2024 UPDATE: If the grass mod isn't a .esp file you can just rename the file to be .esp For older version of Rebirth, from what I can tell you can search for the old download pages directly and downloading from those should be the old version. For example, this should be version 5.6: www.moddb.com/mods/morrowind-rebirth/downloads/release-morrowind-rebirth-56 Want to buy Morrowind (or other games) AND support this channel? Use this GOG referral link! af.gog.com/game/the_elder_scrolls_iii_morrowind_goty_edition?as=1715648857 The Overhaul 3.0, despite being over 10 years outdated, has been the easiest way for many new modders to get Morrowind looking decent. It's holding things back though, so here's an easy guide that can be completed in less than an hour to overhaul Morrowind for a new decade.
the issue with such modlists is that there are usually some mods either gone, or no longer updated to work properly with other mods. i have my fair share of experiences of following the 'overhaul' modding list of an elder scrolls game, only for 1-3 mods to not work properly no matter how you do it. which just ruins the whole thing.
Hey Zakh, I appreciate this video as a veteran gamer. I swear I recognize your earbuds. Are they Google Pixel Buds? I love them but I'm not positive if you have those or another brand.
I'm 30ish hours deep into a playthrough having only played Vanilla in the past. Playing Rebirth on a 4k monitor is simply amazing and I wouldn't have been able to get these mods up and running without this video. Thanks so much!
I followed along and I was able to set everything up with no issue. Thanks for doing this in real time, and breaking down each thing. The extra info on general modding is always good to see in videos as well. Easy to follow video. Thank you.
Those "2000+ mods Morrowind" videos looked so exciting yet depressing by bunch of work needed to be done to make things look like there. And you've made the game look awesome by using just 9 mods! sooo incredible job! finally can play that great game with modern looking!
Happy to help! Yeah most of the time those massive modlists are just tons of tiny tweaks based on personal preference. Totally not needed, just gotta find the key mods for biggest punch.
@@GamerZakh Granted, the video being a bit older, but not recommending OpenMW for a minimal modding setup - especially for beginners - is practically heresy, especially since OpenMW supports virtual file system overlays. Ever borked a mod install? Just delete your "mods" folder that was overlayed over your "data files", do it again, without the hassle of reinstalling the whole game to get back to an untouched vanilla state.
@@pudding2675 When this video was made, OpenMW performed so badly that even with these minimal mods I was getting 15fps in Seyda Neen. Also, getting grass to work properly in OpenMW needs editing of config files, which is too complicated for a beginner. Just adding the grass raw kills more fps in OpenMW.
@@GamerZakh Because Grass clutter is one of the more performance intensive mods by sheer nature of rendering all these billboards. Especially with the water shader enabled with ALL reflections. You also most likely had the grass clutter mod designated as a "data=" entry which OpenMW does by default, which is extremely inefficient and adds a lot of overhead to clutter mods. On the matter of OpenMW performance, personally I have been using OpenMW since 0.41 both modded and unmodded at a consistent 60fps (opposed to vanillas ~47-51) and never had any issue on integrated graphics on the linux laptop. Adding a singular content="Path\To\Mod" to the bottom of the openmw.cfg file in their My Games\OpenMW folder is hardly something I would consider being beyond the scope of even a beginners guide. Much the opposite, its a very small scope which can teach an easy to understand concept of OpenMW within a limited context, allowing beginners to get their toesies wet without being overwhelming. Also worth noting the absolutely stellar documentation of OpenMW which makes it a breeze to read something up if it doesn't work properly post following your guide. Another thing worth of note is that Morrowind Rebirth is far more than a simple graphics overhaul and changes a lot of gameplay systems behind the scene, which sometimes stray pretty far from a vanilla or vanilla-like experience. Not just "change a few trees up". My 2ct of constructive criticism :)
Thank you. just downloaded Morrowind tonight and now I'm playing with all the mods I need and no headache. Thanks for doing all the hard work for the rest of us and thanks to all the modders too. Good man.
I played Morrowind religiously as a small boy, feverishly exploring, not a care in the world. Years later, I'm coming back to this experience much older, with a fresh experience because of your patient guidance. You are a great teacher, I appreciate you!
