Testing

For anyone who wants to give OpenMW a try, this will get you started in testing things out.

Starting the Game with Special Arguments
There are two ways to start the game with special arguments:


 * Add the commands to the user's openmw.cfg file (See Paths), in the form of, with each command being on a new line.
 * Add terminal/command line arguments when you run it through the executable that are can be added with the form
 * On macOS, these commands must be run like this:

In-game Commands
UESPwiki has and  of console commands. For the current implementation status of these commands in OpenMW, see Scripting (status).

Note that OpenMW's console supports tab completion, so in most cases you don't have to fully type a command / name. For example, entering  results in

To obtain all valid IDs for a particular command, you can use ESMTool or OpenMW-CS (OpenCS), both included in the OpenMW repository.

Extended Tooltips
The TFH ( ToggleFullHelp ) command will reveal more information in item tooltips, such as the owner of the item and the script attached to it, if any.

Cells
Teleporting commands are:
 * COC ( CenterOnCell ), to be used with cell names (interior or exterior), e.g.:  or
 * COE ( CenterOnExterior ) for world-map x,y coordinates for exterior cells, e.g.:

Physics

 * Use the console command TCL ( ToggleCollision ) to toggle gravity and physics interactions (i.e., clipping – you can fly through walls, floors, etc.).
 * TCG ( ToggleCollisionGrid ) reveals the collision geometry.

Environment
You can alter global variables with console syntax of the form  (e.g.,  ) and reveal their current value by typing their name. Interesting global variables to tinker with are timescale for the game speed (default is 30) and gamehour for the game hour.

ChangeWeather sets the weather in a certain region. Look it up in the for the definition and examples.

Journal
You can populate the journal by talking to quest-offering NPCs or through the console with a command of the form  (i.e.,  ).

Environment variables
Main article

Debugging
This section is intended purely for developers that compile their own build of OpenMW. Regular users will need to rely on the built in crash reporting tool.

Compiling a Debug Build
If you run openmw in a debugger like gdb, you will see that many sections of code have been optimized out by the compiler, making it difficult to track what is going on. In order to disable this optimization, specify cmake to switch to a debug build. Go to your  folder, and run the command

You can also speed up compilation time by compiling different targets. For example  will build just the openmw engine without building other tools like the launcher and construction set. This can be applied to other components as well, like

Using a Debugger
If you are running the game with a debugger to analyze a segmentation fault you should run the game with the  argument (or equivalent) to avoid the game locking up the mouse input when it crashes.

For example, with gdb: