Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[delphonso]

On the plus side, if you go with MGE, you can also play with the MWSE mods, which offer some stuff that OpenMW still can't. Ashfall seems horrible but great.

[Robsoie]

I find it strange that OpenMW didn't integrated directly MGE and MWSE from the very beginning considering that both are open source (and have their source code available).
I know they replicate a lot of graphic functionality from MGE so it's never going to happen, just sadly in term of performance they're not on par with it, unless they're all using some high end computer and so do not notice MGE perform better, but for MWSE that would open a lot of support for plugins that are incompatible with OpenMW.

I wonder if OpenMW has all the improvements from the Morrowind Code Patch, as they start with a new engine i imagine they don't have all the engine bugs from the original Morrowind that only the code patch can fix.

[Robsoie]

I reinstalled everything  and the latest version of all the plugins i used instead of Rebirth,  gave a try to Remiros grass for a change (previously was using Ozzy Merged Grass).
Setup MGE XE , generated the distant lands and all its required mesh/static generation too.

Started Morrowind and wow, it's incredible how the performance is high and smooth despite all the superb dynamic shadows , the long view distance, the water reflections etc... What a performance difference with OpenMW in which every of those features had sadly a very noticable impact on performance, i really wonder why it is like that out of the lack of lods of OpenMW, is MGE XE doing some magic somewhere
Not fan of remiros' grass at least in the starting area, i prefered the ozzy merged one.

EDIT :
So much difference in performance seemed a bit curious to me, so to check if by any chances i had a setting from the very old version of OpenMW i tried somehow breaking everything in that latest dev build, i simply deleted the OpenMW folder from C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\My Games\
Restarted latest dev build of OpenMW and set the settings.
Even applied the required openmw.cfg and settings.cfg (files that are in the recreated C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\My Games\OpenMW\ ) changes  to have my remiros grass appearing in OpenMW : https://modding-openmw.com/mods/remiros-groundcover/ 

Started the game and ... performance was much much better, still not as amazing as what i have with MGE XE, but in comparison to my previous test, it's like night and day. I wonder what setting was screwing up everything previously.
Then after more tweaking, OpenMW now refuse to launch with some unicode error , even after deleting the folder in my documents or the openmw directory still same error now. All the while Morrowind still works without a single problem.

So it looks like it will take time for me to move to OpenMW as currently Morrowind + MGE XE is running rock solid and like a dream on a now low end system

[MrRoboto75]

Wealth is hard to balance. With intention and a little know how, it's easy to get thousands of gold quickly. Without the know how, you really don't make much (stealing peoples silverware is fun, but nets only a few hundred per town.) I think veterans of the game conflate the two and spoil both for new or less experienced players (or players like me who don't have less fun because I don't have to worry about paying for a boat)

Doesn't help when the Tribunal expansion sends an assassin after you within the first game week.  Assuming you can kill him, that's either the best light armor in the game, or at least a thousand gold if you can't make use of it.

[delphonso]

Glad you gave it another fair shake, Robsoie, but yeah, looks like original engine with MGE XE is the way for you. Part of the feedback I got earlier may be related to a lot of the community being on Linux. Running Morrowind through Proton or WINE, then running a script extender and then a graphics extender seems like a recipe for losses.

I'm really looking forward to 0.48 and the subsequent releases. The more they open up to Lua scripting, the more the community can make happen. Right now it's mostly lighting and fog/clouds. But if the right pathways are opened, we might even see backwards support for MWSE mods and homemade optimizations for distant terrain/ground cover. Basically I see the potential of OpenMW being greater than MWSE, though the current state doesn't compare well in the visuals department.

MrRoboto75: I don't recall what mod (maybe Rebirth, actually) but one of them levels the gear of the Dark Brotherhood assassins. Instead of endgame light armor on your first night, they show up in netch leather and try stabbing you with a chitin dagger. Makes a bit less sense in universe, but also is far less annoying and I'd say reasonably balanced. A favorite strategy was resting right next to Mudcrab Merchant, killing the DB assassins, then selling all the gear to him. Easy fortune.

It really reflects the era the game was released in. Expansions being products you'd buy after finishing the game, rather than a pre-order bonus as it is today.

[delphonso]

Anyway, I'm playing a bit in the evenings when I'm not exhausted/caring for a baby. I installed a few mods just to pad out that middle section when you've finished a bunch of guild quests but haven't trained up your skills enough to actually rank up (I always grind to a halt around the point guilds require 50+ in a skill.)

The one I'm most looking forward to is Vvardenfell Brotherhood, which allows you to join the Dark Brotherhood. It took more inspiration from Morrowinds quests rather than Oblivion, so I'm hoping it feels a bit more fitting. I'm also interested to see if it interacts with either Tribunal or Morag Tong in an interesting way.