At 11:47, the issue is occurring because you were dragging the files directly onto the Morrowind.exe file. Sometimes when you do stuff like that, it tries to launch the .exe using the files that you dragged on top of it. Or something like that. Nice video :)
For those who are interested - I used the guide in this video. I totally avoided - MGE XE (Morrowind Graphics Extender) and used OpenMW which is a far superior option. I installed the following 1. Morrowind Code patch 2. Morrowind Enhanced Textures (MET) 3. Aesthesia Groundcover 4. Robert's Bodies 5. Facelift Heads I did not install Morrowind Rebirth as i wanted a more vanilla experience and that mod changed some gameplay dynamics. Then i set the INI Tweaks: Then installed OpenMW and ran the installation wizard and set various settings like resolution, ability to switch between first and third person views and more. Then launched the game via OpenMW and the mods worked. Beautiful textures and also water looks stunning with ripples! Thanks Zakh for an amazing video series. I look forward to playing Morrowind for the first time as a pure illusion Mage! Wish me luck!
You do NOT need Morrowind Code Patch when running the game using OpenMW, as it is completely pointless. (MCP patches the original Morrowind.exe, which you do not even use when running the game via OpenMW - as it is a replacement engine driving the Morrowind content which features the vast majority of these fixes, while otheres weren't even introduced to the engine in the first place.) So that mod can be dropped. Further than that, for a vanilla-style playthrough, I wholeheartedly recommend the following loadout: 1. Patch for Purists Fixes a lot of bugs while being very conservative about what it deems being a bug. It does not affect any of the exploits and cheeses available in Morrowind, as they are not deemed bugs. 2. Morrowind Optimization Project Whats on the tin is in the tin. It optimizes a good chunk of meshes that were horribly done in the original MW, vastly improving performance in a lot of the busier areas. 3. Project Atlas Morrowind does not use a more modern trick used for texture loading and reducing drawcalls - which is storing multiple textures in a large atlas texture. This Mod does it. Morrowind Enhanced Textures even comes with a drop-in ready Atlas Patch. Another very solid optimization baseline mod. 4. Morrowind Enhanced Textures + Atlas Patch Vanilla textures, just more crisp. 5. Familiar Faces Fixes a ton of the weird face issues. (6.) Morrowind TrueType Fonts OpenMW has proper support for vectorized truetype fonts which look absolutely crisp and pristine at any resolution. Begone, fuzzy text from the original. This is what I consider absolute baseline mods that might as well be baked into the game itself. Note, I bracketed number 6, as installing ttf fonts for openMW works a bit different and do not affect mod load order. Another great sidenote: OpenMW natively supports virtual file system overlays, so you can have all your mods in a seperate folder and do not need to work destructively, overwriting your games data files. Just drop another data="Path\To\Mod" entry at the bottom of your openmw.cfg in your user folder and OpenMW will naturally apply all data entries in there iteratively. Makes it super easy to update seperate mods down the line, as they are all isolated. Or to compile modpacks in their own seperate folder. Keep in mind that OpenMW does NOT support MWSE-based mods, even though they are implementing their own Lua Scripting Engine as we speak. So if you want to run mods like, f.e., AshFall which is heavily based on MWSE use, you are REQUIRED to run native Morrowind.exe + MCP + MGE XE (which comes with MWSE) as your base. However, OpenMW will eventually supercede this, as MWSE is a rather hacky implementation due to Morrowinds native engine being closed source and MWSE is injected through arduous reverse engineering. OpenMWs scripting solution is built-in natively. So expect a lot of MWSE mods to eventually convert to OpenMWs implementation exclusively (as they are not compatible to each other). A great read is modding-openmw, which should be easily findable by googling. Especially their Vanilla+ Modlist is awesome for purists.
@@pudding2675 Wow thanks for the detailed guide. I will do a complete reinstall and try your load order. If we don’t install them on the game directory then steam does not recognise the hours played. Can that be solved by adding that entry in the .cfg file? Thanks for the guide!
Thanks a lot dude. Wanted to boost the game a little bit but didn't want to fall down the modding rabbit-hole. This was simple but far exceeded my expectations. Perfect.
ok so i gotta say...ive been trying to mod this game for years now. i have never had the patience to do it and my stupid ass couldnt comprehend anything. thank you my guy...for the first time in my life i was able to understand modding and you were able to dumb it down so even i could understand. you have no idea how happy you made me
I'm glad I could help! I spent a lot of time preparing this to make sure it's easy as possible. I always remember the first time I tried modding these games and how confusing the guides were.
Thank you so much for the guide! I tried modding for the first time and nothing worked out. Now I have a still vanilla, but very beautiful morrowind on my gaming PC that is really worth playing. That was exactly what I was looking for.
Thank you so much for the wonderful tutorial. I feel like I'm back in 2004 again! In a good way! Can't wait to sink another 300hrs into one of my favorite games of all time. Cheers!
Thank you for this guide good sir. I used it earlier this year when I did my first ever play through of Morrowind. This was an excellent video, you’re easy to follow and thoroughly explain everything. My first play through was such an amazing experience and you had a big part in making it so enjoyable. Thank you!
my man gamerzakh coming in clutch once again! i heard about the voiceover for morrowind but its not compatible with OpenMW so i needed some OG mods and ofc u got a video on it! been watching on and off for what must be a decade since skyrim release. great to see u doing good many years later! one love, thx alot.
I just installed Morrowind and used your modding list. One thing changed - Grass Rebirth is in older version than Morrowind Rebirth, but i downloaded that file, changed its extension to ESP and it seemingly works. On my i5 and GTX1070Ti ive had 22-35 FPS in starting village :) Had to downgrade some settings and turn off antialiasing and it works quite smooth now. I changed UI scaling to 1,6 for more comfort. Thx for that tutorial mate! :) My Morrowind adventure begins! (as i've never completed this game yet).
Just went through this end to end. Result = very damn decent guide and outcome. Best quick intro into modding in 2023 by far so yo everyone i recomend using this as a baseline. If you want the original experience skip the morrowind rebirth and 2 grass mods (grass not compatible without rebirth) Only issue I found with some testing on a previous save was the area i saved in balmora with the new rebirth content shoved me into a wall (that I could walk out of) with one of the original trader location signs sticking out of a ramp on the outskirts of the new buildings (Dralasa Nithryons pawnbroker) Other than that this is a master piece of a setup walkthrough and is all you need to make the game beautiful! Now to find out if I want to work with rebirth or not lol! Also another commentor mentioned the issue you have arround 11 mins somthing they are spot on dont copy any of the files onto an .exe otherwise its trying to execute the selected program with those files. Many many Thanks for the hard work on this guide ❤💪
Thank you so much and I'm really glad I could help! Not many recognise making a guide like this actually takes a lot of work haha, they often think I just press 'record' and make it up. I tried really hard to make this guide as easy as possible.
I've been wanting to mod Morrowind for a couple of weeks now, just finishing college first and waa going to use your old guide for it haha! It's like you knew....
Thanks for the video. Finally gonna play Morrowind, and wanted to play basically the base game with some modernized visuals. This is exactly what I needed, ty kindly. Subbed.
I just got Morrowind recently, but haven't properly played it because I've been nervous about how difficult modding can be. This video is an aboslutely PERFECT tutorial for someone who is unsure about using a mod manager. Zakh is a great teacher and did a great job walking me through the entire process.
while trying to download Morrowing Rebirth i wanted to downlad the 5.6 version cause the grass mod is only update until that version, the thing is nexus mods doesn't give me the option to download it because is an older version, how did you make it?
Appreciate very much the easy to follow walkthrough! I loved both Skyrim and Oblivion, so decided to play Morrowind. I purchased the game through your link and the mod install was so easy for a tech challenged guy like me. Game has been running smooth with no issues so far. I picked a Nord as my character.
@@user-zg5ey5xo9i I'm liking it very much so far. The only that's giving me some trouble is the combat, it's not as straightforward as Skyrim is, so still getting the hang of it.
@@mannkidd6774 bro trust me it’s way better. The fact everything is open and no loading to go into cities, and the pure freedom you can fly if you so choose. Let me give you the best tip, go find a house if an NPC that you like and kill him and then go and decorate the house however you want it works really well because you can’t knock anything over since there’s no ragdoll and Hance you can make some amazing houses that was my favorite thing to do I would go out and explore and come back with all the shit I found can’t do that in oblivion or Skyrim it really bugged me
@@Buddyguy1988 Thanks for the tip Billy. It took me a while to get into this game just because it took some getting used to in terms of combat and gameplay, but now I am hooked once I got better at it. The no-loading times is awesome, and even when you sleep/rest it is very quick which I like. Since I loved Skyrim/Oblivion, I was a bit worried I might not like Oblivion, but I love it.
@@mannkidd6774 yea man I’m jealous haha. I still remember that game like the back of my hand... the quests are sooooooo ridiculously hard to figure out lol I remember having the strategy guide and it would be like “ go north and then turn left at the giant tree. Blah blah” kids don’t realize how much RU-vid breaks the gaming experience when you used to actually get stuck in video games and had to talk to your buddy’s to figure it out. Anyway enjoy man let me know if I can help you w anything
Thanks a ton man! Finally diving back in after nearly a decade away. Did a couple mods and remembered how frustrating they can get lol. Your video was perfect thanks for getting me up and going!!
I know this is an old video and you likely wont respond but you have helped me mod 2 different games from the elder scrolls series the daggerfall unity cut and this. Ive never played morrowind but just got done installing everything and I booted up the game. Everything seems to be working great. I really appreciate you so much!
Awesome video! I've modded plenty before but it always get to a point where I screw the game up beyond repair and quit. I can't launch fallout new vegas or oblivion anymore lol. This is exactly what I was looking for, an easy guide to essential basic mods so I can enjoy this game for the first time without risking losing everything. subscribed.
Although I've played Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind in the past, I've never installed a mod before. I'm about to start another round of Morrowind so this tutorial was perfect for me. I got the mods running without a problem and right now I'm enjoying the better look of Morrowind. Thanks!
you are a hero. I feel like I have watched a lot of videos on modding this game and for whatever reason it wasn't working for me and I have really wanted to play this game but just couldn't get passed how dated the graphics looks and this is just enough to get me over it thank you.
Glad I could help! Yeah most guides out there want to do things 'proper' but I remember what it was like modding for the first time and it's so confusing. I think this is the best way to get started, then if you want to keep going I got bonus mods listed in the description and you can get more complex later on.
So there is a steam error that issues Application load error 5:0000065434. I found that restarting steam and relaunching the launcher fixes the issue. Thanks for an in depth yet simple guide to get this beautiful gem up and running. I picked this up a while back when I watched your other video back in 2017. No more turning off that User control stuff (frightening). Thanks again!
@@garretthiller3190 My problem was caused by the patches having an issue with the Morrowind being installed on a different drive than my original steam install. Strangely copying the Steam executable to the Morrowind directory fixed this problem. (not sure why, I had read about it somewhere).
I'm very bad with technology and I've only played games on consoles until now, with very few exceptions (The sims is about the only exception actually!) I don't have a working xbox anymore, so I decided to take the plunge and use my laptop for Morrowind. It took me forever to figure out where to find the files and get everything the way it was supposed to. Thank you SO much for the tutorial, of course I want to overhaul the 20 year old game, and I felt so much at a loss! You're a lifesaver!
big thanks for the video. Morrowing was and still is (along with CEASAR 3 and Heroes of might and magic 3) my favorite game. i wonder why they do not do such games no more. now everything seem to be shallow mostly. may be game developers today lost they creativity and put everithing on getting profits.
great video man, been trying to figure out how to mod stuff in this game for a while so I can have a proper modern(ish) playthrough. Really simple steps as well :)
Regarding "glitch" at 11:30 mark: you dragged the content of an archive onto an executable ("morrowind.exe"). That does not initiate a copy-procedure but instead extracts the archive and passes the unpacked files as command line to the EXE you dropped it on. That's could be the reason you got an error message there. Other than that: nice tutorial, thx
Hmm... Vanilla or 1-hour-modded morrowind? The answer is definitely: "why walk when you can ride?" I might install Morrowind again and give it a spin. Thanks, Zakh! Only you could make an istallation guide entertaining :)
I might've missed it, but you need to disable XE Sky Variations as well (or not have checked it in the first place). That may have been me skipping around the video to "fast forward" and get it done. lol Thanks for the guide. I think I may be able to play Morrowind now that it looks a lot better. I spent my first few minutes in game and it's great.
So was watching your videos earlier today and now here i am watching this after buying this gem of a game again "lost my hard copy years and years ago" . thank you for the quick tutorial video on easy modding!
new to the modding scene as a whole and wanted to learn with Morrowind, and this was super helpful if most modding is like this, i think this video helped out alot, even if its just the basics
Glad I could help! I find too many basic guides insist on doing things the 'proper' way when that's just too much for first time modders and even most people who just want to thow on a few mods and get playing.
