Hello All,

During the most recent adventures of Installing the Overhaul, I had encountered the strangeness that is the errors of the exeOpt. Well, I managed to finish this process on my Win 7 64 bit system and the secret (as seems to me) to fully process the exe is.... um... don't use Windows 7 64 bit. Yes, yes. I am very aware of how weird that appears. I haven't performed many tests about what doesn't work, but for certain my system would not finish the patching. Therefore, I did like I normally do with things that I don't want Windows 7 64-bit to ruin - I used my Win XP virtual machine.

Before I begin anything, let me say that remember the exeOpt is optional so if you don't feel like doing this or whatnot, then don't fret as it's probably not going to make that much of a difference anyway... I mean, if you are having these issues, you're probably running a 64-bit system.... and optimizing the exe is probably not going to help a whole lot. Additionally, this (really) rough guide depends on your knowledge of some IT topics - namely Virtual Machines. Bottom-line : You will probably be beating an ant with a sledge hammer. But everyone loves sledge hammers...

• So anyway, first thing, is you need a VM program. Virtual PC is free but my personal pref is VirtualBox. There are a few other choices floating around - take your pick. This program will be used to create a separate machine in which you can install an operating system, such as Ol' Dependable Windows XP.
  
• Secondly, you need your guest system to run. Normally, the system is installed from disk like any other system. It's just that the system is really just a single large file that is treated like an entire system's harddisk. There are a few drive images around for a pre-installed system, such as if you have Windows 7, then remember you have that bogus XP Mode thing free. This is primarily just for Virtual PC. Another one for something a bit more temporary, one could also use something called http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en. Keep in mind that the image(s) for download are time-bombed so don't get too dependent on them.
  
• After the virtual system is installed, a virtual web folder will need to be created in order to share files with the guest machine like some type of magic file portal. Normally, this is a folder on your host machine that you indicate to be seen as a mapped drive on the virtual machine. So the effect is that you can put a file into the folder on your host machine, and the virtual machine will be able to access it via a different (virtual) drive.
  
• Next, throw your morrowind.exe and the exeOpt.exe in your VM using the folder. You should then be able to execute the exeOpt and finish the entire process of the optimizations without too much heartache.
  
• When done, just copy it back over to your host machine and utilize the modified exe to optimal extent.

My personal preference is to use all exe modifiers on the VM so as to make sure Win 7 doesn't try to help in anyway. Additionally, remember that you don't need to do all the modifications every time you reinstall Morrowind (Overhaul). Merely, take that finalized version of the exe and keep it tucked away somewhere. Then, you can always overwrite your exe with the finalized one to stay optimized! Maybe a few versions of the exes as those cogs keep getting fixed...

Oh and remember to either run .exe as admin (not their shortcuts) or disable the UAC entirely as is suggested everywhere. I hope this remotely helps someone.

Or you can do it the easy way. When you open up the exeOpt program to patch Morrowind.exe, just go to the benchmarker tab and uncheck the Benchmark Patches option. Now the process will complete in Windows 7 64-bit.

Holy crap! And here I thought I just had an incompatible computer! Thank you so much!

Egads! There's more than one tab on the thing!

er um... yeah, I meant to include that also last night. My suggestions were merely for the more adventurous types :whistling:

>Or you can do it the easy way. When you open up the exeOpt program to patch Morrowind.exe, just go to the benchmarker tab and uncheck the Benchmark Patches option. Now the process will complete in Windows 7 64-bit

That's not really ideal since some of the patches might actually slow stuff down.

I've also been having problems on Win7 64-bit and I've been settling for the default, prebuilt patches (I think it's called exeOptPatch.7z)
It's good to hear that the VirtualPC solution also exists.

>if you are having these issues, you're probably running a 64-bit system.... and optimizing the exe is probably not going to help a whole lot.

Morrowind is horribly bottlenecked by single core speed, so it does matter. That's why I'm thinking of getting a CPU with high single-thread performance: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Cinebench-11.5-Single-threaded,2406.html

I thought of that, but have noticed no slow-down. Besides, a lot of what the exeOpt does is reduce crashes. Before I figured out how to get the exeOpt to work I would get numerous random crashes. Now with it I have not had a crash since.

Indeed, and as far as I know the exeOpt doesn't allow Morrowind to use multiple cores. It would be nice if someone could figure out a way to do that though.