I'm aiming for an unusual build for myself. Mostly a mage, with hand-to-hand and an enchanted short sword just for dealing with ghosts. I'm currently on light armor, but might go with medium later since I have plenty of inventory. Just a fistful of scrolls and potions.

[Robsoie]

Even if currently it's not the better choice to play Morrowind on my system, i have no doubt OpenMW is the future for Morrowind, as with its continuing development it will reach a point it will surpass MGEXE/MWSE and will open more modding possibilities, and being multi-platform is always great instead of being locked to a single OS.

And who know maybe at some point there will be a "asset replacement" project to get rid of the original Morrowind content so even people without the original game will be able to play with OpenMW, unless similarly to Daggerfall it will become free forever in a decade.

For the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansion being triggered way too early , i have been used this :
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/14891
But i noticed there's another mod that seems to be more usefull if you're interested :
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47588

[Sime]

 I haven't played MW for 20 years and don't plan to return any time soon,  but I notice that  'BTB's game improvements'  is still being maintained.    Out of curiosity, did his changes improve the game?

[delphonso]

I discussed it further with some of the contributors. OpenMW doesn't reliably cull resources which are blocked by other objects (noticable with water shaders impact performance the same even if there's a mountain between you and a lake). This might make the difference you're experiencing between MGE and OpenMW. No one has taken up this specific project, possibly because everyone's waiting on more Lua support and the impacts that will have on shaders and light.

Sime - no clue. I looked at the mods and they seem like a nice set of bugfixes. Morrowind Code Patch became park of the basic package for vanilla engine play, and many of BTB's changes are integrated there (either by them, or another person who noticed the issue). Many aren't necessary in the OpenMW engine.

speak quickly outlander, or go away

Also, I forgot to say, 'STOOPID'

[Robsoie]

Hopefully they will take on that kind of culling at some point once they're done with their other projects, as from my various playtests the performance is the actual difference i feel between OpenMW and MW+MGEXE. At the game mostly is the same.

Though it would be nice if they could find a way to support the MWSE system too, as Ashfall by example for people that wants some indepth survival mechanics is just too good and its alternative while nice aren't as great (Frostwind by example has some functionality disabled on OpenMW).
 

[Tellemurius]

I find it strange that OpenMW didn't integrated directly MGE and MWSE from the very beginning considering that both are open source (and have their source code available).
I know they replicate a lot of graphic functionality from MGE so it's never going to happen, just sadly in term of performance they're not on par with it, unless they're all using some high end computer and so do not notice MGE perform better, but for MWSE that would open a lot of support for plugins that are incompatible with OpenMW.

I wonder if OpenMW has all the improvements from the Morrowind Code Patch, as they start with a new engine i imagine they don't have all the engine bugs from the original Morrowind that only the code patch can fix.

The main focus of the project was to get the base game running first, MWSE and other code fixes were considered at the end of the roadmap at post release. Some of the Code patch fixes have been implemented as part of the new engine since vanilla bugs are being fixed along the way.

Changes with MWSE-Lua could help in the long run as openmw supports Lua scripting, some modders have already begun coding for both. There's still no cross compatibility or feature parity yet, but assuming everything goes to plan eventually someone could make an interpreter in the near future once scripting is complete.

[delphonso]

I'm playing as a dunmeri woman which was the best choice because I occasionally get to hear 'STOOPID' in combat.

[MorleyDev]

Can't move code between MGE and OpenMW because MGE works by intercepting the old DirectX calls in a custom DLL that inserts it's own code into those calls, rather than being a wholely new rendering pipeline. It's a square peg and a round hole.

MWSE-Lua compatibility is unlikely also because MWSE-Lua had to make design compromises due to how the Gamebyro engine data was structured and what it could hook into, whilst OpenMW Lua doesn't have those constraints and instead has much more flexibility to change things for a better design. Best you'd get is if someone wrote a bridging API that offers the same MWSE-Lua functions but calls the OpenMW lua inside them. Assuming they even directly translate to how OpenMWs engine works.

Performance wise vs MGE it's more different trade-offs atm. OpenMW can do distant rendering without needing to generate the distant land LOD objects because of it having a better batch rendering pipeline via object paging but that's more espensive to render than dedicated LOD optimized objects. It also only recently got a Post-Processing effects pipeline for doing things like godrays or bloom properly on the GPU. Or Volumetric Clouds and proper PBR.

As I understand it, neither OpenMW or vanilla do occlusion culling. Since in a wide open world the time to process what to occlude can overall cost more than the savings in rendering, it's debatable if it brings any value. Any FPS gained in Balmora streets might be matched or exceeded by FPS lost in a location like Pelgiad or by simply levitating over Balmora. It may be possible to add it by adding 'occlusion maps' to let it be controlled by location, but that'd need require an extra mod with those maps to actually support it anyway.