Thank you so much for this phantastic tutorial! I played the living shit out of Morrowind back in the days and wanna relive it now. I tried modding withOpenMW, but it was so much work, many mods didn't work at all and my framerate dropped to about 10, it was a freaking mess. With your modlist, everything looks perfect and runs on 60fps, what more is there to ask for? So, THANKS! I'll have a Skooma to your health in some smuggler's hut!
This is a great video if you are new to modding and want to make the game look better. I followed every step in the video and within a short time I was playing Morrowind and it looks fantastic. Thank You for taking the time in instructing a quick way to enhance Morrowind's graphics.
Though I am still somewhat at a loss as to what to install on my sub-potato laptop, showing how to mod this without the headache of the loader is a godsend.
@@GamerZakh thanks! i'm almost over, but it seems that the grass rebirth mod is not compatible anymore with the other mod (the other mod is on 6.2 and grass rebirth is on 5.6 and i cannot seem to install older versions) is it okay if i don't install grass rebirth?
Thank you so much for this video. I have followed your instructions very carefully and am exited to play the game that first made me fall in love with gaming!
You are the best bro! i started the elder scrolls series with oblivion, and now i can for the first time try morrowind! and it looks amazing! you got yourself a sub! and could you do more guides like this with like oblivion and fallout 3?
Glad I could help! I do want to make one for Oblivion but it's been a couple years since I did that. Maybe I'll do one for Skyrim first since I just modded that this week. Then see what Oblivion mods we got today.
Really appreciate this video. Never had a chance to play Morrowind, so I bought the game cheap, and the mods make it a fantastic experience. Overall, I think I like it better than Skyrim, albeit the big issues with the two games are sometimes very much apples and oranges. Just hope ES devs add better tools in ES6 for managing the very large amount of information players must digest and remember (journal tools and map notes would help) while playing ES. Thx for the vid...
Thanks for this. It was a HUGE help. Steam currently has ES 3.4 and 5 on sale for next to nothing. This did in fact work going into the programs folder. The program that runs the grass and the grass mod versions don't match currently so I left that out. Hopefully replaying ES 3 and 4 will last me until the current "gaming drought" is finally over.
Been wanting to play and mod Morrowind for a long time now. Gave up as some guides that were for "new" modders were still a bit technical. This was fantastic though. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this video! I got a little bit confused with Robert's Bodies because there's a thing called Expanded Robert's Bodies that has some other options for Races Redone which doesn't exist anymore but a pluginless version exists but there are issues with it and blablabla. Also, Facelift now recommends installing a newer mod called Familiar Faces so I went ahead and installed that. Otherwise this video is great! It's kind of wild how fast things can change in modding and so I appreciate a video that's relatively recent to help get started :)
I would highly recommend you don't use Morrowind rebirth for your first playthrough as it overhauls a lot of the game including changing the landscape of the world and the cities
The Big thing this video did help me with is, I forgot to Turn Grass on for distant lands, since a different youtube video forgot to add that tid-bit and just did load order. 25:56 !
Mr GZ! Awesome work! I have been modding SKYRIM (AE) for the last week or so, and getting ready to finally play! UNTIL I saw this vid! I followed along, MORROWIND runs perfect, and now the M-Itch is back and I'll forget Skyrim for now.:-)GREAT WORK and Happy New M-Year!
For steam users do not put MGE XE in data files it will give u an error stating you must load the application through the Morrowind directory, just put MGE XE in your normal Morrowind folder it will work fine.
Worked Great. Thanks. First Time modded a Game successfully. Although Rebirth is kind of like my real life. Everybody punches me in the face and I have no money in my pockets. But again... thanks
Going to be watching this like 30 times until i get it right, im too used to vortex but we all start somewhere. looking for ward to playing morrowind, still playing daggerfall atm though. great video and actually really helpful. best one i've found anyway. i' really do just suck at this though heh
works as a charm. I first time get my hands on it when i was 10 years old. And it stutter on my pc. I was so sad. And only thing i managed to do in it was to steal something and get killed. Time to fix my childish mistake and beat this gem.
Thanks! Yeah I prefer to view them as optional for when you wanna do some complicated stuff, but I think most just want to throw on a few key mods and get to playing.
Thank you! This was really helpful, and Morrowind has quickly become one of my favorite games, since playing it after following this guide. I feel like I sound like a bot or some shit, but I'm serious, thanks man!
