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dream-ini
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Download dream-ini, import your Morrowind.ini into openmw.cfg, and check the result before OpenMW reads it.

You need a Morrowind install with its Morrowind.ini, and OpenMW. If OpenMW has run before, you also have an openmw.cfg for dream-ini to update; if not, dream-ini can write a new one.

Download it#

Take the archive for your system from the project page and unzip it anywhere. It holds one program, dream-ini. There is nothing to install.

  • macOS: the builds are not notarized. If macOS will not open it, run xattr -d com.apple.quarantine dream-ini in its folder, or allow it under System Settings, Privacy & Security.
  • Linux and macOS: if the shell says permission denied, chmod +x dream-ini.
  • Handhelds: see Handhelds for the PortMaster build and the muOS app.

Find your two files#

FileWhere it usually is
Morrowind.iniThe Morrowind install folder, next to Morrowind.exe and Data Files
openmw.cfg on Linux~/.config/openmw/openmw.cfg
openmw.cfg on WindowsDocuments\My Games\OpenMW\openmw.cfg
openmw.cfg on macOS~/Library/Preferences/openmw/openmw.cfg

Copy your openmw.cfg somewhere safe first. dream-ini replaces a file in one step, so a crash never leaves half of one, but an import is meant to change it: with content files on, it replaces your load order with the one in Morrowind.ini.

Import in the GUI#

Run dream-ini with no arguments; on Windows, double-click it.

  1. Under Source, choose your Morrowind.ini, and your openmw.cfg as Existing.
  2. Under Import options, tick Import content files / load order if you want the INI’s load order. Import archives is already on.
  3. Leave Output on Preview only and press Import / Preview.
  4. Read the result tabs. Warnings lists anything skipped; Events lists every archive and content file found, and where; Generated cfg is exactly what would be written.
  5. When the preview is right, choose Update existing openmw.cfg and import again.

The GUI covers every field.

Or on the command line#

Without --output or --in-place, dream-ini writes the cfg to standard output and changes nothing, which makes it a preview:

dream-ini --ini "Morrowind/Morrowind.ini" --cfg ~/.config/openmw/openmw.cfg --game-files > preview.cfg

Messages and warnings go to standard error, so preview.cfg holds only the cfg. When it is right, write it back:

dream-ini --ini "Morrowind/Morrowind.ini" --cfg ~/.config/openmw/openmw.cfg --game-files --in-place

Leave out --game-files to keep your cfg’s own load order and import only the settings and the archives.

What you get#

An import of a Morrowind install with both expansions and one plugin, into a cfg the OpenMW launcher wrote, adds this after the cfg’s own lines:

encoding=win1252
no-sound=0
fallback=Weather_Sunrise_Time,6
fallback=Weather_Sunset_Time,18
data=/games/Morrowind/Data Files
content=Morrowind.esm
content=Tribunal.esm
content=Bloodmoon.esm
content=Better Clothes.esp
fallback-archive=Morrowind.bsa
fallback-archive=Tribunal.bsa
fallback-archive=Bloodmoon.bsa

A real Morrowind.ini gives several hundred fallback= lines: weather, water, moons, the level-up texts and the rest. What an import does explains each line.

If it stops#

  • ini file does not exist: the path after --ini is wrong. The exit code is 253.
  • fallback archives not found: Tribunal.bsa: an archive the INI lists is not in any folder dream-ini searched, and the message lists those folders. Pass the folder with --data, or fix the INI. Nothing was written.
  • GameFile entry not found: a warning, not an error. The load order stops at that file, as it does in Morrowind.exe; the files before it are imported.