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[Doubler]

MGE isn't hard to use, and very much recommended to everyone with a half-decent machine. Not everybody likes it, but at least give it a try.
The process is pretty much automated. It's costumizable to a large extent, but standard settings will generally give you a good starting point.
Now, is there any reason left to play Oblivion?

Edit: By the way, important! You'll want to get the MGE interior fix, and maybe the MGE weather fix.
The interior fix turns IVD off in interiors, thus fixing a problem where large interiors (such as Mournhold) would bug out. The second mod turns it off during certain types of weather. Ash storms aren't as impressive if you can still see for miles :cheesy:

Also note that the water doesn't change for the better.

[Mighty Midget]

Thanks! Got all 3 and will give them a go.

[Havell]

I'm really enjoying Morrowind with MGE, I like being able to see where I'm travelling to and it just looks incredible. One thing it does do, however, is make you realise that the game world is actually quite small. Which you realise when you look at any view and see about three Dwemer ruins and two Daedric shrines. Or when you're standing in Vivec and can see Seyda Neen quite easily.

I didn't know about the option to turn it off during ash and snow storms, I'll definitely check that one out. Not so much to keep the effect of a blinding ash storm up, but becuase I've been getting the occasional slight lag and movement jerk during dust storms with the long draw distances active (this is on a machine with a good dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM and a solid Radeon graphics card, btw), which is annoying, though the game is still extremely playable.

I'd still advise anyone with a decent computer to give it a go, as Doubler said, it can seen intimidatingly technical at frist, but most of it is automated, just read the help.

[Mighty Midget]

EDIT: When I start Morrowind, after closing MGE, I can't coz it can't find the MGE files...

Someone, please take my hand and walk me through this. Yes, I have read the Help, but I'm still stuck, mainly coz the Help wasn't helping me much.

I need to be guided all the way, I'm afraid, from the moment I first run MGE. If necessarily, I'll uninstall and reinstall, but I seriously could need someone to walk me through this setup and launching.

[Doubler]

To get IVD working:

1- If you use MGE 3.3.2, make sure you have a DX9 card and Bloodmoon installed. If not, install them or use 3.0.3. Make sure .NET 2.0 is installed. Make sure you have a recent DX9 version. You may want to download and install the most recent full package.

2- Install MGE. Make sure you put the files in your Morrowind installation folder. Not Data Files like mods, but in the very folder with your Morrowind.exe. The new Dll's and stuff should be in that very folder.

3- Start up MGE

4- Click on the 'tools' tab

5- Click on "Distant land file creation wizard"

6- Add all plugins you want distant land created for (including the ESM's!)

7- Go through the following steps. You can pretty much go with default settings IIRC. Make sure everything fully loads. It will take quite a bit of time.
(the only thing you might want to remember, if you use 3.3.2, is the 'statics' tab. The two 'range' fields determine which size statics must be to be drawn at short or long range (beyond the normal view distance), that is things like trees etc. It may require some experimentation to get right. Start with defaults, later you can see it in the game and if necessary redo the wizard to get more or fewer objects drawn at the two distances)

8- When everything is done, click the "Global graphics" tab

9- Check 'Use Distant land'.

10- The options associated with it speak for themselves. The two number fields are given in cells. The reflective options are about statics reflecting in water. sm3 water overrides standard MW shaders to fix a borderline cutoff problem. It's rather ugly, imho, but better then the alternative.

11- That should do it for Distant Land and Statics. You can take a look at all the other settings under the various tabs. Most are self-explanatory or have explanations if you hover over them. Experiment a bit to see what suits you and your system. MGE can automaticly call up some system information (max AA, etc.), but this isn't always accurate.

12- Run MW as normal. Note that MWSE is included with MGE (those fixes need it, don't worry about that)

[Mighty Midget]

Thanks a ton! I got it working! I still need to tune it, since it draws water in the mid-range distance, but other than that it looks like it's working well.

It is true, however, that one see just how small the world is. Standing in Balmora and looking over to Vivec and further kinda took away the feeling of traveling around in a huge world.

[Borodin]

Originally Posted by Mighty Midget

Sorry for the double post, but this can be of interest to Morrowind players
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.co...s.Detail&id=45

I haven't got it myself, and I need to read more on how to use it (I'm as far from a tech wiz as you can possibly get)

I am so getting this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-cAI...eature=related.

It's beautiful: no question. I've been watching it's development for 2 years, now. But there have also been a flood of interactive bug reports, because the game is running on so many different combinations of systems, video cards, and RAM. For some people , the Graphics Extender still doesn't work. For many, it works in part. It can also slow things down dramatically, and many of us would rather slow things dramatically by running script-intensive quest systems, if we're going to do that.

But I still keep an eye on this project. After all, it promises a beauty every bit as good as Oblivion, with a real game behind it.

EDIT: It's unfair of them to back that YouTube video with the wonderful Celtic soundtrack from Morrowind! That just makes the thing that much more impressive. It looks like they've also got some RAM-grabbing modded tilesets in place, but I could be wrong. I've used a few of those myself, and they really spiff up the look of the game.

[Mighty Midget]

As for me, I was actually surprised my graphics card didn't get a nervous breakdown. It's a really crappy GeForce 7500 LE, and until the very latest drivers from Nvidia, I wasn't able to run Morrowind at all. Still, Morrowind works (it is just as unstable as it has always been for me, no matter the specs) and this mod works, or so it appears for now.

EDIT: Weird. The mod needs the latest directx 9c to work, but it doesn't work with directx 10. I just tried.

[Tervez]

I am so getting this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-cAI...eature=related.

*Sees video*

*Drops his jaw*

I am SO going to get a proper computer to run that someday.

[Doubler]

Mighty Midget: Do you have sm3 water active?

Borodin: Texture replacements abound in that vid.
When you replace most of the graphical engine I can guess you're going to run into some compatibility trouble - still worth at least trying, though.
Without such problems distant land shouldn't have much influence on the framerate. Distant statics is another matter entirely, though.

Putting the Oblivion theme in the middle must be a cruel joke, by the way