How to mod vice city without having a stroke (and another questions)

[catb0mb]

I beat vice city recently with the "definitive edition" modpack and loved it, but one of the problems i have with it is the useage of the III-styled weapon icons from the mobile port. Removing some of the txd files directly sometimes removes the textures from unrelated weapons, and alongside that seems to make the game crash at random. Trying to install other mods from just a clean install and downgrading brings me similar issues, I can play the same mission several times and have it crash at different points. Does anyone have any tips to make modding easier? Are there any good mod managers for vice city? I hate having to do a clean install every time something I install makes the game crash on startup. Apologies if this is a bit of a noob question, it feels like many steam guides and forum posts are vague with issues I have and I want to find an easier way to do all of this.

[CharlesVercetti]

9 hours ago, catb0mb said:

I beat vice city recently with the "definitive edition" modpack and loved it, but one of the problems i have with it is the useage of the III-styled weapon icons from the mobile port. Removing some of the txd files directly sometimes removes the textures from unrelated weapons, and alongside that seems to make the game crash at random. Trying to install other mods from just a clean install and downgrading brings me similar issues, I can play the same mission several times and have it crash at different points. Does anyone have any tips to make modding easier? Are there any good mod managers for vice city? I hate having to do a clean install every time something I install makes the game crash on startup. Apologies if this is a bit of a noob question, it feels like many steam guides and forum posts are vague with issues I have and I want to find an easier way to do all of this.

Surprising that you haven't heard about modloader

https://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=25377

[catb0mb]

35 minutes ago, CharlesVercetti said:

Surprising that you haven't heard about modloader

https://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=25377

been using that already for a bit but not every mod uses it from what i can tell. what I have an issue with more then anything else is that the game loves to crash at random intervals even if i have what's considered a "clean" modpack install. I can play the same mission several times, but it'll crash at different points every time, until i pass. is there any like anti-crash patches or tips to prevent this?

[CharlesVercetti]

3 minutes ago, catb0mb said:

 but it'll crash at different points every time, until i pass. is there any like anti-crash patches or tips to prevent this?

 

I assume that these modpacks make use of high quality textures... The memory management of the old games is such that at some point of time an overflow would occur and the game would crash. LimitAdjuster is the prescribed solution, but I can't guarantee 100% efficiency. You should look for mods increasing stream memory, some cleo scripts are available

[LeatherJacketSoldier]

3 hours ago, catb0mb said:

the game loves to crash at random intervals

Hmm... I had this trouble both in GTA VC and GTA SA, and even in Bully SE. I solved it by entering the DEP tab somewhere in Performance in the Control Panel (DEP stands for data execution prevention), and then checking something like "enable DEP for all programs and services except the ones I specify". Then you have to add to the list your game executable. This also worked for me for Counter Strike 1.6.

[catb0mb]

10 hours ago, CharlesVercetti said:

 

I assume that these modpacks make use of high quality textures... The memory management of the old games is such that at some point of time an overflow would occur and the game would crash. LimitAdjuster is the prescribed solution, but I can't guarantee 100% efficiency. You should look for mods increasing stream memory, some cleo scripts are available

I'll give some of those a look. I think Limitadjuster came with the modpack already but I could be mistaken.

6 hours ago, LeatherJacketSoldier said:

Hmm... I had this trouble both in GTA VC and GTA SA, and even in Bully SE. I solved it by entering the DEP tab somewhere in Performance in the Control Panel (DEP stands for data execution prevention), and then checking something like "enable DEP for all programs and services except the ones I specify". Then you have to add to the list your game executable. This also worked for me for Counter Strike 1.6.

This makes the game crash a lot less for certain but now it makes it crash consistently at the end of jury fury's last cutscene, right as the dude runs away after you smash his car. I think I might be better off If I just started from a pure clean install and find all the mods from this pack I like, but so many of them seem different lol. Like the xbox car pack this pack has looks a lot different from the one on gtagarage unless im crazy.

Edited February 26, 2021 by catb0mb

[catb0mb]

7 hours ago, catb0mb said:

I'll give some of those a look. I think Limitadjuster came with the modpack already but I could be mistaken.

This makes the game crash a lot less for certain but now it makes it crash consistently at the end of jury fury's last cutscene, right as the dude runs away after you smash his car. I think I might be better off If I just started from a pure clean install and find all the mods from this pack I like, but so many of them seem different lol. Like the xbox car pack this pack has looks a lot different from the one on gtagarage unless im crazy.

Update: I'm actually braindead. I thought only specific mods could only work with modloader and others had to be installed manually by overwriting files. Turns out you can just put mod folders into the modloader folder and it'll load normally. I am an idiot. This works a lot better now lmfao. Thanks for the help you guys.

[LeatherJacketSoldier]

1 hour ago, catb0mb said:

Update: I'm actually braindead. I thought only specific mods could only work with modloader and others had to be installed manually by overwriting files. Turns out you can just put mod folders into the modloader folder and it'll load normally. I am an idiot. This works a lot better now lmfao. Thanks for the help you guys.

Interesting. I've read before that with ModLoader you can do virtually anything, but I prefer to do it the old way, by editing and/or replacing files. It's kinda more challenging, Smoke describes it best: "Keep the value in it. Keep it real.". In fact, my way of modding was the mere reason I created an account on this forum (I ran into trouble, as everyone surely did at least once when modding my way).