MGE XE: Vivec Distant Lands Issue

[NikoMoldova]

Yesterday I did a completely fresh install of Morrowind and went through the STEP BasicMW guide. Everything's working great as far as I can tell, but Vivec doesn't seem to be rendering properly. Specifically, the cantons are fading out much too early, while the banners, waterfalls, and some statues aren't. The effect is kind of irritating.

 

 

I followed all the directions possible except for Westly's Pluginless Head and Hair Replacer; Fliggerty's downloads aren't working so I used a (presumably older) version I found on ModDB. I don't think that would cause the problem I'm having though.

 

As best I can tell, the issue is that Vivec isn't rendering as far forward as it should be: I finally found a video of Vivec using MGE XE and you could see across three cantons while on mine you can barely see over one from the same position. Also, this might be unrelated, but you can see that some of the houses in Ebonheart appear to be floating a bit.

 

I've been screwing around with the Distant Land settings since then but no luck. I haven't managed to find anyone through google with this exact problem, which is unusual for a Bethesda game. I've used both the most recent version of MGE as well as 9.10, as I heard 9.10 was more consistent at distant land stuff than the recent versions. Also I'm using Mod Organizer if that changes anything.

 

My load order is:

1. Morrowind.esm
2. Bloodmoon.esm
3. Tribunal.esm
4. Patch for Purists.esm
5. XE Sky Variations.esp
6. A_Strange_Plant.esp
7. Creeper and Mudcrab Merchant Balance.esp
8. DB_Attack_Mod.esp
9. Diseases Restored.esp
10. entertainers.esp [DEACTIVATED]
11. bcsounds.esp [DEACTIVATED]
12. AreaEffectArrows.esp [DEACTIVATED]
13. EBQ_Artifact.esp [DEACTIVATED]
14. master_index.esp [DEACTIVATED]
15. LeFemmArmor.esp [DEACTIVATED]
16. adamantiumarmor.esp [DEACTIVATED]
17. Siege at Firemoth.esp [DEACTIVATED]
18. Holidays Across Tamriel - Vvardenfell.esp
19. Holidays Across Tamriel - Vvardenfell.esp (I just now realized these two are in direct conflict, I'll disable one and see if that helps.)
20. Clean_Mines & Caverns
21. [Official]Adamantium Armor.esp
22. [Official]Area Effect Arrows.esp
23. [Official]Bitter Coast Sounds.esp
24. [Official]Entertainers.esp (These are patches to the official plugins, hence why the originals are disabled.)
25. [Official]Helm of Tohan.esp
26. [Official]LeFemm Armor.esp
27. [Official]Master Index.esp
28. [Official]Siege at Firemoth.esp
29. MovementFatigueHalved.esp
30. Ozzy's Grass - Merged.esp [DEACTIVATED]
31. Purist-friendly magicka regen.esp
32. The Publicans.esp
33. Yet Another Guard Diversity.esp

Hopefully it's just an issue with the MGE settings. I'll start changing up the mods to see if that helps.

 

UPDATE: Switching the mods around did nothing, the problem's still there on my vanilla profile. Even after regenerating distant lands.

I've also noticed some more things:

• I checked out Ebonheart to see if it has the same problem and it does. The tops of the towers are visible but the bases of the towers only appear at the same distance that they do in vanilla Morrowind.
• The banners and whatnot appear very clearly in reflections, the buildings don't. Even the ones that are visible.
• The buildings in Vivec don't cast shadows. The banners do.

So as far as I can tell the issue seems to be that some objects aren't being effected by MGE XE while others are. So the cantons in Vivec act like they do in vanilla Morrowind while the banners and smaller objects act as they should with MGE XE. Additionally, the setting for how many cells show up in Distant Lands doesn't seem to change anything with regards to Vivec.

Edited December 17, 2018 by NikoMoldova

[NikoMoldova]

After fiddling around with everything I could think of, I eventually just deleted the entire file and reinstalled with just MGE XE and the Morrowind Code Patch. It worked. I've reinstalled most of the mods manually, and it seems to be working fine now. As far as I can tell the issue is from creating distant lands through Mod Organizer, even though the BasicMW guide says to use it.