So, I went back to one of my older overhauls I did (I noticed it has over 50k downloads lol, it was 2nd one I made out of the 5 attempts). The first one played good too, but it was kinda boring and bland. And...what to do you know...its actually more playable than anything I did after it. I get a lot more FPS with it...a lot less lag/jerkiness...more mods (238 total)...and...it looks better? No idea how I did it. It has a lot more script mods, looks great and plays better...yet everything I tried (with almost NO script mods and a LOT less mods) after kept failing and bad FPS. Heck, even expanded towns and cities is playable and it never was in any of my future overhaul attempts.
Guess my 2nd overhaul is the one I should have just stuck with LOL. Only reason I remade it, was too much XXX stuff...but guess everyone I uploaded it thinks its hilarious and can just turn it all off anyway. Easy enough to turn it off, and there is still tons of gameplay. With it all off, I get 40-50 FPS in exteriors (all my other overhauls I got 20-30 FPS and CTDs everywhere)...
Even did a speed run, dropped to 20 FPS lowest ...but no crashes in high timescale and zooming everywhere.
Guess I must have hit a sweet spot in mods in my 2nd overhaul...cause like I said...my 3rd/4th and 5th overhauls had WAY less mods and I avoided all the script heavy mods...and they all played worse. Hilarious lol.
(edit: Wonder if some of the script mods I'm using optimize the game somehow. In all my overhauls, I use the SKSE memory patch+ENB boost+safety load. I don't add any other performance/stability mods at all...but only the most script heavy overhaul (the 2nd one I made) was playable at all. The 1st used a ton of scripts too and played a lot better. I use about same mods in each, but after the 2nd I went with less is more and very little scripts (one overhaul had no script mods at all). One only had 150 mods, none script related and played terribly. I don't understand lol...oh well...maybe the world will never know...)