Modding-OpenMW.com

Automatic Installation Guide

This page will walk you through each step required to automatically download and configure our mod lists.

It's very important to fully complete each step and not skip anything.

Choose A Mod List

Before getting started with our Automatic Installation Guide, you should first choose a mod list.

The main mod lists and their descriptions are listed below. Click on the list title to view the complete list of mods used in each of the mod lists.

Click the bubble next to the one you wish to use and click the "Submit" button below to confirm your choice, and the page will update to match what you've selected:

Selected mod list + OS: Graphics Overhaul on Windows

Thank you for selecting a mod list!

Before continuing, please read our mod list FAQ page, which answers many common questions regarding things that our mod lists add, change, and remove from the game. You're about to install potentially hundreds of different mods, so it's a good idea to read up on what you're in for.

After you've read our mod list FAQ page, please carefully read each section below to learn how to complete the rest of the install and config process.

Don't skip any steps, or you will end up with a broken, incomplete setup.

Table of contents

  1. Install OpenMW
  2. Install the MOMW Tools Pack
  3. Install A Mod List With umo
  4. Run the MOMW Configurator
  5. Gameplay Settings and Others
  6. Run The Game
  7. Read The FAQ

Install OpenMW

One must of course buy a copy of Morrowind and install OpenMW.

Please note that most mods, and by proxy our mod lists, are only compatible with the English language version of Morrowind.

Once you have Morrowind installed, you will need to decide whether you want to install the latest stable version of OpenMW or the latest development build.

The development build may have bugs and/or untested features. If you decide to use the development build, however, you can opt-in to several mods that take advantage of the latest features in development.

You can find the list of mods that require the development build here.

OpenMW Stable installer instructions:

OpenMW Development Build installation instructions:

When you have OpenMW installed, you may proceed to the next section.

Install MOMW Tools Pack

The MOMW Tools Pack contains all of the tools you need to install our mod lists in one download. To install it:

  1. Download the pack for your operating system from this link
  2. Extract it to a folder on your computer, for example: C:\games\momw-tools-pack-windows

That's it! You're ready to begin installing mods.

Note: The umo and groundcoverify executables might get flagged as malware by your AV. These are false positives. Check this issue on the umo gitlab page for an explanation about why this happens.

Install A Mod List With umo

You will now use umo (included in the Tools Pack) to download, extract, and prepare all mods for your mod list:

  1. Download and install 7-zip if you do not already have it
  2. Go to Nexus Mods and log into your Nexus account, or create one if you need to.
  3. Open the folder you extracted the MOMW Tools Pack to in Explorer
  4. Shift+Right-Click the folder background to open the context menu, and select 'Open Powershell window here'
  5. With the Powershell window in focus copy-paste the following commands one at a time and press enter to run each one: 
    # First, run and complete setup
.\umo.exe setup

# Next, sync data
.\umo.exe cache sync graphics-overhaul

# Finally, install and extract mods:
.\umo.exe install graphics-overhaul
  6. Please note that the umo setup process will ask you for various executables, and you must also include the .exe part in the path you give it, for example: 
    # Correct:
C:\games\MOMWToolsPack\tes3cmd.exe

# Incorrect:
C:\games\MOMWToolsPack\tes3cmd

When umo has finished, you may proceed to the next section.

Run the Configurator

You will now use MOMW Configurator to install a full, correct load order as well as generate merged plugins and a navmesh DB cache.

Important: Do not run OpenMW-Launcher and then enable every plugin you have downloaded. It is totally normal to have many unchecked plugins in the content files tab. Many mods come with alternate versions and patches that are incompatible with each other and will cause your game to break.

Using the MOMW Configurator enables all required plugins and data paths, and in the correct load order. You should not re-order anything or enable anything extra.

  1. Open the folder you extracted the MOMW Tools Pack to in Explorer
  2. Shift+Right-Click the folder background to open the context menu, and select 'Open Powershell window here'
  3. With the Powershell window in focus, copy-paste one of the following commands and press enter to run it: 
    # If you are using OpenMW 0.48 (Release):
.\momw-configurator.exe config graphics-overhaul --run-navmeshtool --run-validator --verbose

# If you are using an OpenMW 0.49 dev build:
.\momw-configurator.exe config graphics-overhaul --run-navmeshtool --run-validator --verbose --dev
  4. You will be prompted to enter the location of the openmw-iniimporter.exe file
    • This will be in the folder where you installed OpenMW
  5. When the Configurator finishes, you're almost ready to run OpenMW! Please proceed to the next section.

Gameplay Settings and Others

The Configurator ensures some settings for the settings.cfg file that are either required or heavily recommended to play the modlist. However, OpenMW allows for plenty of user customization and includes dozens of options, many of which are highly subjective, so it's hard to give a rundown of what you should or shouldn't use.

It is vitally important that you DO NOT edit the settings.cfg file while the launcher is open, and also DO NOT open the launcher while the settings.cfg file is still open in a text editor!

We recommend hovering over each option in the Settings menu of the OpenMW-Launcher to view the tooltip and decide for yourself which options you want to toggle. You should also read the official documentation for the rest of the settings to get a more complete idea of what can be done. You can also visit our Getting Started: Tweak Settings page, which highlights some options.

You can always re-run the Configurator to reapply any settings values we put there for you.

Run The Game

Last, but not least: run the game to see how it looks and all that.

OpenMW has a handy testing feature that's described here. Be sure to use that to quickly spawn into various areas as desired – maybe there's a texture you still want to replace or a problem you found (please let us know if that's the case!). Otherwise, it is definitely worthwhile to spend time testing before you take the deep plunge.

Once you're in-game with the testing feature described above, it's a good idea to check out the various settings related to detail levels. In particular, you'll want to extend the "View Distance" setting found at: ESC >> Options >> click the Video tab >> click the Detail Level tab below that >> adjust the View Distance slider. Please keep in mind that a larger view distance will have a larger impact on performance, so try different values until you find something that works for you.

This is also a good time to nail down performance and quality settings. With a reasonably modern GPU, it should be possible to run Morrowind via OpenMW with a high amount of visual detail. See the entire performance guide for more information.

Read The FAQ

Stop right there, criminal scum! You thought you could get away with not reading the FAQ before, but here we are again. Seriously, many of the questions you will have about the potentially hundreds of mods you've installed will be answered in the Mod List FAQ, so please read it. We spend a lot of time solving technical issues and maintaining the mod lists, so we would really appreciate it if you took the time to at least search the Mod List FAQ for the answer to your question.

A Warning About Updating Mods

Before you begin playing the game, it's worth issuing a warning about updating mods mid-playthrough:

It is not advised to update mods if you already have an in-progress savegame and are mid-playthrough!

Some mods may be safe to update mid-playthrough, but there's no hard rule, so you must be careful. To be on the safe side, please avoid doing a mass update with umo and only update as needed to fix critical bugs in specific mods if there are any.

If there is a need to update an individual mod for such a bug fix, you can do it with umo like this: 

# Windows
.\umo.exe cache sync graphics-overhaul --skip-momw --subset ProjectAtlas
.\umo.exe install graphics-overhaul --subset ProjectAtlas

# Linux/macOS
./umo cache sync graphics-overhaul --skip-momw --subset ProjectAtlas
./umo install graphics-overhaul --subset ProjectAtlas

The above example would update just Project Atlas without touching anything else.

Always be extra sure it's safe to do so before updating any mod mid-playthrough!

Hey, that's it!

Congratulations: if you made it this far and completed every step, then you're ready to play the game. Have fun!