MGSO v3.

0 MGE Options Preview

Last Updated: 24.09.2012

MGE Options Preview Document

This document previews most of the options present in the MGE Options tool that comes with Morrowind
Overhaul. It will help you to customize your Morrowind installation to fit your tastes and PC performance!
This guide is built for the following versions of MGE:

MGE Rev 186

MGE Rev 186 without foam
MGE Rev 178

If you are running MGE XE please read the MGE_XE_Preview document.

Table of contents
Global graphics and rendering options................................................................................................................... 3
Anti-Aliasing Filtering ......................................................................................................................................... 3
Anisotropic Filtering ........................................................................................................................................... 4
More mipmap bias detail ................................................................................................................................... 5
vSync .................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Show FPS Counter .............................................................................................................................................. 6
Shaders Options ..................................................................................................................................................... 6
High quality shaders ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Bloom and HDR .............................................................................................................................................. 6
Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) for interiors and exteriors .................................................................................... 6
Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) for interiors only .................................................................................................. 6
Depth Of Field (DoF) ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Godrays (sunshafts) ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Underwater Blur and Water Wobble.............................................................................................................. 6
Low quality shaders ............................................................................................................................................ 6
Bloom ............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Ambient Occlusion ......................................................................................................................................... 7
Sunshafts ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
Enable Shaders ................................................................................................................................................... 7
Distant Land Options Part 1 ................................................................................................................................. 8
Land Textures ..................................................................................................................................................... 8
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Resolution and NormalMap resolution .......................................................................................................... 8

Land Meshes ...................................................................................................................................................... 9
World mesh detail .......................................................................................................................................... 9
Land Statics ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
Minimum static size........................................................................................................................................ 9
Grass density percent ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Use Distant Land............................................................................................................................................... 10
Distant Land Options Part 2 ............................................................................................................................... 11
General settings ............................................................................................................................................... 11
Shader model ............................................................................................................................................... 11
Draw distance ............................................................................................................................................... 11
Use exponential fogging ............................................................................................................................... 11
Water ............................................................................................................................................................... 12
Reflect sky .................................................................................................................................................... 12
Reflect landscape ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Reflect nearby statics ................................................................................................................................... 12
Reflect distant statics ................................................................................................................................... 12
Blur reflections ............................................................................................................................................. 12
Dynamic ripples ............................................................................................................................................ 13
Water waves ................................................................................................................................................. 13
Caustic intensity ........................................................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................ 13

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Global graphics and rendering options

These settings are general graphics settings that you can find in most PC games nowadays.

Anti-Aliasing Filtering
Anti-Aliasing is a filter that helps to smooth the edges of the in-game objects to improve graphics quality. It has
a moderate impact on performance.
Preview:

See how the edges are smoother with AA?

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Anisotropic Filtering
Anisotropic is another filter that can improve image quality. This filter enhances the quality of textures that are
visualized at oblique angles, such as terrain. The impact on performance is smaller than Anti-Aliasing.
Preview:

As you can see, the textures placed on an oblique plane gain a lot of detail.

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More mipmap bias detail

This is another option that enhances the quality of the textures. On some resolutions the textures could flicker.
This option has almost no impact on performance.
Preview:

As you can see the texture looks way more detailed with LOD Bias option on!

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vSync
vSync is a technique to prevent screen artifacts. I suggest leaving it enabled unless it causes specific problems.
It has (almost) no effect on performance. When vSync is on the maximum framerate will be the same as the
screen refresh frequency.

Show FPS Counter

Simply shows a tiny FPS counter on the upper left corner of the screen:

Obviously, it doesnt affect performance.

Shaders Options
In this section you can tweak the shaders to affect the look of your game. Shaders are pretty heavy on
performance, but they can make the difference visually!

High quality shaders

This section contains the shaders that look the best, but also have the heaviest impact on performance.
Bloom and HDR
This Wikipedia Page explains Bloom and its visual effects. It has a moderate effect on performance and also
adds HDR, another cool effect.
Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) for interiors and exteriors
This page explains SSAO and its visual effects. This shader is quite heavy on performance and should only be
used with fast configurations, otherwise your FPS may degrade too much!
Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) for interiors only
This shader behaves like the one before, but it works only on interiors. This is because usually the performance
is better in interiors.
Depth Of Field (DoF)
This Wikipedia page explains DoF (its from photography but it works the same with games). Its quite
demanding on performance and some might dislike it.
Godrays (sunshafts)
This shader is meant to simulate the crepuscular rays. It looks very good but affects performance.
Underwater Blur and Water Wobble

Low quality shaders

This section contains shaders that are of lower quality than the ones in High quality, but perform a lot better.

