I finally bit the bullet and got Morrowind GOTY during the recent Steam sale (along with everyone else, of course), and because of the Mod That Shall Not Be Named, I wanted to get back into it. I've been doing some lurking and reading, but wanted to have a thread handy so I could take notes on the order I'm doing things, what's being installed and where, so that it'll be easy to point out when and where I screw up (because I likely will).

Earlier, I threw a lot of things together and ended up with Morrowind running fine...but with a black background. Obviously, then, I did something stupid. So, I uninstalled, wiped the folder, and am reinstalling now.

Current Install List / Results.

1: Vanilla Steam Morrowind GOTY: Works normally, crashes on exit.
2: BTB's Game Improvements: Works normally, crashes on exit. Holy hell it's ugly.
3: Service Requirements: Works normally, crashes on exit, still ugly as hell.
4: Morrowind Advanced (with BTB's edits): All same as before.
5: Daggerfall Collection (with BTB's Edits): All same as before.
6: Talrivian's State-Based HP Mod: All same as before.
7: MGSO. I'm gonna break this one down.

First, installed the base into D:\games\Steam\steamapps\common\morrowind (my Morrowind dir)
Then, ran setup. The following are all of the option's I've chosen.
In Morrowind Code Patch, enabled the following: All under graphics, Fortify maximum health, Enchanted Item Rebalance, Soulgem Value Rebalance, Enchanting Increases Item Value, NPC AI Casts Zero Cost Powers, Allow Stealing from KO'd Opponents, Spellmaker/Enchant Multiple Effects, Spellmaker Area Effect Costs, Hidden Traps. Under Interface: Map Expansion, Unrestrict Menu Size, Larger Service/Chargen Menus, display more accurate item weights. Nothing under International, everything under Bug Fixes.

Ran the ini installer (morrowini), ran exe optimizer (find location of files, uncheck benchmark patches, patched 122 patches).

MGSO Options: Oblivion-like Crosshair, Vanilla UI, Rev 186 of MGE, Shimmer, nvde Better bodies, New Voices, Animated Morrowind, Animaed Soulgems, More Colorful Vvardenfell, Bushy Solstheim, More Trees in all three places, all new trees, Vurt Bushy on 3 of the locations, Vurt on the 4th. Hit apply (no response), then close.

Installed Morrowind AnimKit. It didn't run it automatically, so I manually did so. Located the install path and then ran it. All I did was fix animation errors. Enabled all data files, Ran Mlox and updated data order, Ran the 4 GB patch (Windows 64, 8 gigs of ram).

Ran MGE. Settings are as follows:
Main: Nothing.
Global Graphics: Resolution of 1920x1080, AA to 8x, Screenshot format to jpg.
Render State: Texture Filters to Anisotropic 16x. No change to MIPMAP. Horz. POV set to 85. Enabled Fog, Hardware Shader and AA Color Fix.
Input: Skip opening movie.
Misc: Enabled all shaders,
Morrowind.ini: High Detail Shadows, Allow Yes to All, Thread Loading, Hit Fader all checked.
Tools: Not touching at this time.
Distant Land: Not touching at this time.

Changed the dates on the files.

Get error: One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master file they depend on. Looking at Warnings.txt appears to be pointing at TLM - Ambient Light, TLM - Light Sources (Clearer Lighting), Balmora Un-Mod, BetterClothesforTB, SNR_ThievesStep_Standart, TLM - Light Sources (Lanterns) and TLM - External Lights Ownership all say that what they're dependant on has changed since last safe.
Status: Absolutely GORGEOUS...but slow as molasses. Looks like I cranked it a bit past what my computer will support.

So first step: Ideas on what to turn down (AA et al to 4x each, maybe?) to make it run smoothly?

High detail shadows definitely, and probably those shadows alltogether. They can hurt performance a lot and they don't even look good.