MGE XE

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MGE and MGE XE are utilities which extend the capabilities of Morrowind's original engine. They allow the game to render distant land, shadows, and a huge variety of shaders. They also provide support for widescreen resolutions or scalable UI windows -- and much more.

While being ingenious pieces of software, both utilities are not compatible with OpenMW because they were written for a completely different engine. However, OpenMW will provide many of the features out of box, most likely replacing all of MGE's and MGE XE's functionality in the future.

This page keeps track of all MGE / MGE XE features and their implementation in OpenMW. To learn more about other utilities' compatibility with OpenMW, check out our Mod status page.

MGE

Original Description Summary OpenMW Status Comments
Adds an oblivion style distant land feature, including distant statics and reflective water. Adds Distant Land feature including distant statics and reflective water. Partially implemented OpenMW already provides distant land (see Camera Settings and Cells Settings). We are missing a proper LOD implementation though.
Adds a semi-faked HDR effect. Adds semi-fake HDR effect.
Allows morrowind to make use of the graphics drivers 'application preference' setting for antialiasing, anisotropic filtering and vWait, mipmap detail, refresh rate, etc. Allows Morrowind to use graphics driver's preference settings for things like Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, Mipmap Detail, or Refresh Rate.
Allows global render state changes, such as disabling or enabling fog etc. Allows to change global render states, e.g., disabling or enabling fog.
Lets you change morrowinds screen resolution to non 4:3 values. Allows screen resolutions which are not 4:3. Implemented OpenMW natively supports all screen resolutions.
Fixes the white loading screens you get when trying to use antialiasing. Fixes white loading screens appearing when using Anti-Aliasing. Ignored No issue in OpenMW.
Adds fullscreen, customizable hardware and software shaders, up to 32 of which can be run at once. Adds fullscreen, hardware, and software shaders. Planned / in progress, see https://forum.openmw.org/viewtopic.php?t=4425
Lets you take screenshots even when antialiasing is enabled, and in any of 6 different formats (bmp, jpeg, dds and png). Allows to take screenshots with Anti-Aliasing enabled. Implemented You can take screenshots whenever you want in OpenMW.
Lets you take screenshots even when antialiasing is enabled, and in any of 6 different formats (bmp, jpeg, dds and png). Offers 6 different file formats for screenshots (.bmp, .jpeg, .dds, .png). Implemented The screenshot format can be changed in the settings file. The formats that are supported are determined at compilation-time, but should include the listed ones at the least.
Lets you use different fogging modes. (Including the more accurate ranged vertex mode.) Adds ranged-vertex fog mode.
Lets you use different fogging modes. (Including the more accurate ranged vertex mode.) Allows to use different fogging modes.
14 different types of macro that can be attached to any key, including entering console commands, changing MGE graphics settings on the fly, and remapping any normally unmappable morrowind controls. Adds 14 different types of macros in order to, e.g., change graphics settings on the fly.
Time based triggers, which can be set to push keys after set periods of time. Useful for automatic saving. Allows to remap time-based triggers, e.g., to achieve automatic saving.
All macros can also use up to 8 mouse buttons as if they were keyboard keys. Macros can also be bound to the mouse wheel. Allows to bind macros to any key.
All macros can also use up to 8 mouse buttons as if they were keyboard keys. Macros can also be bound to the mouse wheel. Allows to bind macros to mouse buttons or mouse wheel as well.
Lets you skip the opening movie and disable the console. Allows to skip the opening movie. Implemented You can already skip the intro movie in OpenMW.
Lets you skip the opening movie and disable the console. Allows to disable the console. You can remove the key binding for the console, or you can just not use it.
Lets you use daggerfall style combat controls, where you move the mouse back and for to swing your weapon. Adds Daggerfall-style combat controls as an option.
Allows scripts to change global graphics settings, including specular highlighting, fogging, shading model etc. Allows scripts to change global graphics settings (specular highlighting, fogging, shading model, etc.).
Allows scripts to load and set fullscreen shaders. Allows scripts to load and set fullscreen shaders.
Allows scripts to change fog density, zoom, screen rotation etc. Allows scripts to change fog density, zoom, screen rotation, etc.
Allows scripts to load .x files, and then position, texture, and apply vertex/pixel shaders to the loaded mesh. Allows scripts to load .x files.
Allows scripts to load .x files, and then position, texture, and apply vertex/pixel shaders to the loaded mesh. Allows to position, texture, and shade these loaded meshes.
Gives scripts control over the players input. You can disable individual keys, force key presses etc. Allows scripts to control player's input (disable keys, force key presses, etc.).
Lets scripts add extra bits of HUD. Allows scripts to add pieces to the HUD.
Gives scripts control over the colour of fog, the background, sky, sunlight and a few other global colours. Allows scripts to change many global colours (fog, background, sky, and sunlight colours).
Lets modders attach shaders to ingame morrowind objects, so that effects such as bump mapping can be applied. Allows modders to attach shaders to in-game Morrowind objects (e.g., to create bump map effect). Implemented Custom shaders could be added with the .osg Native Mesh Format, although this isn't a very practical thing to do. Bump maps are supported in the default shader.
Provides an inbuilt shader editor to aid in writing your own fullscreen shaders, as well as many example shaders. Provides an in-built shader editor for writing new fullscreen shaders.
Provides an inbuilt shader editor to aid in writing your own fullscreen shaders, as well as many example shaders. Provides many example shaders.
Includes a feature to prevent morrowind hogging 100% of your cpu time. Includes a feature to prevent Morrowind from using 100 % of your CPU. Ignored This shouldn't be an issue in OpenMW.
Priveds a utility to generate heightmaps and low details textures and meshes of your installed plugins, for use with the distant land feature. Provides a utility to generate heightmaps as well as low-detail textures and meshes of installed plugins. Ignored LOD meshes will be created at run-time.


