I'll see if I can make some screenshots and fps comparisons later.

A quick test with a new character indicated better performance than stock MGE. The new shadows look very blocky on the BC shirt you start with (on the left shoulder) and on the BB body (at the elbows).

I did notice some alpha issues with a greenhouse-style house, namely the Balmora store in this mod - http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2826 The greenhouse part was faintly visible through statics rendered by MW.

Tested on: Windows 7 x64, Core i7 920, Radeon 5870, Catalyst 10.6 drivers.

Old news. This happens in every version of MGE I have ever used. I have always assumed it had something to do with MGE/MW blending and the detail with which you render the world meshes in the distant land creation tool.

Speaking of screenshots, is it me or it does it seem like it doesn't always work.
It's like it's attempted to take a screenshot, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Message appears in top left corner when capture button is pressed, and the file number is incremented if previous screenshot is successful.
No error is given that I can find.

Have you used the macro editor to bind a key to take screenshots? Choose a key there and select 'function' and 'take screenshot.' You can still use the print screen key, though you'll get a message about the .ini file which can be safely ignored.

Tested the new grass rendering. This time the difference is more noticeable, with new algorithm being faster by 1-5 FPS. In some places (like river Odai south of Balmora) the FPS didn't change at all.

The new grass still has transparency problems. Also in foggy weather, both grass types look very weird, the stock one being worse.

C2D E6400 @ 2.13 GHz, GeForce GTX 280.

Thanks for your help, but I've imported all my old settings for key bindings from a previous MGE installation.
I am getting an MGE indication in the top left corner that a screenshot has been captured, say "MGE Screenshot 90", but the next time I screenshot it could be 90 again (possibly overwriting the previous "MGE Screenshot 90), or it may say the expected 91.
This has happened with every version of MGE XE, but not with normal MGE.

If nobody else is experiencing this, then it must be my setup.
Perhaps I need to redo my key bindings again (bindings were from b116, I think).
I am also running a standalone MWSE, but I can't see it being that.


On a side note, I too experienced massive cell transition lag using previous MGE XE with WinXP, this has been rectified - thankyou.
I can't really stress test MGE XE, as my rig runs between 8-15 fps outdoors.
This is as good as it ran with b116, but now I also get cool object shadows.
Hence the noticing of the screenshot problem I am having (so many screenshots - so little time)

I get the following error to start the game:

"Failed to create shader Shaders\TexCoord_4Offset_A.vso"

Must be the shaders folder writeable?

Note: I don't use static land (I hate it). Is it strictly necessary? No shaders. Nothing. I like the basic settings.

Regards.

If you don't use Distant land and statics, than you won't get any shadows since it is those distant statics that provide the information for rendering the shadows in the depth buffer, so yes, it is necessary.

You mean the shadows cause no drop in fps? Brilliant!

Got a pretty crazy bug to report. I'm on a computer I don't usually game on and decided to install morrowind. Since it was a fresh install, I thought I'd go ahead give XE a shot.

Screens: http://i36.tinypic.com/2eas0ae.png http://i36.tinypic.com/2ngho2h.png http://i38.tinypic.com/23w31pi.png http://i35.tinypic.com/30a9to7.png
It looks like an issue with the new blending method to me. But I have no idea.

Specs:
AMD Athlon II X2 235e Processor @2.70ghz
ATi Radeon HD 4850
6gb DDR2 RAM
Win7 64bit

That will go away eventually when I finish tuning distant land.



That one BC shirt has duplicated polygons which don't work well with the shadow rendering. Try any other shirt, most work normally. I will release a fixed NIF for that eventually. If someone could survey all the BC clothing for errors like that it would help.

I'm not getting that rendering error with the greenhouse from that mod. Could you post some screenshots of it?



I'll add some more error reporting in the next release so you can find out what's wrong.



Screenshots of transparency problems please. Fog is still in development.



Is Morrowind view distance at maximum? Distant world/statics seem to be empty, did it generate properly? Does it work normally with standard MGE? Did you check the log file?

Morrowind's draw is at max, distant land is set to -5 cells-. Things work normally with standard MGE.

I don't know, what the hell. Post the log file. Do you have daytime screens, I can't see what's going on in the background. Try turning Morrowind actor shadows on and off, and toggling MW/MGE blending in-game.

Between this and the rain fix, we can actually create real buildings in exterior cells instead of the TARDISes we currently have.

Old grass: http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1476/wateroc.jpg.
New grass: http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/508/watern.jpg.

Old grass: http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/6384/skyo.jpg.
New grass: http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/5079/skyn.jpg.

Old grass: http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/479/ssaoo.jpg.
New grass: http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/2395/ssaon.jpg

Hope it helps.

