Settings

This page documents OpenMW configuration settings in the settings.cfg file. Caution should be exercised when editing the settings.cfg file directly, since invalid values may cause poor performance, unexpected behavior, or even crashes.

For the most current list of available settings in the development version of OpenMW, please see the settings-default.cfg file at GutHub.

There's also older documentation available on Config file tweaks.

Location

The effective settings are supposed to be loaded from a sequence of files providing successive overrides of the values. In practice the current OpenMW launcher appears to migrate most settings into the user's personal configuration when it's run.

The OpenMW launcher looks for default settings in an operating system dependent path:

• Linux /usr/local/etc/openmw/settings-default.cfg
• Windows: ?
• Mac: ?

Then the settings-default.cfg is the current directory is loaded if one exists.

Then the user's personal settings.cfg file is loaded from an operating system dependent path:

• Linux: $HOME/.config/openmw
• Windows: C:\Users\username\Documents\my games\openmw (harddrive, username and language may vary)
• Mac: $HOME/Library/Preferences/openmw

Some of these Paths are documented elsewhere. Cleanup required?

Format

The settings.cfg file uses a variation of the Windows INI file format. The OpenMW variation uses hash marks (#) as the comment character instead of semicolons.

Settings are divided into sections of related settings that begin with a declaration composed of the section name inside square brackets. Settings follow one per line, with the setting name, an equals sign (=), and the value. An example Video section looks like this:

 [Video]
 # Set the resolution to 800x600
 resolution x = 800
 resolution y = 600
 # Run in full screen mode
 fullscreen = true
 # Limit framerate to 60.0 frames per second.
 framerate = 60.0

Settings value types are boolean, integer, floating point and string. Comments are not allowed on the line following a setting value assignment. The sections and the settings may be in any order. Duplicate setting assignments are not permitted. While multiple declarations of the same section are permitted, this configuration is not recommended, and future code might reorder the settings or disallow this feature. Setting assignments are allowed to follow the section declaration on the same line, but this configuration is not recommended.

Sections

Descriptions of individual settings are divided into separate pages according to the section in which they appear:

• Camera Settings Section - Clipping, view distance, culling, etc.
• Cells Settings Section - Exterior cell loading.
• Map Settings Section - Global and local map resolution and size.
• GUI Settings Section - Window transparency, size, colors, overlays, etc.
• HUD Settings Section - Heads Up Display configuration.
• Game Settings Section - Difficulty, settings affecting game play experience.
• General Settings Section - General video configuration.
• Input Settings Section - Camera sensitivity, keyboard changes.
• Saves Settings Section - Default character, autosaving, saved game attributes.
• Sound Settings Section - Volume levels for various sounds.
• Video Settings Section - Resolution, screens, frame rates, etc.
• Water Settings Section - Water shader configuration.
• Objects Settings Section - Object shader configuration.
• Terrain Settings Section - Terrain shader configuration.
• Shadows Settings Section - Shadow shader configuration.
• Windows Settings Section - Size and location of GUI windows.