MGE XE

Original Description Summary OpenMW Status Comments
All objects in Morrowind view distance receive shadows. Adds shadows to all objects in Morrowind's view distance. Implemented Github pull request merged, #1547 and Gitlab issue closed, #4851.
High quality selection of default shaders included. Adds a selection of default shaders.
Screenshot enable now works normally. Just use PrintScreen, no macro required. Automatically enables screenshots. Ignored No issue in OpenMW.
Object pop-in at the screen edge no longer occurs. Distant land and grass culling is not delayed by a frame any more. Fixes objects popping-in at the screen edges.
Object pop-in at the screen edge no longer occurs. Distant land and grass culling is not delayed by a frame any more. Fixes distant land and grass culling to not be delayed by one frame. Ignored No issue in OpenMW.
Grass moves and parts when the player is nearby; grass is lit better. Adds grass moving and parting when the player is nearby.
Grass moves and parts when the player is nearby; grass is lit better. Improves grass lighting.
Shaders no longer affect the crosshair, nor spill over the screen during cell loading, nor screw with cutscenes. Fixes shaders to not affect the crosshair, cell loading, and cutscenes. Ignored No issue in OpenMW.
Windowed mode snaps to the screen edge to act like fullscreen, allowing fast Alt-Tab. Windowed mode snaps to the screen edges to allow fast Alt-Tab. Should be achievable with borderless window mode, either way Alt-Tab should already be fast on most systems.
New underwater surface effects, with total internal reflection. Adds new underwater surface effects, e.g., total internal reflection.
Scattering fog/haze and better skies and sunsets, thanks to phal. Adds scattering fog/haze, better skies and sunsets.
Morrowind's UI can now be scaled/zoomed. Adds UI scaling and zooming. Implemented OpenMW allows you to scale the UI via a setting (see GUI Settings Section).
You can now choose moveable or borderless windowed mode. Adds option to choose between moveable and borderless windowed mode. Implemented "Window border" in Video settings.
Screenshots now capture without the UI included, unless you are in menu mode. Changes screenshots to not include the UI unless the player is in menu mode. Ignored You can simply toggle the UI by pressing "F11" in OpenMW.
Screenshot names are now appended with the date and time instead of an incrementing number. The need for a space after the screenshot prefix name is no longer present. Changes screenshot names to include time and date instead of an incrementing number.
Added transparency AA to grass and distant statics for better anti-aliasing. Adds transparency AA to grass and distant statics for better anti-aliasing.
XE Sky Variations mod. Changes the sky and sunrise/sunset colours every day. Adds the XE Sky Variations mod which changes sky, sunset, and sunrise colours every (game) day.
This feature is a new renderer that improves the lighting of Morrowind. You will see better warmth from torches, daytime will have more dynamic range, overlapping lights will actually provide more brightness, removal of inaccurate discolouration, and better point lighting from magic projectiles. This requires a good graphics card and reduces fps by approximately 10%. Adds per-pixel lighting shader to improve Morrowind lighting. Implemented Can be achieved by setting 'clamp lighting' to false and 'force per pixel lighting' to true, see the settings documentation for details.

Skipped MGE XE changes

New features over MGE:

  • Water shows up in the local map again, previous MGE versions did not allow it to render in the map.
  • Support for UI display quality fix in Morrowind Code Patch.

New features:

  • Fixes 16x antialiasing mode to use CSAA where available.
  • Improved shaders. Small optimizations. Smoother, rounder bloom. DoF shader adds distance blur in heavy fog.
  • Added French and Russian localizations, thanks to the community.

Fixes:

  • Fixed initialization to start without errors when there are no distant land files and distant land set to off.
  • Reduced gaps in water reflections caused by distant land projection bias.
  • Fixed the rendering of moons when using high quality sky scattering.
  • Reduce amount of logging to minimize stutter caused by disk I/O.
  • Fog near the player in heavy weather (large fog offset like fog and ashstorms) is much closer to the density of the original fog. Fog and ashstorms look thicker, and fogged water reflections more accurately match the objects above ground.
  • Corrected fog colour discrepancies at sunset and sunrise.
  • Added separate LOD versions of the ghostfence and vivec water meshes, to avoid flickering caused by z-fighting. Mournhold steps and streetlamps included in distant land and reflections.
  • Moving the third person camera in-game with macro functions displays the camera offset coordinates.
  • Fixed some bugs with alt-tabbing.

Legend

Not started Work on this feature has not started yet.
Partially implemented This feature has been partially implemented. See the entry's comment for more information.
Implemented This feature has already been implemented.
Ignored This feature will not be implemented because either OpenMW provides a better solution to achieve the same functionality or it is not possible to properly implement the feature in OpenMW. See the entry's comment for more information.