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
To the South
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153914.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153894.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153886.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153876.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153867.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153857.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153849.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153838.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153830.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153821.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153810.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153799.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153790.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153781.jpg
Weight of Light
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046108.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046097.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046089.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046079.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046071.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046060.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046048.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046009.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045995.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045981.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045961.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045952.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045601.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045593.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045583.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045571.jpg
Ascadian Afternoon
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278628508.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278628508.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278628507.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278628507.jpg
Coastal
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1281023163.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1281023162.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1281023162.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1281023122.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1281023122.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1281023121.jpg
Solar Dipole
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-5-1278457500.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278457499.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278457499.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278457499.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278457498.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-5-1278457584.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278457584.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278457584.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278457583.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278457583.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-5-1278457655.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278457655.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278457655.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278457654.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278457654.jpg


It works by utilising the distant land objects to cast shadows, so it only works outside. It is real-time and Morrowind time passing is quite noticeable. There are some limitations, you'll just have to try it yourself. There are several features from MGE that have been cut too; MGE-specific MWSE commands, dynamic water, texture hooks, and MGE-drawn animated tree statics. I require some compatibility and performance testing.

If you want to test, you will have to regenerate distant land. As statics cast shadows, you will need a low minimum static size; I recommend 150. You can use 100 if you have a higher performace setup. Shaders need updating as well, the HDR and shader chain setup has been changed slightly. I will be providing some updated versions of common shaders. You will also need to update your drivers and DirectX 9 to the June 2010 release, it fixes serious issues with the shader compiler from last year. Unmodified shaders will not be loaded to avoid crashes or incorrect operation.


Install Instructions (updated)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26348

0. You need http://sourceforge.net/projects/morrgraphext/files/Beta%20Releases/MGE%203.8%2B%20SVN%20builds/ installed and working already, and a Shader Model 3.0 card.
1. Install files, update to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3b170b25-abab-4bc3-ae91-50ceb6d8fa8d. (This won't conflict with DX10+.)
2. Deselect mods from your load order that interact with MGE. (Standard MWSE mods will work, HUD mods will not.)
3. Run the new MGEXEgui. Generate distant land with 150 minimum static size. Use the provided XE static exceptions list.
4. Edit your shader chain to use the new shaders. The XE shaders are separate settings from regular MGE.
5. Bind "toggle distant statics" key in macro editor. This currently toggles shadows instead.
6. If you use Crossfire/SLI, turn off "Responsive menu caching" in the In-game tab, to avoid performance reductions from the intra-frame caching.

Note that view distance in-game is set to maximum when you first load a game.

Recommended shader ordering: SSAO, DoF, Sunshafts, (Underwater effects), Bloom, HDR.
Also recommended: set timescale to 10 or 15 (or 1000) in the console. The movement of the sun is very visible.

You may want to set transparency/adaptive anti-aliasing in your graphics drivers, if you want high quality grass/tree edges.
Don't expect everything to cast a shadow, remember that it's only distant land objects. Small objects will cast weaker shadows for their size.


Reporting problems

All errors are logged to mgeXE.log in the Morrowind directory. Check there first if it crashes or white screens, it may explain why.
When reporting errors, always post mgeXE.log (in a spoiler tag to avoid clutter) and OS, video card details, and driver version.
Please report rendering errors with detailed information and a screenshot.


Known issues

MGE XE may crash more than usual. Please report what leads up to the crash, and the crash log from the more details link in the crash report window.

Reducing Morrowind options draw distance slider below maximum causes drawing errors.

HUD mods don't currently function, along with other mods designed for MGE.


Uninstalling

MGE XE and MGE svn 178 are designed to be easily substitutable.

1. Replace d3d8.dll with the one from the the MGE svn 178 package.
2. (Optionally) Regenerate distant land, setting the distant static size back to its previous value.



Changes from SVN 178

• All objects in Morrowind view distance receive shadows.
  
• Distant land and grass culling is not delayed by a frame any more. Pop-in at the screen periphery no longer occurs.
  
• Grass lighting changed. All grass was effectively shaded by a single ambient light; it was pretty flat. There is some directional lighting now, as well as grass receiving shadows.
  
• Grass animation is somewhat different. Grass parts when the player is nearby.
  
