How to Install Frosty Mods

Welcome to another modding tutorial! Today we’re going to do a Frosty Installation guide. As a fair warning, this tutorial is going to go step-by-step into modding, so it’s as beginner friendly as possible. I also have a detailed video you can watch to follow along as well.

This method should work on all Frosty modded games, including Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda!

Preparing To Mod:

You’ll need a few things before we get started modding for the game. The first is some kind of compressed file opening program, as you’ll run into both .rar and .zip files while modding this game. I personally suggest using 7-Zip as it’s free and easy to use.

You’ll also need to create a ‘Frosty Mod Manager’ folder to install your mod manager too. I’d suggest installing it somewhere easy to find and not in your game folder.

Installing Frosty Mod Manager:

Now it’s time to download the mod manager! You can find it either on the Frosty Tool Suite website or on GitHub. I’ll leave a link for both in the description box. It’s worth noting that you might want to check both locations before downloading to make sure you’re getting the most up to date version of Frosty!

Once that’s downloaded, open up the compressed file, and drag and drop your files into your ‘Frosty Mod Manager’ folder. Then open up the FrostyModManager.exe file to run it. If you run into a ‘Windows protected your PC’ pop up, select ‘more info’ and then ‘run anyway’.

You’ll pull up, at this point, a blank window with a few options in the bottom. You can either hit ‘scan for games’ to let Frosty Mod Manager automatically find your games, OR, you can select ‘new’. If you opt to hit ‘new’ to manually find your game, and you aren’t sure of your game’s file path, there’s a few different ways to find it.

Finding Game’s File Path:

If you’re on Steam, you can right click the game, go to manage, then browse local files, and it should pop up the game folder. To make it even easier, you can highlight the address bar at the top and hit ctrl+c to copy it, then highlight the address bar in the mod manager window and press ctrl+v to paste it, then hit enter. It will then bring you to the game folder, where you can select the game’s exe and select open.

For Origin, EA’s old gaming client, the best way is to go to the top of the program, hit ‘Origin’, then ‘Application Settings’. From there you’ll have an option for installs & saves, which should give you the game library location. Navigate to that in the mod manager and then select your game folder of choice, and the game’s exe should be in there!

If you’re using the new EA gaming client, EA App, look in the upper right corner of the game in the ‘My Collection’ section, click the three dots, then hit view properties, and it’ll give you the install location. Alternatively, in the ‘Installed Games’ section you can select the game, and then ‘manage’, then select view properties to get the game location. You can then hit the browse option, use ctrl+c to copy the pathway link in the address bar, then use ctrl+v to paste it in the address bar of the mod manager window and hit enter. Then select the game’s exe and hit open.

Once that’s done, click on the game of your choice, then press ‘select’ in the bottom right corner to open the mod manager. The first time you load into the mod manager it’ll need to load some data. Fair warning, this can take a few minutes to do!

Installing Mods:

Now that Frosty is set up, it’s time to install mods! Download your mod or mods of choice. I’d suggest starting with one mod that’s easy to see if it’s correctly installed or not, for proof that everything works.

You can first try to drag and drop the mod as downloaded into your Frosty Mod Manager. I’ve recently found that this seems to be working less and less, and is often the reason you might get an “unhandled exception” error when adding a mod. Instead, you can uncompress the mod file using your program of choice (such as 7-Zip or WinRAR), drag and drop the file that’s inside somewhere like an empty folder or your downloads folder, and then drag and drop that file into the mod manager. From there, you should now see it showing in the Available Mods window on the left-hand side.

Once the mod is viewable, double click it. It should now be showing in the Applied Mods section on the right-hand side. Ensure that the mod is checked off, and, when you’re ready, hit the ‘launch’ button in the upper left-hand portion of the window. From there, Frosty should launch into the game. An additional window will pop up to show it’s running, and you might even get an additional window asking for permission; grant it and then you should load into the game. Now you should be all set to see if your mod was successfully applied to your game! Please note that depending on the mods and amount of them you’re using it can sometimes take a few minutes for Frosty to launch your game.

Uninstalling Mods:

To uninstall your mod, simply either uncheck it in the Applied Mods section or, while it’s selected, hit the ‘x’ option at the top to remove from your load order but NOT your mod manager. If you’d like to delete the mod from the mod manager all together, in the Available Mods section on the left-hand side, select it, and, closer to the top, hit the ‘remove mod’ option.

Please note: every time you use Frosty, you have to launch the game from Frosty Mod Manager or your mods won’t appear in game. I’ve also found that it works better overall if I make sure either Origin, EA App, or Steam is loaded into prior to hitting the launch button. Also, it’s worth noting, that if the mod manager has issues loading, make sure to try it in administrator mod by right clicking FrostyModManager.exe, and selecting run as administrator.

Troubleshooting & Advice:

1.) Sometimes, a way to get Frosty “unstuck” if it won’t load into a game, is to go into your game folder and delete the ‘mod data’ folder. Frosty will create a new Mod Data folder, as it’s needed to run it, but it acts as more of a refresh and can sometimes snap it into working if you’re having issues.

2.) If you’ve installed any kind of hair mod or texture based mod, and it’s only showing up in certain cases, you’ll need to make sure your meshes are set to ultra in the game’s graphics settings, as that usually fixes the issue!

3.) Load order is only important if you have two mods doing the same thing and want one to take priority over the other. In that case, select the mod (but don’t uncheck it) and use the two arrows at the top of the mod manager to move them to your spot of choice. The general rule of thumb is that mods that are at the bottom of your list are loaded in last, so they’ll actually take priority (i.e. overwrite your other mods).

4.) I’d also highly suggest backing up your patch folder now somewhere safe. That way if you decide to do both Frosty & DAI Modding in the future or just need a fresh patch folder you’re all set! Patch folder location can vary from game to game for DAI it’s located in the game folder, inside the “update” folder.

5.) If you’re using the new EA App or Steam and Frosty Mod Manager isn’t launching correctly into the game, or your mods aren’t showing make sure your launch platform is set correctly. If you’re just using EA App, then switch it to EA App, if you’re using steam try either steam or EA App and see which will work for you — I’d suggest starting with EA App as most people have had better luck with that. In order to do this, go to Tools in the upper bar, then select Options, then the Launch Option Tab. Enable Platform Launching and set the Platform to the one you need, then hit save. If you mod multiple Frosty games note that you’ll have to do this for each of them.

6.) If you load into a game and you’re finding it’s taking forever on the “waiting for platform or game ” part, I’d suggest closing out of that window specifically to cancel the launch, then re-launching. I’ve found that it loads in no problem after. If however, it won’t cancel the launch, close out of frosty all together, then try again — I have had this take me a few tries occasionally!

7.) If you find an unhandled exception error when switching games just re launch the mod manager and it should fix it for you. One way to avoid it is if you’re modding for two frosty games, close out of the mod manager and then switch to a new game after relaunching it!

8.) You can also try installing .DAI mods into Frosty when modding Dragon Age: Inquisition — it can be hit or miss if it works, depending on the mod, but it is worth trying. However, it’s worth noting how finicky it can be, so just keep that in mind. The mod may not work, or it could cause other strange issues.

Last thing I’d like to mention: Frosty, especially for Dragon Age: Inquisition, can be very VERY fickle at times, frustrating, and sometimes just unwilling to work. I’ve had days where it’s worked for a while, next day it stopped working, day after that it worked again. I can’t explain it — but it happens, so be patient with it and sometimes a good old fashioned computer restart, or giving it a night to think about what it’s done, will do wonders!

Good luck and happy modding!
Complex-

Watch the Video Instructions Here: