Two questions for the price of one! Sys req and retextures

Curunir · Post by **Curunir** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:23 am

First of all, hello there! Introductory posts in random existing threads didn't seem like a good idea to me so I decided to combine some questions with my introductory post/thread. Once again, hi there! Some excellent forums running here, and the really good lasting games' forums are still alive and well.

Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for making a new thread, I checked and saw a couple similar ones existed but my question is somewhat different.

It's probably funny for someone to ask about MW's requirements, now that people are playing Oblivion but there you have it!

I'm considering an upgrade to be able to play MW smoothly and I wanted to ask people who have extensive experience with the game whether what I intend to buy will suffice.

I'm planning to run MW with a solid, probably hi-res retexture, Better Bodies, two pretty large landmass mods (Ald Vendras, Wizards Islands) and a slew of minor tiny mods that modify the little annoying aspects of the game (adding hosues, magic item glow removal, crosshairs, magic item inventory icons, gold coin models etc) which shouldn't inject a lot of processor-intensive variables into the game.

The (sadly very low budget) upgrade I'm planning is from a 1.2 ghz Celeron, 256 ddr ram, geforce 2 mx to what would hopefully run MW much better: 1.2 ghz Celeron (no motherboard or CPU replacement), 512 ddr ram, geforce 5500FX 256 vram

My biggest concern is what ON EARTH happens if I buy the extra ram and new video and I find that it still won't run MW at pretty framerates. I don't expect 100+ fps, I expect it not to drop below, let's say 30 too often. Should I get the ram up to only 512 or up to 768? I hear Morrowind is above all a memory hog. Also, would the 1.2ghz CPU manage?

Advice from anyone who has used mods extensively and has an idea of how they influence fps or has a good general idea of what sort of hardware gets MW's gears oiled up will be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[Edit] I somehow forgot to ask about the retextures >.>
My question would be, what is your favourite texturepack, outside Vibrant and Darker, the first, while being nice overall, deviating a little too much from the game's original textures and splaying too many different colors at once on the same models, and Darker being just, well, way too dark for my taste. [/Edit]

Ebonwyrm · Post by **Ebonwyrm** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:35 pm

I use Better Bodies, Better Heads, and plenty of other mods, and have had little FPS change. The FPS is comparable to the Xbox version - about 30 normally, 15 in hairy areas. This is with a GeForce FX 5200.

Yes, mods may make a difference with the FPS, but it will be very negligible.

Oh, and your former computer is actually pretty good for Morrowind. It's got all the recommended requirements.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:40 pm

My biggest concern is what ON EARTH happens if I buy the extra ram and new video and I find that it still won't run MW at pretty framerates. I don't expect 100+ fps, I expect it not to drop below, let's say 30 too often. Should I get the ram up to only 512 or up to 768? I hear Morrowind is above all a memory hog. Also, would the 1.2ghz CPU manage?

I would suggest going to 512, or up to 1 GB, if you can manage it. RAM is cheap right now. If you like mods, you will never regret it.

My question would be, what is your favourite texturepack, outside Vibrant and Darker, the first, while being nice overall, deviating a little too much from the game's original textures and splaying too many different colors at once on the same models, and Darker being just, well, way too dark for my taste.

I use Qarl's for landscapes, Carmajo for cities.

Ebonwyrm · Post by **Ebonwyrm** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:01 pm

[QUOTE=fable]My biggest concern is what ON EARTH happens if I buy the extra ram and new video and I find that it still won't run MW at pretty framerates. I don't expect 100+ fps, I expect it not to drop below, let's say 30 too often. Should I get the ram up to only 512 or up to 768? I hear Morrowind is above all a memory hog. Also, would the 1.2ghz CPU manage?

I would suggest going to 512, or up to 1 GB, if you can manage it. RAM is cheap right now. If you like mods, you will never regret it.

My question would be, what is your favourite texturepack, outside Vibrant and Darker, the first, while being nice overall, deviating a little too much from the game's original textures and splaying too many different colors at once on the same models, and Darker being just, well, way too dark for my taste.

I use Qarl's for landscapes, Carmajo for cities.[/QUOTE]

I prefer Visual Pack.

Oh, and 512 is perfectly fine. I have tons of mods, and it loads like snails on steroids.

Curunir · Post by **Curunir** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:53 am

Ebonwyrm - even though I'm well within recommended requirements right now, even out-of-the-box Morrowind runs pretty poorly.

Fable - why 512 or a whole gig instead of 768? Such incremental values don't work well or...?

As for Qarl's textures, I only found his Visual Pack XT at Thelys, which should be combined with the other two visual packs which I also have. Is that the one you're referring to? All other texturework by Qarl I can find is Oblivion-related.

mr_sir · Post by **mr_sir** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 5:30 am

If you want to run it smoothly then I'd suggest more than 512mb RAM. I have a P4 processor and 512mb RAM and I have to have the view distance turned down in order to play smoothly. I admit I have a useless graphics chip but still, I'd go for 1gb RAM if you are planning on installing a lot of mods. I have quite a few mods installed but I do have to be choosy about which ones I use or my whole game slows down to an unplayable rate.

Edit: I'd go for 1gb rather than 768mb because not only will it help make Morrowind run a lot smoother and let you use more mods, but a lot of the more recent games are recommending 1gb RAM these days so if you want to eventually play any newer games it will save you from another upgrade. It just makes more sense to me in the long run.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:37 am

Curunir wrote:Fable - why 512 or a whole gig instead of 768? Such incremental values don't work well or...?

I didn't mean you should only consider 512 or 1 GB. Certainly, 768 is better than 512, but 1 GB is best. You really do need more than 512 to run a great many mods and/or lengthy mods that are heavily scripted. I know for a fact that you'll see a notable difference between 512 and 1 GB, having gone that route, myself.

As for Qarl's textures, I only found his Visual Pack XT at Thelys, which should be combined with the other two visual packs which I also have. Is that the one you're referring to? All other texturework by Qarl I can find is Oblivion-related.

I suggest Visual Pack, which combines Visual Packs 2.11, 2.2 and XT together.

Curunir · Post by **Curunir** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:07 am

mr_sir - 1gb of ram is mostly financially unfeasible, I can barely afford 512 more, and I don't have THAT many mods, I suppose I could sacrifice Wizards Islands and leave only Ald Vendras from the quest-script intensive ones. The rest is really minor stuff, I don't plan to run any of the notably heavy mods like Children or MW Comes Alive or Wilderness.

And more recent games aren't much of a concern too, the only thing I fancy playing on the new hardware except MW is a pinch of Colin McRae 05 and some Thief 3.

Fable - I'm glad the difference between 512 and 768 is tangible, I'll try to go for more ram. I'm not really planning to use any killer mods, as I said and I could even sacrifice some heavily scripted landmasses (cough wizards islands cough) if need be.

As for the Visual Pack - thanks! I had all the components in separate files and the all-inclusive .rar is a lot more convenient.

Curunir · Post by **Curunir** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:53 am

Sorry if this is considered bumping but I think starting a new thread would have been worse.

I have another question regarding textures. While I settled on the Visual Pack that Ebonwyrm and fable suggested, I realised that Tribunal and Bloodmoon aren't covered in that so now I need to choose txture replacers for the expansions as well. I am looking for recommendations about those. Several replacers have caught my eye as looking good, most notably Regal and Magical Mournhold and Ultimate Textures Bloodmoon and Jarrod's Bloodmoon textures.

I really can't decide what to use, especially for Bloodmoon so I'd appreciate some suggestions a lot.

Thanks!

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:21 am

Personally, I really like Jarrod's Bloodmoon textures.

What I suggest, though, is to back up your textures file and put it somewhere safe. Then try adding different textures. That way you can easily figure out exactly which you like.

You can even mix and match and cherry pick, if you want to. I use an assortment of different textures hand selected from various packs according to personal taste and the speed of my computer.

Magelord648 · Post by **Magelord648** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:24 am

I wouldn't reccommend Ultimate textures as all they are,are lots of texture packs thrown together. It doesn't look right.