• Shaders no longer affect the crosshair, nor spill over the screen during cell loading, nor screw with cutscenes.
  
• HDR resolve is now asynchronous and should cause less fps loss. Also uses less video memory.
  
• Shader chain double buffers instead of copying. clip no longer works, shaders must use flow control.
  
• thisframe and lastframe are no longer available. Use lastshader.
  
• tickcount is removed, there is a time variable instead with in-game seconds passed.
  
• There is no alpha-to-coverage. Personal opinion; alpha stipple is too noticeable.
  
• MW/MGE blending modifications. Allows for seamless water.
  
• Screen is no longer slightly blurred by half a pixel when MW/MGE blending is disabled.
  
• Windowed mode snaps to the screen edge to act like fullscreen, allowing Alt-Tab to work.
  
• New underwater surface effects, total internal reflection.
  
• InGame.fx has been replaced by a set of effect files that should be more easily substitutable.
  
• Redesigned GUI for simpler setup and use.
  
• Shader chain is seperate from regular MGE as the shader interface is different.
  
• High quality selection of default shaders included.
  
• Minor shoreline turbulence animation.
  
• Screenshot enable checkbox now works like others since the screenshot code is patched. Just use PrintScreen, no macro required.
  
• Water shows up in the local map again, previous MGE versions did not allow it to render in the map.
  
• Scattering exponential fog, thanks to phal.
  
• Water wobble shader, also thanks to phal.
  
• Better sunsets, a modification of phal's sunshaft shader.

Ehh I can't quote straight from the old thread.


Shaders in interiors are broken, I cleaned up some redundant code that wasn't totally redundant, fixing it now. The white circle is from the extended skybox for atmopheric scattering, I suppose it might be going past the far clip plane, easy to fix.



Tree leaves don't have z-writes on (it makes the background show through in halos), but it means I can't tell if a leaf is hidden behind another when drawing shadows. It could also be a discrepancy between rendering single sided polys from distant land that cast shadows onto double sided polys in Morrowind. It's all difficult to solve, I might have to move to a ubershader to replace all of Morrowind's regular exterior drawing. That causes problems with the landscape splatting though.



It might be a memory problem, try using the 4GB patch on Morrowind.exe. The crash report is unrelated to the underlying problem unfortunately.



Yes, but it needs to be switchable at the moment for baseline testing.

0.8.17 released

XE

Shadows now render on only the front side of double sided faces. Rendering on both sides caused overdarkening due to the backwards normal of the reverse side not matching shadow map rendering.
HDR code modified to scale resolved luminance when outside, creating a higher contrast between interiors and exteriors. May be a little bright right now.
Fixed issue with interior depth texture not rendering properly, shaders will work inside again.
Skybox in atmosphere scattering mode modified to avoid white circle clipped in the sky at low draw distances.

Config

Added even more error checking to distant texture generator.



Still needs comment

SSAO Fast shader, test and compare the fps to SSAO HQ for the same scenes.
Grass rendering modes from a couple releases back. Bind toggle grass and check for fps differences in grass heavy environments.

Ok . I enabled the large address aware flag on morrowind.exe via cff explorer and got XE definitely running stable now. Was able to play one hour without any crashes. Thanks for your advice Hrnchamd.

0.8.17 Report

XE

- Shadows now render on only the front side of double sided faces. Rendering on both sides caused overdarkening due to the backwards normal of the reverse side not matching shadow map rendering. -- Is this the overdarkening that Vurt pointed out? If so, I am no longer experiencing it in places I had noticed it before.
- HDR code modified to scale resolved luminance when outside, creating a higher contrast between interiors and exteriors. May be a little bright right now. -- Have tested with HDR enabled, withholding opinion for now until I can play around with it more and/or see your next adjustment.
- Fixed issue with interior depth texture not rendering properly, shaders will work inside again. -- Can confirm that interior SSAO works.
- Skybox in atmosphere scattering mode modified to avoid white circle clipped in the sky at low draw distances. -- Set draw distance way down with atmospheric scattering on, no longer notice any ill effects.

Config

- Added even more error checking to distant texture generator. -- Will take your word for it. I haven't had any issues generating distant land in past revisions so I am not sure what to look for here.
- Magical Skooma Land, Sunglasses at Night -- You are toying with me!


