OpenMW 0.49.0 RC9

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

If you're running an AMD GPU and get frequent freezes (driver timeouts), disable antialiasing in the launcher. AMD is aware of the issue and is working on fixing it.

If you're running an Intel GPU and the game's visuals often appear to freeze, try to check if it still happens with the latest available driver for your GPU and downgrade the driver if it does. This also appears to be a driver-side regression.

Finally, we received many reports on Nvidia Windows driver crashes with unclear reason or connection. This is also suspected to be a vendor-side regression associated with post-50 series drivers, but we do not currently have a recommendation on how to deal with those other than to provide us with more crash dumps and openmw.log files.

Changes since RC8:

• [#8039] Fixed movement accumulation for actors that use Collada models on some builds compiled under LLVM
• [#8558] OpenMW-Lua: Light record color is now exposed as util.color rather than as a number
• [#8559] ESSImporter: Fixed selected spell/enchanted item and stolen item counter conversion
• [#8563] Improved handling of content files that are defined in the non-user version of openmw.cfg
• [#8567] Token replacement and relative paths work properly when the paths are passed through CLI
• Linux: Improved application detection for default shortcuts
• macOS: Packages now use Qt 6 like the other systems
• macOS: Reintroduced an Intel package
• Windows: Improved crash catcher error reporting in situations when crash dump creation fails

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC8

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

If you're running an AMD GPU and get frequent freezes (driver timeouts), disable antialiasing in the launcher. AMD is aware of the issue and is working on fixing it.

If you're running an Intel GPU and the game's visuals often appear to freeze, try to check if it still happens with the latest available driver for your GPU and downgrade the driver if it does. This also appears to be a driver-side regression.

Finally, we received many reports on Nvidia Windows driver crashes with unclear reason or connection. This is also suspected to be a vendor-side regression associated with post-50 series drivers, but we do not currently have a recommendation on how to deal with those other than to provide us with more crash dumps and openmw.log files.

Changes since RC7:

• [#8165] OpenMW-Lua: For Lua-triggered object activation, Lua activation handler takes priority over mwscript activation inhibition
• [#8445] Launcher: Fixed a rare crash on exit due to start cell list reloading being interrupted
• [#8465] macOS: Hardware antialiasing no longer breaks rendering
• [#8469] OpenMW-Lua: Cell change events are no longer triggered when the player is teleported within a cell
• [#8478] Launcher: Various startup, content list loading and mass plugin toggling optimisations
• [#8499] Linux: Generic package launch scripts now support whitespace in the path to OpenMW
• [#8503] OpenMW-Lua: To prevent rendering deadlocks, camera, time scale and animation speed bindings no longer accept infinities and NaN as input
• [#8514] AMD: Fixed broken shadows when they are enabled globally but need to be disabled (e.g. in interiors) on some hardware
• [#8516] OpenMW-Lua: Fixed the order of UI layer insertions if they happened during the same frame
• [#8532] Console search works properly and can no longer crash if the current marked occurrence includes the first character of the history
• [#8541] OpenMW-Lua: util.color:asHex properly converts color channel values lower than 16
• OpenMW-Lua: Animation API is no longer accessible in menu and global contexts
• OpenMW-Lua: self:isActive binding properly returns false when the object is inactive
• Fixed undefined behaviour in the linear bloom shader that reportedly led to problems on Android
• Post-processing shaders can properly request a higher minimum GLSL version on systems that don't support UBO rendering, like macOS
• Weapon/shield attachment/detachment can once again happen at the very beginning of the (un)equipment animation

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC7

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

If you're running an AMD GPU and you get frequent freezes (driver timeouts), disable antialiasing in the launcher. AMD is aware of the issue and is working on fixing it.

Changes since RC6:

• [#8273] Pathfinding message log level is now controlled by OPENMW_RECAST_MAX_LOG_LEVEL environment variable and is raised to Error by default
• [#8378] Fixed non-breaking space glyph rendering issues in dialogue and books: this further improves Korean bitmap font support
• [#8380] OpenMW-Lua: Lua-opened service menus no longer assume they're opened from dialogue: this prevents "crashes" when they're closed automatically on assertion-enabled builds
• [#8405] Launcher: Major content initialisation optimisations: this eliminates freezes during startup for very large content lists
• [#8425] Optimised plugin dependency resolution: this fixes a freeze when a single plugin has many dependencies during initial loading
• [#8426] Launcher: Data directory selection dialog once again preserves the last directory it was in
• [#8439] Fixed crashes when a creature in the scene doesn't have a defined model, e.g. when it fades out at the edge of actor processing range
• [#8439] Fixed loading of saves that contain inventory items with non-existent enchantments
• [#8441] Main menu video is paused when the window is minimised to prevent a freeze upon reopening
• [#8462] macOS: Fixed crashes when the window is resized or a setting is tweaked in-game
• OpenMW-Lua: TargetPolygonNotFound pathfinding status is properly enumerated
• OpenMW-Lua: victim awareness option is properly supported in crime events
• Fixed a crash when shaders required to render ripples are unavailable or cannot be compiled
• Fixed graphic herbalism support for containers that only contain unresolved levelled items and containers that use skinned models
• Minimum point light radius has been raised to 16 to match Morrowind and prevent zero radius lights from turning very bright when classic falloff is enabled
• Pathfinding debug mesh write errors (e.g. when the files are written to an inaccessible location) can no longer cause a deadlock
• Restored --export-fonts command line option useful for testing bitmap font loading
• TES4 format quest record script variable subrecords are ignored: this allows esmtool to parse Fallout 3 DLC ESMs
• Windows: Config and data path detection errors are now reported
• Windows: Freeze catcher message has been revised and will disappear quicker if the application unfreezes

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC6

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

Changes since RC5:

• [#7531] Added more missing bitmap font glyph substitutions and removed custom substitutions for characters that are already defined by the fonts
• [#8311] Fixed more potential breakage when an object removed by Lua cannot be properly unloaded, this time in object paging
• [#8317] Magic effect removal in Lua is now a delayed action to prevent it from removing the VFX when they are being rendered (this caused crashes)
• [#8358] Automove is no longer automatically disabled when the player cannot move
• [#8364] Resizing the dialogue window can no longer break the scrollbar and make it crash the game upon use
• [#8365] Actions registered in Lua menu context persist through the entire session
• [#8370] Fixed various memory corruption issues when some bindings are used in coroutines
• [#8378] Support for unofficial Korean fonts: bitmap font kerning is now set up properly and it is now legal for fonts to only provide partial texture data
• [#8387] Fixed invalid memory access when the last remaining saved game is deleted for a character
• [#8389] GetSoundPlaying mwscript function no longer requires a reference to work (it will always return 0)
• LLVM 19.1.0 toolset support
• Medium and strong weapon recoil/reloading animations play properly again
• Starting or loading the game through Lua automatically hides the main menu

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC5

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

Changes since RC4:

• [#8311] Fixed a crash when an object removed by Lua cannot be properly unloaded; this could happen during saved game loading
• [#8344] Fixed a potential crash when pathgrid geometry is generated but all pathgrid edges are invalid
• [#8346] Fixed a crash when a Lua script attempts to start a new game
• [#8347] Fixed a crash when levelled creature list record creatures binding is used
• [#8354] Editor: Improved the robustness of screen detection on multi-monitor setups; it will never fail — well, as long as you do have a display
• Third-party builds built against SDL2-compat will no longer suffer from unhandled SDL3 display/window event warning spam
• ShowSceneGraph (SSG) command no longer complains about billboard callback (billboard node representation) presence in serialised objects

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC4

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

Changes since RC3:

• [#7273] Precipitation occlusion should no longer require sky blending to be enabled to work as intended
• [#8280] Attacks evaluated as successful will no longer hit if the target is out of reach when the attack is applied
• Loading progress bar is properly updated for TES4 format files
• Various stereo/multiview setup fixes to allow 0.49.0 and updated OpenMW-VR to use the same shaders: shadow maps are shared between views while sky blending, soft and distortion shader effects and post-processing account for multiple views better

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC3

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.

Changes since RC2:

• [#7731] Fixed default sound output device tracking sometimes malfunctioning under PulseAudio backend and causing audio stuttering — notably on Steam Deck
• [#8286] The launcher will no longer overwrite openmw.cfg if the original file already has all the settings it was going to write (new in 0.49.0)
• [#8287] The launcher no longer has unintuitive special handling for commas in setting values when preserving their comments (new in 0.49.0)
• [#8295] Fixed a crash when the post-processing chain refers to an existing shader file in a different case (0.48.0 issue)
• [#8295] Fixed a crash when the post-processing chain refers to an existing shader file nested into a subdirectory of the shaders directory (0.48.0 issue)
• [#8299] Editor: Fixed a crash when terrain is smoothed at a border with undefined cell (0.46.0-0.48.0 issue)
• [#8300] Flawed weapon type validation has been corrected to allow custom ammunition records to be created through Lua
• Windows build now includes bsatool, esmtool and niftest utilities
• When the relevant setting is enabled, Recast meshes are exported before navmeshes are generated to make debugging navmesh generation crashes easier

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC2

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

Windows 10 or newer is required to run the Windows build.
Linux binary was reuploaded multiple times:

• on January 8 to use Qt6, multithreaded Bullet and the latest revision of our OpenSceneGraph fork
• on January 10 to include libraries missing on some systems: libb2, libmd, libcap, libbsd and libzstd
• on January 12 to replace libexpat with a version dependent on glibc 2.35 and fix Ubuntu 22.04 compatibility

Fixes since RC1:

• Localized On/Off buttons in the in-game settings will no longer reset to GMST lines when clicked.

