How to handle dozen of @MODs ?

[ck911 10]

Whats kind of "annoying" me that nearly every Usermission needs

a different bunch of MODs to play. (ok, there are some very good ones which work without any)

Currently i´ve about 20 MODs in @MODS folder.

How can I handle this optimal? Shell i load ALL MODs at once?:confused:

I´m a liitle afraid of doing this, will this not cause trouble? And does this method not demand and use a lot of RAM?

Your Help would be appreciated...

[santafee 10]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6649

[dmarkwick 261]

Group mods together. Place all vehicle mods in the same folder (@Vehicles) all the unit mods together (@Units) all the maps together (@Maps) etc.

I'm not sure whether you mean that you placed all mods into the same @mods folder, or whether you meant you've got a lot of different mod folders. You won't cause too many problems by loading up lots of mods, unless some clash for some reason, but that's relatively rare nowadays.

Edited May 27, 2010 by DMarkwick

[ck911 10]

Thanks, i´ll give ArmaIILauncher atry.

So I should just load all MODs I have at once?

An example:

* SP Mission: SOCOM

Required Addons:

Island Panthera

Afrenain & Molatian Resistance army

Desert Mercenaries and BlackOps

Desert Mercenaries and BlackOps replacement

Faux News Reporters

* SP Mission: Urban Raid

CAA1 project

British Royal Marine Commandos c.2001

* SP mission : Reclaiming the island

US Army '09

* Mission pack: Thirsk coop

KuiK's Winter Camo Pack

Thirsk Island

* Coop mission : FDF Padagorsk

FDF Podagorsk

Community Base addons

F-16 Fighting Falcon

Mobile Missle Launcher "SCUD"

Boeing B-52H Stratofortress "BUFF"

RAF Chinook CH2

* SP mission : The Hill

31st Normandy Mod

31st Normandy Mod patch 1

Beton addons

Hürtgenwald winter

....and so on

At the end there are maybe more than 40 MODs required. No Problem, still can´t believe :-)

On the other Hand, a lot of new missions require the ACE2 package. Normaly I don´t use ACE2. So every time I want to play a mission (which needs ACE2), I ´ve to stop the game and start it new with ace2 Mod activated?

[[frl]myke 14]

Aye, managing mods/addons can be a pain. Thats the downside of such a modable game. Hopefully BIS manages it one day that mods/addons can be loaded "on-the-fly", without the need of restarting but i wouldn't hold my breath on it.

[old_painless 182]

I would be interested in knowing, too, if having many mods on the command line costs RAM always. Or if they only tax the system if a mission actually uses them?

Cheers,

OP

[[frl]myke 14]

It costs RAM, true, but it isn't as dramatic as one might think. AFAIK, when loading the mods, only the config files are loaded at that point. Per addon this can be 1 kb or 500kb or even more. Didn't encountered a Mod/addon yet that had configs of several MB.

That said, loading or not loading mods/addons will probably make a difference of ~10MB typically, or at least within this range.

3D model data, textures and scripts are only loaded once the object really is in use.

So on todays PC's, i guess you don't have to care about the impact of data loaded with a lot of addons.

[focher 15]

Six updater at dev-heaven.net

[[frl]myke 14]

Six updater at dev-heaven.net

Erm...this is the answer to which question?

[Daniel 0]

Managing mods is hardly a pain. It's not as if it takes any physical or mental exertion, it's just a minute or two's typing to delete a word or copy a shortcut.

As has been said, you can dump addons into the same mod folder.

[ck911 10]

So you mean I can make one (1!) mod folder (for example @mod) and

put ALL PBOs in there???

[Daniel 0]

You can. Obviously if you're into your mission making, you'll want to keep a cap on what's required and keep an eye on what gets written to the mission.sqm file.

I've never needed any mod manager programs except SIX Updater to keep my ACE up to date.

[mant3z 1]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6649

edited!

Bla bla bla, I'm stupid... admin plz delete my post. This tool works perfectly :D

Edited May 28, 2010 by mant3z

[Dwarden 1124]

Yoma Addon Sync could be your chance

http://dev-heaven.net/projects/yoma-addonsync2009/files

[JojoTheSlayer 35]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=8241

I recommend this one.

It makes you able to set up folders for what types of mods you have, example:

ACE

Soldiers

Weapons

Islands

etc...

Which makes it allot easier to have the @mod folders at default names and still, after a while, know what they are. Apart from having the folders you put every mod in to keep them in order you can also make folders that are duplicates of the others, but only contain the mods you need to play some mission, or join a server. Faster than using profiles I think. It also has a server browser and a 3rd part program launchers for programs like TS or Ventrillo.

[wickedstigma 10]

Group mods together. Place all vehicle mods in the same folder (@Vehicles) all the unit mods together (@Units) all the maps together (@Maps) etc.

I'm not sure whether you mean that you placed all mods into the same @mods folder, or whether you meant you've got a lot of different mod folders. You won't cause too many problems by loading up lots of mods, unless some clash for some reason, but that's relatively rare nowadays.