Still needs comment

- SSAO Fast shader, test and compare the fps to SSAO HQ for the same scenes. -- Quality on SSAO Fast seems higher now, but I didn't realize before how large the performance difference is. In exteriors I gained back around 10 fps switching from HQ to Fast. Fast actually seems a bit more subtle, too, which I like. While inside, my FPS remains at 60 for both.
- Grass rendering modes from a couple releases back. Bind toggle grass and check for fps differences in grass heavy environments. -- I had reported somewhat on this from when the alternate rendering mode was released, but was not able to be very precise. I retested and found that in grass heavy areas I could see up to 10% better performance with the instanced mode. In many areas, FPS was practically identical, and in only a few did the instanced mode perform worse (though not by a very significant amount). What is the tradeoff here?

---

I think I've missed a release or two so I just wanted to throw in a few general comments, as well. Apologies if some of these have already been repeated ad nauseum:

My comments
- Large Address Aware MGEXEgui is a good touch. It would be great to see this added to the MCP, too, if you haven't already (unfortunately I have missed the past few betas but am trying to catch up).
- Did you fix the Ghostfence meshes too? I no longer notice the ugly black holes from afar, but I do see some odd effects as I get closer to the Ghostfence. Either way, it is an improvement.
- "Ubershader" to replace all of Morrowind's drawing? You've got me intrigued.
- Odd interactions between the sky and spell particles are still easily reproducible on my end, though I don't know how difficult this is to fix. Let me know if a video sample would be helpful (though if I recall someone posted one a week or so back).
- With the Mournhold meshes repaired and the lake ice issue resolved, the only thing I feel MGE XE is really "missing" from a usability standpoint is fading in of distant statics like MGE SVN178, rather than the "TES IV: Patrick Stewart Is Dead" pop-in. Everything else has come along beautifully.

EXT near Ald Sotha ruin (grassy, Red Mountain in view):
Off: 28-35
HQ: 24-27
Fast: 25-30

EXT Balmora Square (cluttered with all sorts of... well... clutter):
Off: 28-30
HQ: 27-30
Fast: 28-30

EXT Gnisis Market (looking at traders):
Off: 28-32
HQ: 27-29
Fast: 28-31

INT (Vivec Foreign Quarter all levels, Ald-Ruhn Under-the-Scar):
75 PFS regardless of the shader used.

SSAO was the only shader in the chain. Staying still and not moving camera gives constant FPS, so I walked around a little bit to gather low and high values. Also, I have VSync turned on at 75 Hz and V-wait at 1, should I disable these for FPS comparison?



Tested extensively. Results are too simple to make any kind of detailed report. Instanced grass results in a gain of 0...2 FPS in most locations and 1...5 in those where FPS is already high. For example:

Ascadian Isles:
standard: 27-29
instanced: 28-30

Southern Grazelands:
standard: 31-32
instanced: 32-35

A very subtle improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. I've never found a place where it would be slower than the standard method.

UPDATE: 0.8.17 introduces an odd whiteout effect which increases towards the end of Morrowind draw distance: http://img826.imageshack.us/i/0817whiteout1.jpg/, http://img824.imageshack.us/i/0817whiteout2.jpg/. I think it appears in foggy weather conditions.

I don't know if it is related, but I have http://www.mediafire.com/i/?733fozcx84ug4y1 strange near circular object usually top left of the moons (sun is behind image border, you can see its halo)
[edit]Tried installing on Arkwend, I have found after the update I could not start a game in windowed mode, screen was black/filled with casual pixels and load menu was not displayed, I had to start and play in fullscreen mode, than I've been able to switch back to windowed mode and it was working again, and it seems the circular object near the moons is gone.

0.8.17 no longer crashes during distant land generation on some faulty texture and instead generates a warning at the end. Works like a charm, thanks.

I have one more observation which may or may not be relevant, but anyway.

While it is possible to turn Distant Land on and off, the game looks horrible without it. The end of view distance is abrupt, with empty space or dark water behind it; the fogging is weird; water caustics move only as the player moves. There are probably others I forgot to mention.

I can see why this could be intentional; just stating that so far DL toggle is only useful for a temporary FPS boost.