That's not a simple op-code patch, that's a complete and fundamental game engine rewrite. "Open Morrowind" or whatever it's called may have multiple core features.

Thanks for the clue about the benchmark tab, BTW. Win7-64 here and the crash was indeed frustrating.

>with it I have not had a crash since.

I don't really understand this. exeOpt replaces FPU instructions with MMX right?
I guess it could help with stability if the ordinary FPU instructions are overflowing the tiny FPU stack, resulting in bogus floating point values or NaN's or something?

I'm not going to pretend I know exactly how the exeOpt works and what all it does, but I do know that I get increased stability with it, especially when I'm using numerous mods. I no longer get crashes in places where I normally would without exeOpt. I'm not entirely sure why that's the case, but I'm not going to complain. All I know is for the first time (that I can remember) I am able to play Morrowind with over 100 mods and never get a crash.

This is really the reason I felt it was good to post something regarding the tool exeOpt - to get it to work somehow. My limited knowledge in the area left me with little helpful information to provide, but I decided that an overly-convoluted and borderline-stupid/crazy thread would be better to have than not. At least a little discussion could come from it (although perhaps a question / answer thread would've been a little more appropriate).

Now, the real gem that comes from all of this (besides the increased stability that comes from the tool directly) is the sandbox that can be used for things such as this that isolate many activities from the host system. Sure this is for Win 7 - 64 bit as mentioned, but it can also be for other systems as well. Imagine for an example that the exeOpt didn't work properly under Wine on a linux distro. At least with this method, a working patched exe can be created that might aid in the execution of Morrowind under Wine. Another example may be using the Construction Set via the VM so that one doesn't loose their working environment during modding in the case that there is a problem with the system. Since the VM is a single file, one just needs to get a copy of it from the harddisk in order to use it on a replacement system. It is always much easier to backup 1 file than an entire system. A VM can have many benefits, but they are oftentimes outside the typical user domain.



There are a few engine rewrites floating around and I keep an eye on each of them as any successful one created in this day and age will be way more better that which was created a decade ago. A mediocre rewrite that uses more than one core mediocre-aly will reduce the CPU bottleneck. And if it mediocre-aly offsets some processing to the graphics card, then it should also increase framerate possibilities.

Hrnchamd may be a Morrowind magical guru ninja robot :toughninja:, but sadly, I do not think he can provide us the types of benefits engine rewrites would do.

http://openmw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://sourceforge.net/projects/aedra/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/crystalscrolls/

(off topic) Anyone notice how 'Morrowind' is identified by the post editor as misspelled? Kind of ironic, huh?

great idea using a guest system for patching! I also have win7 x64 and it bothered me I was not able to patch my exe without this benchmarking mode. luckily I have an XP guest (and numerous other OS, including a mac :hubbahubba: ) but I didn't get the idea of using a virtual machine for this.

That'd just be your browser doing the spell checking.

Gosh. Has anyone tried http://timeslip.users.sourceforge.net/exeopt.html?

Thanks for the link, but... no readme update (still refers to v1.8), no changelog and no reference on the site to working on 64-bit, which is the predominant issue. :shrug:

I never saw that, thanks for the link.

Morrowind must have some nasty overflows when using many mods for the tool to prevent ctd.

Oh yeah I forgot about this thing in my current (slow as syrup) install.

Remind me - this gets applied after the code patch - right?

Yep.

If it works on any windows 7, it'll work on x64; that's what I built it on after all.

Sorry about the lack of readme, etc. I built it last year for that article about nvidea physx being deliberately gimped when running on the cpu, but didn't release it at the time. (The win7 fix is rather hacky, and I've no idea what else I'd changed.) I managed to dig it up when someone asked for it recently, but not any of the documentation that went with it.

I have used v1.9 since I started playing again on April. I have a dual boot setup Win7 / Win XP and I always play Morrowind in Windows XP because Morrowind runs much better with DirectX 9.0c. Timeslip is there anything special with v1.9 should I use 1.8 in Windows XP? Does it matter with version I use.
After playing with the exact same mods with the exact same load order for some days doing many fun things quest and even some cheat code testing I hasn't had a single CTD on my exeOpt applied Morrowind game exe, but with the other installation I it make CTD sometimes when I load a savegame. This little program is a miracle. After this little test I'll always use it, it's simply amazing at least on my system.

1.9 should work fine on xp. I just left 1.8 up there on account of the whole not-knowing-what's-changed thing.