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 using the launcher (openmw-launcher). The launcher may ask to import the ini file again, refuse in the case because it has already been done. The launcher allows to set up many options with ease. Then start the game and give a look to the in-game options.

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

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

The settings can be altered using the launcher or manually. The launcher is limited, but it is easy to use for the options that are there.

Important ones are:

• Graphics > Lighting
  • Put Shaders
• Graphics > Shadows
  • Enable everything, but if performance is a problem here is a place to look.
• Advanced > Visuals
  • Animations
    • Activate everything
  • Shaders
    • Activate everything, but Use anti-aliasing alpha testing
  • Fog:
    • Activate everything
  • Terrain
    • Activate Distant Land and Active grid object paging,
    • Put Object paging min size to 0.01
    • Set Viewing distance to 3.9 Cells
  • Models
    • Activate Day night switch nodes
• Advanced > Interface
  • Enable everything,
  • Scale the GUI to 1.25
• Advanced > Bug Fixes
  • Enable everything
• Advanced > Miscellaneous
  • Screenshot Format JPG. JPG is fine for normal usage, but change to PNG if you need to share some bug related to graphic.