Morrowind:Linux

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This page provides information on how to run Morrowind and the expansions under the Wine compatibility layer in Linux. To get it running under proprietary products, see the External Links section below.

Installation and Setup Considerations

Much of what has been said in the Oblivion instructions also applies to Morrowind, especially when it comes to Wine installation and drive mapping.

The Morrowind play CD has copy obfuscation that includes deliberate defects on the CD, so making an image with the standard dd command will likely fail.

However, simply extracting the files to a folder and having it marked in WINE as a CD drive works fine, even better than a crack.

Wine Settings

Note: The following settings appear to be out of date or relate to an old version of Wine. Please see the talk page for more information.

The following advice was mostly found at the Wine Application Database — The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

Basic Configuration

Run winecfg to view and change settings in the Wine Configuration GUI.

• To create a configuration profile for Morrowind in Wine, use the Applications -> Application Settings -> Add Application... dialog. Then select it by highlighting Morrowind.exe before making changes.

• Applications -> Application Settings -> Windows should be set to Windows 98.

• Graphics -> Direct3D -> Vertex Shader Support should be set to Hardware.

Registry Settings

See Oblivion instructions on how to add these settings with regedit.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D]
;"OffscreenRenderingMode"="fbo" — This gives water artifacts
"RenderTargetLockMode"="textex" ; Handles reversed character but doesn't give water artifacts
"UseGLSL"="enabled"
"VideoMemorySize"="128"

You should set the VideoMemorySize to the actual amount of video memory on your graphics card as Wine apparently has no way of finding this out.

Note that if you wish to run multiple programs in wine under different settings, you can instead store Morrowind configurations in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\Morrowind.exe\Direct3D. This will specifically store these settings for Morrowind. This is useful especially for the condition OffscreenRenderingMode=fbo because some games work better in wine under the pbuffer setting.

Controls

Unfortunately, Morrowind on Wine currently suffers from an issue where the game freezes when attempting to modify default keyboard controls. Controls can be configured via Registry as a workaround.

• Launch the Registry editor using wine regedit
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind folder. Inside you should find various configuration parameters including control settings.
• The control settings are spread among other settings, you should be able to recognize them by names like "Crouch/Sneak", "Auto Run", "Forward", "SlideLeft" and so on. They all are of type REG_DWORD.
• The value is a 32-bit hexadecimal number. The top 16 bits define the main control setting, and the low 16 bits define the secondary control - in most cases unused (set to 0000) or used for joystick control (03xx)
  • The top byte of the setting is the type of control: 00 - disabled, 01 - keyboard, 02 - mouse, 03 - joystick/gamepad
  • The bottom byte of the setting is a DirectInput scan code, incremented by 1. Consider this table as a reference for the keyboard scan codes : http://www.gamespp.com/directx/directInputKeyboardScanCodes.html
  • Example: Forward is set to 0x01120000 by default, which corresponds to the key W. To switch it to the Arrow-Up, look up the corresponding code DIK_UP in the aforementioned table (0xc8) and add 1. The resulting code to put into registry is therefore 0x01c90000

As an example, to switch basic controls from WASD to arrows, you can use following changes :

Registry name | Value      | Keys
Forward         0x01c90000   Arrow-Up
Back            0x01d10000   Arrow-Down
SlideLeft       0x01cc0000   Arrow-Left
SlideRight      0x01ce0000   Arrow-Right
Activate        0x011d0301   Enter or Joystick-1
Crouch/Sneak    0x019e0305   Right-Ctrl or Joystick-5
Run             0x01530306   Numpad-0 or Joystick-6
Jump            0x01370307   Right-Shift or Joystick-7

Morrowind.ini

Multiple Users

If you plan on running Morrowind as a different user than the one that originally installed it, change the permissions of Morrowind.ini to be writable by other users. Invoking the chmod command can enable group write permissions, while the chgrp command can ensure the file belongs to a shared group.

chmod g+w Morrowind.ini

chgrp users Morrowind.ini

Suggested Changes

• Reduce the load on the CPU by capping the FPS. Set it to your monitor's refresh rate, almost always 60 Hz, or a little lower.

;; Reduce CPU load
MaxFPS=60

• Increase stability in the game by not preloading the next cell. You will see the 'loading exterior screen' dialog a lot more.

