Hey guys, I need some help here. Last night I spent several long hours going through one of those MGSO alternative mod-lists and everything for the most part went smoothly and my game looked great. Unfortunately though, the one glaring problem I noticed was that Darknut's textures hadn't taken effect. Some armors looked good but that is probably because I installed other texture mods after Darknut's. I've searched around for why his textures aren't working for me to no avail. I followed the readmes to a T. For his weapon textures mod, meshes went into meshes/w and I extracted the contents of the 1024 resolution weapon textures to the textures folder in my Morrowind data files and overwrote. When I loaded up the game, the vanilla textures were still being used. Eventually I decided to delete my Morrowind folder and all my mods and do a clean install (using Steam version, by the way). So today I tried to download MGSO because I had used it in the past and Darknut's textures were working, but I guess today is just not my day because I'm having problems with the MGSO installer (permanent "please wait" message when trying to extract MGSO files). So now I'm back to square one, ready to go through another long modding session to beautify Morrowind, but I'm hesitant because his textures won't work. I know Darknut's textures are the best around, but are there any other close seconds that I could use? Or does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Not many other people seem to have problems with his textures.

Hello and welcome to the community! Here's a fishy stick!

MGSOv3 is outdated, but it's weird if you're having an issue if you're manually installing the files. Is your pc renaming the new files as they are placed in the correct folders? Ex. abc.file instead of being replaced the replacer file is titled abc.file (1) or (2), cause that could be an issue. Maybe your pc really doesn't like mgsov3, try a clean install without installing mgso and just scroll through the graphics and textures page on the nexus, maybe you'll see something you like that isn't Darknut's, just remember to install MGE XE and MCP. There is a credits list to MGSOv3 somewhere on the internet

What is your Morrowind installation path?

I remember Darkunt's armor textures being in separate folders for each armor (iron, steel, orcish etc) and you had to manually take out textures from each folder to Data Files\Textures. Having the sub-folders in "Textures" wouldn't work.

Also, since you use Steam version, you should re-date the .bsa files to their original dates, so the game will actually look for "loose" files. By default, Morrowind will only load loose files if they have a newer date stamp than the base .bsa files. But since you actually downloaded the files (not installed from disc) they have date stamps more recent that most of the mods out there, and the game omits them even though the files like textures are in correct folders. Morrowind Code Patch (MCP) will re-date the .bsa files. MCP is included in MGSO, so that may be the case why textures started working after you installed the overhaul.

Yes, that's true. And it is even mentioned twice in the readme.

Also, for more modern and overall simply better armor textures, try these: http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/44210/?

Darknut's were good for a time when simply upscaling and sharpening images was still impressive, but I consider them to be really outdated and would not recommend to use them any more. My main problem with them is that everything just looks like stone or plaster, but not like the material it is actually supposed to be, and there are no additional details.

But those textures too are upscales with slapped on patterns. Additionally they were done wity waifu2x which is not really fitting for this type or images.

I know they are, but in my opinion they are looking much better, because they resemble the material they are supposed to be and at least simulate more details. The emboss filter used by Darknut makes everything just look the same. But it comes down to personal preference, of course. Upscaling is never perfect, but as long as there are no completely new, vanilla-friendly textures for all armors, I'll take Tyddy's over Darknut's any time.

Yeah, they look better. I was mostly referring to the fact that you complained about Darknut's textures being upscales, but you linked upscale.