» Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:53 pm MGE XE
A custom MGE build with shadows and a handful of performance improvements, hopefully with similar or better performance than regular MGE. Have a look at these screenshots.
Galleries
See previous thread for galleries.
It works by utilizing the distant land objects to cast shadows, so it only works outside. It is real-time and speed that Morrowind time passes makes the passage of the sun quite noticeable. There are some limitations, and some optimizations compared to standard MGE. There are several features from MGE that have been cut too; some MGE-specific MWSE commands, texture hooks, and MGE-drawn animated tree statics.
New features since XE 0.8
- Dynamic water from MGE 178+, water simulation adjusted to be more liquid
- Less distant object popping
- Full install package, doesn't require a previous MGE installed
- HDR shader upgraded, opinions please
- HUD mods reload properly after alt-tab from fullscreen mode.
- Settings GUI improved
- All objects in Morrowind view distance receive shadows.
- High quality selection of default shaders included.
- Screenshot enable checkbox now works as expected, since the screenshot code is patched. Just use PrintScreen, no macro required.
- Object pop-in at the screen edge no longer occurs. Distant land and grass culling is not delayed by a frame any more.
- Grass parts when the player is nearby; grass is lit better.
- Shaders no longer affect the crosshair, nor spill over the screen during cell loading, nor screw with cutscenes or the main menu.
- Windowed mode snaps to the screen edge to act like fullscreen, allowing fast Alt-Tab to work.
- Support for using shaders with the UI display quality fix in MCP.
- New underwater surface effects, with total internal reflection.
- Water shows up in the local map again, previous MGE versions did not allow it to render in the map.
- Scattering exponential fog and better sunsets, thanks to phal.
- MWSE upgraded to 0.9.4a (includes dll)
- Fullscreen alt-tab is functional (still slow to reload).
Morrowind GOTY or Bloodmoon fully patched.
Shader Model 3.0+ graphics card; integrated graphics probably won't work.
Install Instructions
http://morrowind.nexusmods.com/mods/41102
1. Update to http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35. (This won't conflict with DX10+.)
2. Install MGE XE to the Morrowind directory. If you've never used MGE before, run the Morrowind launcher as admin and set a resolution in the launcher options (to generate Morrowind's first time settings).
3. If you are using HUD mods made for standard MGE, you should deselect them from your load order. MGE XE requires its own HUD mods to fix design problems with older mods.
4. Run the new MGEXEgui. Read the instructions page. If you are upgrading from MGE you should regenerate distant land with 150 minimum static size (or smaller for more shadow casters).
5. If you use Crossfire/SLI, turn off "Responsive menu caching" in the In-game tab, to avoid performance reductions as caching is SLI unfriendly.
Note that Morrowind view distance in-game is set to maximum when you first load a game.
Recommended: set timescale to 10 or 15 in the console to slow down the day cycle (or 1000 to speed up). The movement of the sun is very visible.
Don't expect everything to cast a shadow, it's only objects large enough to appear in distant land. Small objects will cast weaker shadows for their size.
There are some HUD mods for use with MGE XE available from the same download page, mostly upgrades of Yacoby's mods and Vampiric Embrace. HUD mods for previous versions of MGE are unlikely to work.
Reporting problems
All errors while running Morrowind are logged to mgeXE.log in the Morrowind directory. Check there first if it crashes or white screens, it may explain why.
Errors from running MGEXEgui are logged in the mge3 directory.
When reporting errors, always post mgeXE.log (in a spoiler tag to avoid clutter) and OS, video card details, and driver version.
If the distant land generator crashes, please post your mge3/distant-land-crash-dump.txt instead.
Please report rendering errors with detailed information and a screenshot.
Uninstalling
MGE XE and MGE svn 178 are designed to be easily substitutable. To go back to MGE:
Replace d3d8.dll with the one from the the MGE svn 178 package.
(Optionally) Regenerate distant land, setting the distant static size back to its previous value.
Fully uninstalling:
Delete MGEXEgui, mge3, d3d8.dll and dinput.dll from your Morrowind directory.
Known issues
The game may crash on loading, try 'Disable internal MWSE' on the in-game tab. This will of course disable MWSE mods.
Certain mods with added meshes may cause the distant land generator to crash. Mods with known problems: the Neverhalls.
Reducing Morrowind options draw distance slider below maximum causes drawing errors.
Possible problems with Morrowind's actor shadows, turning them on may cause the game to be unstable, save often.
Notes
If you used a previous version, please remove the old HDR.fx shader from the XEshaders directory, it is no longer being updated.
Reflect far statics is disabled. It causes a very large amount of drawing to occur which is not visible for the 95% of the game when you are looking towards land. I tried to detect when they should be visible before, but it hardly ever worked well.
The MGE XE statics override list is included automatically in every distant land build, you don't need to do it manually.
Companion Health Bars has been fixed so you can still ask an NPC to turn off their health bar if they are no longer your companion or following you.
All other HUD mods are fixed to autodetect screen size, so screen config menus are no longer needed.
Source code available at https://github.com/Hrnchamd/MGE-XE/
I think I'll give it a run once again. I know the Morrowind engine doesn't use multiple CPU cores, but what about MGE XE? Will I notice any improvement with a Phenom II X4 compared to an Athlon II X2 ? Not that it really matters, Morrowind performs pretty good anyway.
