This is just a generic rant / warning to other users that there are certain mods - even years' old ones - that take a heavy toll on framerate
I think it's a combination of scripting plus npc/creatures animation or AI, but in any case they will chew up your CPU core so it doesn't matter one bit how fast your graphics card is or how many cores you have.
If you wait 10 years until they come out with 5 GHz 1000-core processors, then it will help only slightly.

These one aren't so bad but they do add up quickly. All combined they dropped my fps from 50 to around 25, i.e. a 20 ms hit. (I love these mods so I just live with it.)
-Animated Morrowind
-Animated Morrowind II
-Animated Morrowind Expanded
-Atmospheric Sound Effects
-Better Music System
-Starfire NPC Addons
-Starfire over Telvanis

And I also ran across this nasty one today:
-Fireflies Invade Morrowind - dropped my fps from 18 to 13, i.e. a (1/13 - 1/18) = 21 ms hit.

Turning on all these mods will cost about 40ms per frame, in other words I would be at 25 fps even if Morrowind wasn't drawing anything or doing anything but running these mods!

I haven't measured this exactly but it is pretty bad, at least 10 ms I'd guess:
-The Wilderness Mod

I have no idea what to do about this problem.
Maybe some mod scripts can be rewritten to improve efficiency?
Are there default AI scripts that can be optimized?
Maybe there will be an MCP fix to process scripts more efficiently

Starfire NPC Addons will take its toll (as will any mod that adds NPCs... NPCs eat FPS like it's moonsugar.)

Atmospheric Sound Effects seems to drop performance for some people, but for others it makes no difference. Must depend on specific hardware.

But other than that, I don't see why any of the other mods you mention would cause a significant performance loss.

EDIT: Animated Morrowind Expanded adds many NPCs, doesn't it? See above.

Do ya also mess around with the setting? For example 1280 X 1024 is a bit more harmful to the FPS than 640 X 480.

Then there also the fact that one might be running a program in the background. Close those program might help a bit.

>Starfire NPC Addons will take its toll (as will any mod that adds NPCs... NPCs eat FPS like it's moonsugar.)

Yeah, I'm guessing MCA is similar, but I haven't used it in a long time (waiting for more 6.1 add-ons to come out).

Any idea why NPC's - even ones not being drawn - can be so expensive? Does the AI exist as scripts in Morrowind.esm? Or is it built-in? I'd expect that the AI is dirt cheap except for expensive calculations like line-of-sight checks / collision-detecton or maybe badly implemented path following algorithms.

>Do ya also mess around with the setting? For example 1280 X 1024 is a bit more harmful to the FPS than 640 X 480.

Yeah, I can even turn off distant land + shaders and my frame rate doesn't change. I can replace every texture with a puny 16x16
dds and it has no effect on fps. I can do the same for meshes - no effect. I'm almost always CPU-bound. If I overclock CPU/mem then things do speed up.

>Then there also the fact that one might be running a program in the background. Close those program might help a bit.

I'd expect that would matter only if every other core on your CPU were occupied and programs were impinging on the core Morrowind wants to use. The idea can't hurt though. This program might be worth trying http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

I would advise against using anything from iobit. They, last I heard, had a few lawsuits pending because of their software.

>I would advise against using anything from iobit. They, last I heard, had a few lawsuits pending because of their software.

I tried it before I read your message. Anyway, Game Booster does save me 80 MB RAM (basically in "game mode" it shuts programs like Windows services off), but I don't think it will help with my fps as I explained above.

http://z13.invisionfree.com/Pirate_Lords_Mods/index.php?showtopic=35 was based on Atmospheric Sound Effects, and is supposed to be less heavy on performance. Description (but with outdated download) http://www.pirates.retreat.btinternet.co.uk/Sounds.htm.

Well about BMS, you will have to live with it. 90% of FPSs lost come from battle music scripts (about 3-4 ms. hit on my computer), and those have already been optimized many times. There's nothing more I can do about that.

most of the grass mods cause problems for me (lack of pixel shader support)
children of morrowind also causes a framerate hit
the ascadian and bitter cost tree add on causes issue (shame I really love those mods)


basically if you have an amd processor be careful with what mods you use as amd processors seem to have problems with morrowind anyways

ab0t uses an interesting method to add his creatures, specifically in his waterlife mods. If your FPS is too low, creatures won't spawn. Personally, I'd love to see this method applied to mods that add NPC's as well as creatures. It would help to randomize the appearance of people and animals, so that the player doesn't always find the exact same pregnant lady on the exact same street corner. I like that some of the mods have nightlife and daylife, so certain people and creatures only spawn at certain times of day, but I kinda like the idea that if my FPS is low in an area for some reason, they won't spawn at all, thus adding to the problem. Sure this might mean fewer ducks in Balmora, but it also keeps me from having to take a potty break trying to get from the Temple to the South Wall Cornerclub.

>most of the grass mods cause problems for me (lack of pixel shader support)

elderago, it sounds like this problem can be solved by buying a better video card. It makes sense that mods with new, spiffy graphics will demand powerful video cards.

The problem I'm referring to is that even years-old mods (like The Wilderness Mod - almost 8 years old) can overwhelm modern CPU's. CPU's are growing in number of cores but Morrowind doesn't benefit much from this. CPU's have been growing very slowly in frequency for several years now, and some of these Morrowind mods take a terrible toll no matter how powerful a CPU you buy.

>ab0t uses an interesting method to add his creatures, specifically in his waterlife mods. If your FPS is too low, creatures won't spawn

That sounds clever. It's probably best for "eye candy" type creatures or ambient sound effects. But for spawning monsters you might interact with this isn't ideal - people with crappy machines might encounter far fewer monsters and experience the mod in a way that's not intended.

>Well about BMS, you will have to live with it. 90% of FPSs lost come from battle music scripts (about 3-4 ms. hit on my computer), and those have already been optimized many times. There's nothing more I can do about that.

It looks like the script is mostly simple ifs and sets. I wish Morrowind could process these faster. If the script were pre-compiled into machine code it would be probably 5x faster
(I mean if it were compiled into machine code calling the neccessary routines in Morrowind.exe. If it use pure jump and move instructions it would be probably 100x faster).

I am curious how much CPU time blank lines and comments cost. Is elsif faster than endif/if? Maybe a tool to automatically clean up the scripts contained in esp's would be a good idea?

telling me. i had to start re-fiddling with MGE after adding vurt's work because i wanted to go fishing and they would never spawn.

I've got the FPS hit from the battle scripts down to pretty much nothing, actually.

Of course, I also have fewer tiers and track fewer enemies.

I'm using a laptop...graphic cards aren't an option, the only other computer I have at home are 11 years old and could not even run d3d let alone play morrowind

also its an 8200gm not that best but works just has problems shaders....


no complaints just have to watch what mods I use