Performance issues

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

I'm having some serious performance issues with Morrowind here. Before I get any excessive flaming, I HAVE READ THE TWEAK GUIDE. I've also tried everything they suggested. It doesn't seem to be enough, though. I'm using the FPS optimiser, so my framerate is okay, but the view distance is horrible, especally in towns. Is there any way to fix this? I know Morrowind does a horrible job handling AI, which causes massive slowdowns in populated ares, but it's kind of outrageous that the you should have a view distance of maybe 1/4 mile, at most, in a game that is 2 years old. My specs are the following:

Athlon XP 2400

GeforceFX 5600/256mb, AGP 4x (with v56.72 drivers)

768mb pc133

Soundblaster LIVE, with newest drivers

I'm using Morrowind v1.6, with Bloodmoon, and the no-cd patch. I'm running Windows XP, and my swapfile is locked at 1gb. I built this computer, so I know it pretty well, and I clean everything (defragmenting, cleaning registry, etc) regularly. Also, is there a way to make Morrowind load larger chunks of territory at once? The "cells" that it's constantly having to load seem awfully small, and it would be nice if it didn't pause to load a new area every 100 yards. I know I'm rambling a lot, but this is starting to get frustrating. My system massively exceeds the requirements, so am I just running into the limits of the engine?

[Dew]

Just how bad is your performance?

 

It's perfectly normal, no matter what system you have, to get 15fps or lower in a place like Balmora, simply because Morrowind's engine isn't the greatest in the world.

[_it_]

maybe it is because of the cd patch iam guessing now but i think the cpu has les work to do when searching the cdr station then when he is searching the hard drive

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

Thanks for the input, guys. Yah, I'm going to have to agree that I've hit the limitations of the engine. Performance IS okay; the FPS optimiser ensures that. It just makes the visibility pretty much suck in detailed areas. I previously had a Duron 1.3ghz cpu, with same graphics card and ram. I expected a biiig performance increase when I upgraded to my current cpu, since Morrowind is so cpu bound, but performance has been pretty much the same. I just wish somebody would implement some sort of distance scaling system, and a better way to load outdoor cells (meebe load 'em in the background, like Dungeon Siege?)