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Bloom
Same as the high quality one but without HDR. It looks worse but has better performance.
Ambient Occlusion
Same as the high quality one but much less impressive. It looks worse but has better performance.
Sunshafts
Same as the high quality one but much less impressive. It looks worse but has better performance.

Enable Shaders
With this checkbox you can enable or disable all the shaders. No shaders means better performances, but also
a worse looking game.

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Distant Land Options Part 1

This section contains the first part of the options that affect Distant Land, a technique present in MGE and MGE
XE that lets you see further in the distance than you could in vanilla Morrowind. This is one of the features that
most users first notice when using MGSO.

Land Textures
This section is used to set the textures used when drawing the Distant Land.
Resolution and NormalMap resolution
The resolution and the NormalMap resolution are two of the most noticeable options that affect Distant Land.
Higher values mean more quality, but if your videocard has a low amount of memory, values that are too high
can result in bad performance.
Preview:

As you can see, the distant landscape looks more detailed with higher resolutions.

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Land Meshes
The land mesh is the model that composes the terrain.
World mesh detail
The mesh detail level determinates how much the Distant Land terrain remains faithful to the original land (in
high quality). Higher values mean higher quality; lower values mean lower quality and worse looking Distant
Land.
Preview:

As you can see at Ultra High quality more polygons are used to render the Distant Land. The models are
smoother and nicer.

Land Statics
Land statics are the models that you can see on the terrain (such as trees, buildings, rocks, etc.).
Minimum static size
This option indicates the minimum size that an object should have in order to be shown in the distance. In
other words, if you keep this number low, you will see more objects in Distant Land. This means that for this
option lower is better! Watch out: its heavy on performance! With low numbers there is higher quality but
lower performance.
Grass density percent
This option affects the quantity of grass present on the ground. Higher values mean more grass and and a
greater performance hit. If you set this number to 0, you will completely disable the grass.

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Use Distant Land

This checkbox fully enables or disables the Distant Land feature.
Preview:

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Distant Land Options Part 2

Here are the remaining Distant Land options.

General settings
These settings are the most influent in the Distant Land behavior.
Shader model
Select here the shader model. 3.0 means better quality and more features, but not all the videocards support it
and its heavier on performance. Exponential fogging and some water features wont be available with shader
model 2.0.
Draw distance
The draw distance is one of the things that affect Distant Land. Basically, it represents how far you can see.
Higher values mean more land shown. This feature is really heavy on performance.
Preview:

You can use a low draw distance if you want to keep the old Morrowinds feeling if you want. The default is six
cells.
Use exponential fogging
Exponential fogging is available only with shader model 3.0. This feature uses another formula to create the ingame fog, and it looks better. Remember that this feature is pretty heavy on performance so use it only with
fast computers.

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Water
As the title says, here you will find the options that affect the water.
Reflect sky
Select whether the water should or should not reflect the sky. This has a little effect on performance.
Reflect landscape
Select whether the water should or should not reflect the landscape. This has only a little effect on
performance.
Reflect nearby statics
Select whether the water should or should not reflect nearby statics. This has a moderate effect on
performance.
Reflect distant statics
Select whether the water should or should not reflect distant statics. This has a moderate effect on
performance.
Blur reflections
Select whether the water reflections should be blurred for a better look. This has only a little effect on
performance.
Preview of all reflections:

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Dynamic ripples
Select whether the water should react with rain and when the player walks in it. This has only a little effect on
performance.
Water waves
Select whether the water should have dynamic waves. This has a moderate effect on performance.
Caustic intensity
This option affects the intensity of the caustics effect that you can see underwater. This has only a little effect
on performance.
Preview:

Conclusion
I hope this document helped you a bit to understand how MGE and its options work! As always, have fun.
Kingpix, Ornitocopter Team.
http://www.ornitocopter.net
morrowindoverhaul@gmail.com

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