I prefer this one for now. Maybe Ill use the launcher later.

[wickedstigma 10]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=8241

I recommend this one.

It makes you able to set up folders for what types of mods you have, example:

ACE

Soldiers

Weapons

Islands

etc...

Which makes it allot easier to have the @mod folders at default names and still, after a while, know what they are. Apart from having the folders you put every mod in to keep them in order you can also make folders that are duplicates of the others, but only contain the mods you need to play some mission, or join a server. Faster than using profiles I think. It also has a server browser and a 3rd part program launchers for programs like TS or Ventrillo.

WOW! I take back what I said, this one is too awesome! Im glad I downloaded it.

[ck911 10]

Thanks for your hints!

I´ve worked with both ArmaIILauncher (Spirited+Funpic), nice tools but it still doesn´t help me out!!!

To explain it in details:

- I´m playing 99% only SP and Campaigns (I like it this way)

- i.e. I want to play Campaign "Team Seal Six 1", i downloaded

all needed mods and put every mod in it´s own mod folder. (as it is suggested by Bohemia)

- then I select the needed ones together with my preferred addons (like Warfxparticle, gl4, HiFi) in the Arma2Launcher, but getting error an message (missing classes, etc.) when i try to start this Campaign and the game goes back to homemenue.

- So I put all PBO´s from the different mods into one folder (@allmodstogether), then it works!

WHY this?

One again I tested it:

....start the game with ARMA2START Tool and all MODs selected -> still getting errors with some missions

....start the game only with -@allmodstogether selected -> it works fine

This is something i do not understand????!!!!

[Alex72 1]

So make it the old fashioned reliable way. Right click your ARMA2 shortcut (that starts the game - maybe on your desktop?). Choose properties. Under the shortcut tab you find the target field wich holds the path to your ARMA2.EXE.

One of my modlines (got some in a text file) is as follows:

"x:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\beta\arma2.exe" -mod=beta;@CBA;@ACE;@ACEX;@ACEX_PLA;@ACEX_SM;@XTRA;Islands;@FX;@SAP;@TRSM -nosplash -cpucount=4 -exThreads=7 -world=empty

"x" being drive letter so i made it x as i dont know where your ARMA exe is - just to clarify. Ok first you have -mod= (with 1 space between itself and the path!) wich is the parameter to run mods. Next comes beta and this is only if you run the beta of course and you can also see its in my path. Again this is cause i run betas over official patches - just ignore if you dont. Otherwise just add your folder(s) directly like this:

-mod=@AllMyMods -nosplash -cpucount=4 -world=empty

If you want 2 mod folders then separate them with a semicolon ";" so it looks like this:

-mod=@AllMyMods;@SomeOtherMod -nosplash -cpucount=4 -world=empty

-nosplash loads the game faster and so does -world=empty. You can add the island of your choice though like -world=utes and it will be loaded at start so its faster to go into the editor or start a mission on that particular island. -cpucount=4 is for quad cores with HT on so you might want to skip that one too if your running a dual core or have HT off. -exThreads=7 is for the latest beta only so again - skip if you dont use it.

This is the good old fashioned "hardcore" way, and it works all the time. Good luck. :)

Edited June 4, 2010 by Alex72

[ck911 10]

Mhh, but is there any difference between your "oldfashion" way and what ARMA2Launcher is doing?

BTW, I´m not able to put all my mods into the Targetline of the ARMA2 Shortcut Link, can you?:

....... -mod=@camels;@cba;@duala;@fastrope;@gdthelimod;@gl4;@hifi_air;@hifi_sfx;@hifi_vehicle_weapons;@hifi_weapons_long;@jtd;@landtex;@littlebirds;@nosunblind;@panthera;@sommerveg;@warfxparticles;@kuerzeres_grass;@desert mercenaries and blackops;@extra_units_and_vehicles;@raf chinook ch2;@scud;@sjb_sas_v1.04_arma2;@fdf_isle1_a;@namalsk;@rh_hk416_1.1;@rh_m4;@rh_m4m16_1.0;@rh_mgswp;@seals v1.0;x\caa1\arma_campaign_animations;x\caa1\arma_objects;x\caa1\arma_objectscti;x\caa1\arma_plantsautumn;x\caa1\arma_plantsclassic;x\caa1\arma_vehiclefeatures;x\caa1\arma_vehicles;x\caa1\arma_worldintros;x\caa1\arma_worlds;x\caa1\extra_worlds;x\caa1\qg_objects;x\caa1\qg_worlds;x\oac\oac_core "-name=CK" -nosplash -world=empty -cpuCount=4

(That´s no joke!!!!)

So maybe the ARMA2Launcher have problems when you want to start with more than 30 mods at once?

[Inkompetent 0]

Think your @desert mercenaries and blackops is the problem here. You can't have any spaces in the modline. All other spaces in your actual message is automatically added by the forum afaik.