Terra Laboratories

You need:

• GOG setup file, containing the game data,
• innoextract, to unpack the game data,
• OpenMW, a tes3 modern game engine,
• portmod, a tool to install and manage mods.

The gog setup file setup_tes_morrowind_goty_2.0.0.7.exe needs to unpacked. In a temp directory we use innoextract to do so:

$ ls
setup_tes_morrowind_goty_2.0.0.7.exe
$ mkdir morrsetup && cd morrsetup
$ innoextract ../setup_tes_morrowind_goty_2.0.0.7.exe
[...] long output omitted [...]
$ ls
app  tmp

The directory app contains all the game data we need. Move where you want to install the game. As example we want install in a games directory under the home

$ mv app ~/games/tes_morrowind
$ cd ..
$ rm -r morrsetup

In the installation directory (i.e., ~/games/tes_morrowind) is the Data Files directory. In the original morrowind.exe engine all mods had to be installed there; in OpenMW each mod is installed in a separate directory; so we create a copy that we will keep pristine for OpenMW and we keep the original Data Files if we need to use programs like the Construction Set that expect all their data to be in that directory.

$ cp -r 'Data Files' 'Data Files OpenMW'

If we need to reset the Data Files directory to its original content, we can just delete it and copy back the OpenMW one.

To make the old-way to install mods easier we convert all filenames to lowercase.

$ convmv --notest --lower -r 'Data Files/'*

We have to ensure to make all filenames lowercase before copying in the old Data Files .

This step is simple, execute openmw-wizard and using the GUI select “Existing Installation” and locate the morrowind.esm file in the Data Files OpenMW directory you created. The wizard will also convert the morrowind.ini contents to the format of OpenMW in ~/.config/openmw/openmw.cfg.

Once done start the game and give a look to the in-game options, you probably want to activate shaders and set up the water. Leave the game.

Now in `~/.config/openmw` are the configuration files:

• openmw.cfg where you configure mods.
• settings.cfg where you configure the game.

Many useful settings do not appear in game itself. We need to edit the settings.cfg file manually. The whole list is in the documentation. We cover some here too.

[Terrain]
distant terrain = true
object paging = true
object paging min size = 0.02