That was really useful. The depth texture doesn't have the grass rendered onto it.

will someone please just type out how the SSAO shader should be edited? i think the instructions are very vague. it says uncomment, so i'm guessing this means delete either the entire line below it or delete what's after #define.

no matter what i try though, it won't compile.

please help.

Comments are marked by the two slashes "//" at the beginning of the line. Remove the "//" to uncomment something, add the "//" to comment it.

Those shadows are absolutely amazing. The ashlands are suddenly a lot darker with vurts huge ashtrees.

I hope that someday (fake) cloud shadows, that cover the distant-static shadows are possible.
Or shadows caused by lightning..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi3iZplFOTs.

SCREENSHOTS! (tell me what you think)

Vanilla Morrowind with this mod:
http://i36.tinypic.com/119yyq8.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/dqjfae.jpg
http://i38.tinypic.com/4l5a0x.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/az8apy.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/10440ls.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/2po9oxe.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/j17pdz.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/oabrbn.jpg
http://i35.tinypic.com/33kylag.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/312d5qa.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/21kkpxf.jpg
http://i36.tinypic.com/1z4ehs8.jpg
http://i38.tinypic.com/2q0m3nr.jpg

This mod + Vality7's (Animated) Grass + Morrowind Visual Pack
http://i34.tinypic.com/2j0h0nc.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/14k9u6g.jpg
http://i35.tinypic.com/rc3n8i.jpg

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ClCnD7XAw

The computer these were taken on:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64X2 4400+
RAM: 4 GB (4x1) 670MHz DDR2
GPU: Geforce 9600GT
Not a monster system, but the GPU is decent.
I get about 15 to 25 frames per second when outside.

Here are the steps that I took. Im not sure if everything is necessary; but it works (very well)!

1. Download and install DirectX 9.0c or later.http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3b170b25-abab-4bc3-ae91-50ceb6d8fa8d2. Download and install MGE Beta 178 or later.http://sourceforge.net/projects/morrgraphext/files/Beta%20Releases/MGE%203.8%2B%20SVN%20builds/3. Open MGEgui.exe (make sure Morrowind.ini exists or it will fail. Open the Morrowind Lanucher and change resolution to create the file).-Render State: check "Hardware Shader".4. Generate Distant land. Make surethat Minimum Static Size is 150 or less!!! Start morrowind to confirm that it works.5. Rename 'Data Files\shaders\default' to BACKUP_default.6. Rename d3d8.dll to BACKUP_d3d8.dll7. Download MGE XE and extract to 'Morrowind'.http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=263488. Rename 'Data Files\shaders\XEshaders' to 'default'.9. Open MGEgui.exe and open the Shader editor tool.10. Edit active chain and add the shaders except for the SSAO ones.(ColorTemp, GIMP_HDRBloom_v1_3, knx_DoF_v12_pk, sunshaft_v002a, truBloom_g6_i6, zHDR_v2)11. Open either knx_SSAO_v09_fast or knx_SSAO_v09_hq (located in 'Data Files\shaders\default') in text editor. Uncomment (remove //) the line that says "//#define MGEGUI163_WORKAROUND". Save. Add to active chain. Re-comment the line. Save.12. Open the macro editor in MGE (under Input) and set a key to Function, Toggle distant Statics. (for testing purposes).13. Start the game. Make sure that view distance in game is set to maximum. You should have beautiful shadows.

Sorry I took forever replying, Hrn. My log file was long gone since I had posted those screens, I'm afraid. I had wanted to play, so I replaced XE with MGE and with it, the log file. I will try to take some day time screens later. :<

I just registered to be able to post in this thread

This demo is unbelievable. It runs noticeably faster than the normal MGE build while looking jawdroppingly good. I've been dreaming of real-time shadows in Morrowind for a long time.

I had some problems, but managed to solve them myself. Turned out they didn't even have anything to do with your MGE build.

Here are some boring screenshots of Ald'Ruhn.


http://img153.imageshack.us/i/mgescreenshot15.jpg/
http://img594.imageshack.us/i/mgescreenshot16.jpg/
http://img408.imageshack.us/i/mgescreenshot17.jpg/

(shadows + godrays = win)


I think the shadows could be a tiny bit darker. 0.3 or 0.35 (in the XE Shadow Settings.fx) works great for me.

Anyway, thanks for this awesome piece of software. The (under)water effects are great, too. I hope we'll see this with 3D ripples soon

Welcome to the forum. :foodndrink:

Thought I would mention that embedding images has been disabled on the forums. Though there is a really nice chrome, and firefox I think, extension that will change links into images on these forums.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1100465-images-on-the-forums/


Anyway, I agree about the ripples, i just hope he, or somebody can get them working with ATI cards.

Whoops

I didn't even mean to embed those pics. Guess it's fine either way XD
Thanks for the link to that extension, though.

(Did you make the AOF stuff on TESNexus? I can't live without those waterfalls anymore )