;; Reduce crashes
SkipProgramFlows=1
DontThreadLoad=1

• Increase performance in the game by using less RAM and by extension swap. You will see the 'loading exterior screen' dialog a lot more.

Never set these values to 0 or you'll lose your companions, creatures, followers at each zone change !

;; Improve Performance
;; The Buffers are measured in game Cells. Settings these too high will cause slow downs
;; after a bit of traveling.  The defaults are 10 and 32, but for better performance try:
Interior Cell Buffer=1
Exterior Cell Buffer=9

Known Issues

(Note: Some might not be current issues for very newest versions of Wine; should be verified)

• Applies to Wine 1.1.2 Morrowind might crash if you try to play the game. It is advised to use 1.1.3 or above instead
• Applies to Wine 1.1.1 Loading a saved game is not possible and will make your system crash. It is advised that you use version 1.1.2 or later instead.
• Applies to 1.1.1 and earlier: Map displays might not work. Global map works. Local map is rendered black or full of garbage, but shows the house/cave markers correctly.
• Applies to 1.1.1 and earlier: Inventory paperdoll doesn't work (appears pure white, or as a black silhouette over red background; sometimes body parts without any equipment or clothing equipped on them are rendered fine). However, this is only cosmetic and equipping and unequipping items works normally.
• Partially Unresolved: Inventory paperdoll is displayed upside down with a red line above it. This seems to apply only to pbuffer and backbuffer; using the configuration OffscreenRenderingMode=fbo (in the virtual registry) displays the image correctly.
• Applies to 1.0rc-4: Some exterior cells fail to load, even on the Global map. Upon entering said cells, the game may freeze.
• Applies to Wine 1.0.0 and earlier, fixed some point by or before Wine 1.1.22: Water has strange straight lines in them. This is only a cosmetic problem.
• Applies to any version of wine 0.9.59+ Morrowind has 1-5 second freezes upon any situation where the music changes. There was a quartz regression introduced, the workaround is to empty the Music directories and run Morrowind without music.
• Applies to Wine 0.9.53 to 0.9.54: Install process is broken. Users of these versions can play the game, but have to either copy the install from a Windows install or use an earlier (or newer) version to install the game.
• Applies to Wine 0.9.48 and earlier: Dynamic shadows may be rendered pure white. Turn the shadows off if this bothers you.
• Applies to Wine 0.9.35 and earlier: Music does not work. The game will simply quit with an error message when the main menu intro clip starts. As there's no way to disable the music in game, you can rename the "Data Files/Music" directory to something else. Upon starting, the game will then complain about missing music track; Hit Esc. The game should work normally after that. If you installed Wine and Morrowind when music didn't work and are trying to play game on a newer version, please re-run wineprefixcreate to make sure the required drivers are up to date.

Mods

Microsoft Windows path and file names are not case sensitive, and Linux path and file names are case sensitive. Avoid creating file or directory names that differ only in character capitalization. Merge mods with the existing files and directories or the redundant files and directories will be ignored.

Official Mods

• Move the files from the archives to the correct Morrowind game folder.

From the Morrowind Launcher, select Data Files and check the box next to the target ".esp" file.

LeFemm Armor:

• Move the folder 'Icons/A/' to 'Morrowind/Data Files/Icons/'
• Move the folder 'Meshes/A/' to 'Morrowind/Data Files/Meshes/'
• Move the folder 'Textures/' to 'Morrowind/Data Files/'
• Move the file 'LeFemmArmor.esp' to Morrowind/Data Files/'

Siege at Firemoth:

• Move the folder 'Data Files/r/' to 'Morrowind/Data Files/Meshes'
• Move the folder 'Data Files/Textures/' to 'Morrowind/Data Files/
• Move the file 'Siege at Firemoth.esp' to 'Morrowind/Data Files/'

External Links

• Wine AppDB entry for Morrowind — Contains bug and status reports for playing Morrowind under the current version of Wine
• CodeWeavers' CrossOver — Contains bug and status reports for playing Morrowind under the current version of CrossOver
• TransGaming Technologies' Cedega — Members Only Area
• OpenMW Project — Native execution of Morrowind on Linux, Mac OpenBSD and many other OS's (NOTE:In Prealpha State)