I'm speaking of turning off DL when all other enhancements (like exp fog, scattering, caustics etc.) are enabled. It might look better without them.

i experienced now a few times that on target spells going right through an npc or creature without hiting them.
while ~6 hours of playing this happened 4 times in very different situations.
i cant understand wether mgexe is causing that - but i never noticed this before (maybe connected to the disapearing particles? but i had spells going through npcs with visible particles).

i like the increased brightness with hdr especialy in exteriors, now the bloom is better noticeable on clear weather.
the interiors could be a little darker for my taste.


EDIT:
- reflection error when underwater & close to surface in vivec sewers (http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/7713/reflecterror.jpg)
- some objects cause reflections behind the object in interiors (http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/549/reflectbehind.jpg)

and after some more testing i definitely can say that the above mentioned problem with on target spells happens from time to time.


ANOTHER EDIT:
- still some artifacts on the border between mge and vanilla viewdistance (http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4545/blending.jpg)
- no object has bloom over its edges, i tested this extensive because i felt something was wrong with bloom. at least the bloom-soft shader needs a little bloom around bright objects i think (http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/5743/bloomw.jpg) i know its very difficult to tweak if you dont want to get too much bloom on the object itself but i hope its possible

MGE XE seems to have less issues on my system than MGE - distant land isn't black just the sun. :twirl:

Is there a way to toggle the new shadows on and off? How about in the future?

The sun being black is a strange problem that ATi cards have. The fix is rather simple, you just replace the sunglare.dds with a new one. Here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IX6I7D4B

It's possible to toggle the shadows off, just bind a macro in the macro editor. Read the first post in this thread, it explains iirc.

Thanks for that! Never buying anything with "ATi" on it ever again. :brokencomputer:

I meant in the GUI, but that will do - that effectively raised my FPS from 10-15 to 20-25. I use distant land to see where I am going for the most part.

Something I noticed, if you rename Morrowind.exe to Morrowind_laa.exe (or something like that), MGE XE won't load. MGE on the other hand does.

No need. AMD bought ATi so you won't be seeing that brand anymore.

When using this, I don't get ripples on the water or waves. I get the caustic lighting though.
My shaders in-order:
SSAO HQ
Sunshafts

I had ImprovedWaterShader06b installed but turned it off, would that have anything to do with it?

Niether ripples, nor waves have been implemented in this version of MGE yet. Hopefully, Hrnchamd can figure out a way to implement them without sacrificing performance too much, which I think is most likely the reason they haven't already been introduced to this version.

With my new Groundcover mod the grasses doesnt bend, how do i fix that?

I really like the new lightning on the grasses, looks great, very smooth and natural

Things I noticed,

I limit my FPS to 30 in Morrowind, but the MGE FPS counter many times shows above that - like 35-40 FPS. Menus show even higher.

Indoor water lacks transparency, it is gray-ish blue and I can see whiter moving things on it.
Weird thing is that I don't remember noticing this in Urshilaku caverns.

Without shadows, the distant land performance is great - that is, it offers higher FPS that normal MGE.

There is momentary flash when getting to main menu - like menu -> blackness -> menu or something similar... too fast to tell.

Would you mind elaborating on this a bit please? Does this mean that mods that use MGE's pipe to manipulate shaders and such will not work?

>Does this mean that mods that use MGE's pipe to manipulate shaders and such will not work?

At least one example is that "Ownership Indicator" will not have any visual effect.

Yeah ownership indicator is the only thingn keeping my main install back at regular MGE. Can it be reimplemented without the MGE calls Flig?

Okay, cool. I also get a seam in the water when it turns into LOD (Distant Land) water. For example, if I'm on the Ministry of Truth and look at the water near Ebonheart, it is blue and non-transparent. But the water near the High Fane is clear blue and nice. I was wandering if there is any way to stop this, by making water non-distant-land or something?

Do you have the latest version installed? It fixes that and blends distant water better.

Hey Hrchamd, do you have any plans to implement cloud shadowing of any sort? It would make the game so much more immersive, plus make the weather a lot more noticeable.

Also, are you going to add texture hooking back in? I would be perfectly satisfied if it was only enabled during the main menu, then I could have it animated again. Being able to attach a shader to the stars, making them twinkle would be pretty cool too.

I get the same thing with water.