mod they provided, I tested, and sometimes had the chance to review the source, due to an overlook on their side. Figure yourself. So please excuse me now, I'm about to reform my hotkey setup. About time things get a bit more organized and efficient in that regard. Damn key combos tend to break my fingers.

I don't claim, I know for sure. And you've been going quite a long distance to prove my point. I never said textures are exclusivley responsible in regard to your issues. I also never said that authors were deliberately using wrong formatting in creating their upscales. What I in essence said, is that mod authors created mods in the past that are no longer updated/maintained and/or broke the game in its initial state, and that the nature of how you have to actually create mods for the game makes it challenging difficult for anyone involved to pinpoint issues, or let alone fix them. And ontop of that the major issues is, that Rockstar kept updating their game and reformatting a lot of their textures and code which has never been addresed by authors in their mods. I'm too much of an experienced user and author to respond to any other of your nonsense, because I also know for sure that "I did that, and tested that, and someone said that so it must be true" isn't a vlaid argument at all. If your game's still messed up you appearantly do something wrong that an author can't address. I don't blame you. It took me two weeks to create a perfectly stable game given Rockstar screwed up a lot of mods with their updates in the past. But I'm certainly not going to create a "wall of shame avoid mod"-post to spare you the inconvenience of forwarding your own trial and fail. But one thing I can say for sure. It's probably a good idea to avoid upscalers alltogether. You're welcome.

Sure it's a one size fits all problem. You guys just spend way to much time making things up an confusing anybody with it. Some of the mods used wrong formats in their upscales in the past, then two updates came that recompiled the textures which you can easily identifie by reviewing the content archives. Some of the mods never updated, some did but only for the first update, and some mods use correct formatting. You can actually google the right format for their last update. The same is true for the game executable btw. So stuff gets even more complicated, specially if native coders don't update their files. The only valid solution here is to not use those mods. And as a mod user you can only verifie which are save to use by trial and fail. So opening a highly speculative thread about some black magic going on doesn't serve any purpose but confusing users. So in essence, everybody is confused about some weird "magic trick" happening in the background messing up their game, while in reality the users(no the authors) inexperience of correctly verifying the state of a mod, or its install procedure is the sole reason for your game breaking. The only thing that really confuses me is this happens with a community modding the game for 5 years plus now. Also, the whole modding community relies on native injection, which usually needs some sophisticted skills in coding and reverse engineering the game files. And I don't think those people want to waste their time teaching you how to internet, computer, or mod a game. To be fair, given it's "not supposed to be modded"-game state, and actually having to hack the engine makes it way more complicated for both, authors and users, but that doesn't omid the fact users should really get informed before wildly installing mods of different quantity and qualities.

In worst case scenario you guys been downloading 7,1GB of texture upscalers ultimatively breaking your game, and your solution to bypass the issues is forcing content creators to implement fishy workarounds? Reshade and ENB both have texture filters/upscalers doing exactly the same as content creators using tools to upscale textures, only more efficient. You actually don't even need Reshade or ENB and can go just perfectly well with inbuilt Nvidia and/or AMD filter setups, which are part of their tuning software. There's a set of quality shaders utilizing both, sharpeners and filters/upscalers, to improve texture quality with near zero impact on your performance.