Modding-OpenMW.com

Final Steps: Graphics Overhaul

Now that you've gone through the entire mod list you may be eager to jump in and play - but there's still a few more final steps.

Go through each step as outlined below to make sure your setup is golden.

Back to the end of the "Graphics Overhaul" modlist.

Table Of Contents

Cleaning

It can be tempting to skip cleaning, however dirty plugins can affect the game in unexpected ways. That said, if you used umo, then these files should already be cleaned for you.

As a reminder: this mod list has 1 plugin that need cleaning if you haven't already: 

sm_golden_mask.ESP

Download and extract tes3cmd to .

Next, find the plugin you need to clean and cut-and-paste it into that same directory.

On Windows, navigate to that folder and Shift+Right-click the folder to bring up the context menu. Click Open Powershell window here and type the following command, replacing the file name in quotes with the one you’re trying to clean: .\tes3cmd clean “FileYouWantToClean.esp”

On Linux or macOS, open Terminal and cd into the folder you extracted tes3cmd into and use the following command, replacing the file name in quotes with the one you’re trying to clean: ./tes3cmd clean “FileYouWantToClean.esp”

You will see some output about what tes3cmd has cleaned and that the Clean_ plugin was generated. Copy-and-paste the clean version to the file’s original location in your mods. You are welcome to remove the leftover .esp file in your vanilla Morrowind Data Files folder if you desire.

Please see this page for more information on cleaning plugins.

CFG Generator

The CFG Generator will provide you with personalized lines for your mod list that you will need to copy-and-paste into your openmw.cfg and settings.cfg files in order for the mod list to function properly.

Important: Do not enable every plugin you have downloaded. Many mods come with alternate versions and patches which are incompatible with each other and will cause your game to break. Using these snippets from the CFG Generator enables every plugin that you need to in the correct load order.

Ensure that your Site Settings are set. With your Site Settings set, on the CFG Generator page click on the Choose a preset button that says GRAPHICS OVERHAUL. After a couple of seconds you will have your config files generated for you.

For the larger mod lists the sections you will copy-and-paste into your config files can be quite large, and so for your convenience you can click on the Copy to clipboard button.

Paste the lines from the openmw.cfg section accordingly:

Verify the data= folder paths match exactly to where the files are stored on your computer. If there is a mismatch here you may have set your Site Settings incorrectly or deviated from the folder naming schemes provided by this website.

For the settings.cfg section, if the header for a section already exists in your file (ie: [Shadows]), make sure to only paste the corresponding lines and omit the duplicate header.

Note that the CFG Generator creates a complete list of plugins that you should have enabled once you are finished with the mod list. Once you finish copy-and-pasting you will have content= lines for Delta Plugin, Groundcoverify, and Waza Lightfixes and a groundcover= line for Groundcoverify despite not completing those steps, yet: 

...
content=delta-merged.omwaddon
content=deleted_groundcover.omwaddon
content=LightFixes.esp
...
groundcover=groundcover.omwaddon

It is important that you comment out these lines by placing a # at the start of the line until you complete each of those three steps in turn: 

...
#content=delta-merged.omwaddon
#content=deleted_groundcover.omwaddon
#content=LightFixes.esp
...
#groundcover=groundcover.omwaddon

Make sure to uncomment these lines after you complete each of those three steps!

Again, do not enable every plugin you have downloaded. Many mods come with alternate versions and patches which are incompatible with each other and will cause your game to break. Using these snippets from the CFG Generator enables every plugin that you need to in the correct load order.

Validate Your Configs

Once you're finished using the CFG Generator, download and run the openmw-validator tool. This will report on various potential errors in your openmw.cfg file. This step is essential to ensuring your mod list will work as it should.

It will report Validation completed, log written to: .... Navigate to that folder and open that log file. The end of the file contains a summary that lets you know about any issues the validator found. Make sure to fix any issues it reports on now, before moving forward.

Delta Plugin

With your config files set and your files validated it's time to make a merged plugin using Delta Plugin.

Do not skip this step! Many mods require object merging in order to function as intended. Delta Plugin also cleans most dirty records for you.

You will know this is successful if you get a message saying, Done! You now must edit your openmw.cfg file and remove the # before content=delta-merged.omwaddon before moving onto the next step.

It is normal to receive some warnings and errors. If you encounter any unexpected errors, however, the program will cease generating the merged plugin and will give you an error message. The openmw-validator tool will report where and why these errors occurred. Follow the instructions in that section, and run Delta Plugin again.

Groundcoverify

Groundcoverify is optional, and a little more involved than previous steps, but highly recommended as it greatly increases your performance. It accomplishes this by using Delta Plugin to convert flora and foliage objects into groundcover, and also creates a plugin to disable those objects that were converted to groundcover.

You will know this is successful if you don’t receive any errors. You now must edit your openmw.cfg file and remove the # before content=deleted_groundcover.omwaddon in the plugins section and also remove the # before groundcover=groundcover.omwaddon in the groundcover section before moving onto the next step.

Waza Lightfixes

Download Waza Lightfixes and extract it to C:\games\OpenMWMods\Tools\wazalightfixes. On Windows and Linux all you need to do is run the executable.

MacOS users may need to download the Source code (zip) file instead, and extract that to the provided data path. Then, open a Terminal window and cd into that directory and run the following command: perl waza_lightfixes.pl If you get any errors, it may be because you need to install some modules. To do so:

  1. Run cpan, which should be installed already
  2. In the Terminal, type install module_name, where module_name is the name of the module you need to install
  3. Type exit to exit CPAN
  4. Run perl waza_lightfixes.pl again and repeat the previous steps if you get any more errors

You will know the program was successful if it generated a LightFixes.esp plugin in the mod folder. You now must edit your openmw.cfg file and remove the # before content=LightFixes.esp in the plugins section before launching the game.

The Navmeshtool program comes with OpenMW and can be used to pregenerate navmeshes, thus avoiding loading stutters in-game that might be caused by doing that on the fly. It's an easy, convenient way to eliminate one category of stuttering (while continuing to enjoy the benefits of what caused it: dynamically generated navigation meshes).

The easiest way to use it is via OpenMW-Launcher:

  1. Ensure your load order is fully setup and correct
  2. Run OpenMW-Launcher
  3. Click the Data Files icon at the top
  4. Click the Navigation Mesh Cache tab
  5. Click the button labeled Update

Alternatively, if you want to generate navmeshes for the interior cells you could also run the program from the command line.

  1. In your settings.cfg file insert the following: [Navigator] max navmeshdb file size = 8589935000
  2. Navigate to your OpenMW folder and Shift+Right-click the folder to open the context menu. Click Open Powershell window here and use the following command: .\openmw-navmeshtool --process-interior-cells 1

    3. Depending on your hardware and which mod list you chose to install this could take a while to finish.

    Gameplay Settings and Others

    The CFG Generator includes a list of setting values for both openmw.cfg and settings.cfg 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.

    We recommend to hover 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 can also check out the official documentation for these settings, as well as the rest of the documentation on 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 of the options.

    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!), in any case it is definitely worthwhile to spend time testing before you take the deep plunge.

    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 high amount of visual detail. See the entire performance guide for more information.