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Author Topic: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure  (Read 5720 times)

delphonso

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #15 on: June 15, 2022, 06:33:27 am »

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

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #16 on: June 15, 2022, 06:57:59 am »

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.
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Robsoie

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #17 on: June 15, 2022, 08:14:48 am »

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 :D
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 :D
« Last Edit: June 15, 2022, 09:37:05 am by Robsoie »
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MrRoboto75

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #18 on: June 15, 2022, 06:44:06 pm »

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.
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delphonso

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #19 on: June 15, 2022, 10:47:27 pm »

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

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #20 on: June 15, 2022, 11:14:22 pm »

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

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #21 on: June 16, 2022, 02:59:21 am »

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

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Sime

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #22 on: June 16, 2022, 03:50:36 am »

 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?
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delphonso

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #23 on: June 17, 2022, 08:06:51 am »

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

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #24 on: June 19, 2022, 09:24:43 am »

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).
 
« Last Edit: June 19, 2022, 09:33:43 am by Robsoie »
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Tellemurius

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #25 on: June 23, 2022, 04:01:54 pm »

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

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #26 on: June 24, 2022, 07:51:01 am »

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

MorleyDev

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #27 on: June 25, 2022, 12:02:26 pm »

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.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2022, 11:54:39 am by MorleyDev »
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delphonso

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #28 on: May 07, 2023, 08:09:32 am »

With the release candidates hopefully about to finish and finally see 0.48, I decided to go in with the Oblivion-style pursuit mod and a few of the other Lua things (the followers hud looks fun).

My mod list is currently 150. And I'm too exhausted from just that to even start installing and praying to avoid crashes. But boy...when I start playing again...wooheee, it'll be a ride.

da_nang

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Re: Morrowind Thread (OpenMW, MWSE, tes3mp) - Wealth beyond measure
« Reply #29 on: July 06, 2023, 08:33:48 pm »

Oh hey, there is a thread!

Today was fun:

  • Play nostalgia game.
  • Get interested in mechanics.
  • Look up mechanics formulae in wiki.
  • Make a test prediction.
  • Test prediction fails.
  • Double check formulae. More predictions. More failures.
  • Google-fu never fails!
  • Google-fu has failed.
  • Check game source code.
  • Is unofficial android port. Is written in eldritch tongue.
  • Has enigmatic folder name scheme. Main has sauce? No, just android UI, shell, and shit.
  • Check manual? Manual in Ukrainian.
  • Where game sauce?!
  • Fuck it, check PC sauce.
  • Is C++. Delve greedily and deeply.
  • Double check headers (because default values are hidden here for some reason).
  • Follow step-by-step with prediction data.
  • Prediction success.
  • Double check. Prediction success
  • Conclude that the wiki is WRONG.
* da_nang slams his head onto his desk.

Today's issue has been the mechanics of the Enchant skill in OpenMW, specifically the formulae for self enchanting. I can only conclude that the UESPwiki is wrong, the OpenMW PC engine source code comments on this as well. To add to my confusion, the (unofficial) Android port I'm using appears to be a wrapper, since I can't for the life of me find its engine source on the GitHub. The wiki appears to be wrong in two ways.

The first error is that the values for the min, max, and area when calculating the Enchant Points in OpenMW have a minimum value of 1. The source code uses std::max(1,min) etc. for these. There is also strong evidence that the value for duration is also 1. The source code just fetches mDuration and while I don't know the default value, I know this: you can't go below 1 in the UI, and durationless spell effects seem to be using 1 as well (e.g. by calculating Enchant Points for a Mark spell effect with duration set to 0 or 1 and comparing with in-game values). This accounts for some of the peculiarities I've noticed.

The second error is when calculating the Enchant Chance. Based on the wiki, you would multiply the sum (Enchant + Intelligence/5 + Luck/10 - 3*EnchantPoints) with the factor (0.75 + %Fatigue). (This then gets halved for constant effect enchantments). What's %Fatigue? The wiki suggests its the ratio of the Current Fatigue to the Maximum Modified Fatigue. Well, this formula gets massively wrong in the predictions.

First, the tiny yet-not-so-insignificant details. OpenMW keeps track of the precise Enchant Points. The Enchant Points you see in the UI? That's just the floored version, which the wiki is kind enough to have written down but not point out. However, the Enchant Chance in OpenMW uses the precise version. So the sum would be (Enchant - 3*PreciseEnchantPoints + 0.2*Intelligence + 0.1*Luck), rewritten to closer match the source code (presumably to avoid overflow or cancellation issues). Divisions are also replaced as in source.

But the big villain is the fatigue factor, or fatigue term as it's called in the source. Using %Fatigue to represent the same ratio, the factor you multiply is not (0.75 + %Fatigue) but (1.25 - 0.5*(1 - %Fatigue)) which equals (0.75 + 0.5 * %Fatigue). That's a huge error! At max %Fatigue, you're multiplying by 1.25, not 1.75! A whooping 40% relative error just from that. Finally, the whole value then gets truncated to an integer by static_cast<int>. Since that is what's returned by the function, this is what the game then compares to a dice roll to see if the enchantment is successful.

(There's some additional code related to enchantment of throwing weapons, arrows, and bolts, but I didn't test that out.)

Compounding of multiple spell effects seems to follow the general principle found on the Wiki. However, remember that OpenMW keeps track of the precise points, while the display uses floored points. In fact, the display is compounding with floored values*. While this doesn't affect capacity, since that appears to be a pure UI check using floored values, the Enchant Chance for a multiple spell effect enchantment still uses the precise points when compounding.

EDIT: *Slight correction. The display accumulates an internal cost with precise points, but the display cost is compounded with the floor of the internal cost at the end of each iteration. For instance, say the precise points of the individual effects are 5.5 and 6.7. When adding the first effect, the internal cost becomes 5.5 and the display cost is 5. When adding the second effect, the internal cost becomes 5.5 + 6.7 = 12.2, and the display cost becomes 5 + 12 = 17, not 5+(5+6) = 16. In other words, the display cost = Σn=1Nfloor(Sn) where Sn = Σi=1npi and pi are the precise points of the effects (ordered top to bottom on the effects list).



So that has been sleep-deprived fun. I hope it may be useful.

Then again, most people probably just chug bootstrapped Fortify Intelligence potions rather than delve into this madness.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2023, 02:21:03 pm by da_nang »
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