OpenMW 0.49.0 RC1

These RC builds are outdated!
We do not provide support for outdated RC builds!

Visit the main Releases page to find the most recent RC build or corresponding stable release.

OpenMW 0.48.0 Released!

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.48.0 of our open-source engine!

So what does another fruitful year of diligent work bring us this time? The two biggest improvements in this new version of OpenMW are the long-awaited post-processing shader framework and an early version of a brand-new Lua scripting API! Both of these features greatly expand what the engine can deliver in terms of visual fidelity and game logic.

As usual, we've also solved numerous problems major and minor, particularly pertaining to the newly overhauled magic system and character animations. Read the full list of changes below!

Known Issues:

• On macOS, launching OpenMW from OpenMW-CS requires ‘OpenMW.app’ and ‘OpenMW-CS.app’ to be siblings
• Performance of enchanted ranged weapons (e.g., darts) isn’t as good as other projectiles’ performance
• [#7354] If reverse Z depth buffer and soft particles are off or unsupported, disabling all post-processing in-game will trigger a crash
• Rarely, quitting the game may crash it on some setups for an unclear reason. If you encounter such an issue, please send us feedback regarding its circumstances

New Engine Features:

• by ptmikheev, uramer and others
  • [#5996] Lua scripting API
• by akortunov
  • [#4974] Fonts and GUI layout files are now overridable through the VFS
  • [#4975] TrueType font replacements are now included by default to avoid missing glyphs with OpenMW-specific GUI localisation
  • [#6867] GUI localisation support. Most of the previously hardcoded strings have been localised in French, German, Russian and Swedish
  • [#6925] In the character creation widget, the character's head can be rotated in the preview area using the mouse wheel, as if you scrolled the slider below it
  • [#6941] TrueType font settings can be changed in the launcher
• by Assumeru/Evil Eye
  • [#1465, #6177] 'Repeat' flag is supported for AI package script commands.
  • [#2780] 'Help' console command, which prints OpenMW's version string and every available command
  • [#4297] The remnants of 'APPLIED_ONCE' spell effect flag have been properly implemented
  • [#4414] EXTRA SPELL spell effect expiry now triggers re-equipment
  • [#5198] Spell effect expiry is now tracked
  • [#5454] Active spell effects are cleared from actors that are removed from the scene for any reason
  • [#5489] Telekinesis also extends the activation range of activators, like in Morrowind Code Patch
  • [#6380] Commas are treated as whitespace in scripts, heavily loosening the restrictions on their use
  • [#6699] 'Ignored' ESM record flag is now respected
• by Capo
  • [#6541] Gloss-mapping support
• by Cédric Mocquillon
  • [#3616] Optional: You can now zoom the in-game map in and out
  • [#6248] A default error marker model is now embedded into the engine
• by Dominique Martinet
  • [#6631] FFmpeg 5 support
• by elsid
  • [#6189] Generated navigation meshes are now cached on your storage device
• by Eris Caffee
  • [#2766] Wizard will warn the user if the used version of Morrowind is unrecognised and potentially too old using the known size of English Morrowind BSA
  • [#6706] The dimensions of the in-game settings window are saved and loaded
• by fr3dz10
  • [#2858] Data directories can be set up and BSA archives can be registered through the launcher
  • [#6496] 'No Camera Collision' flag is properly implemented for NIF nodes
• by myrix
  • [#6419] Topics will not be considered exhausted if they can produce a hyperlink to a new topic
  • [#6888] Optional: Creature damage damages armour
• by ptmikheev
  • [#2491] The directory configuration files are read from can be specified manually, allowing you to produce portable OpenMW distributions
  • [#4595] Every object instance in the game can now be uniquely identified
  • [#6161] In-game log viewer (assigned to F10)
  • [#7434] Exponential fog
  • [#7435] Sky blending
• by unelsson
  • [#5701] Optimised Collada model skinning
  • [#6249] Alpha testing support for Collada models
  • [#6823] Animation layering support for Collada models
• by uramer
  • [#6557] Controller gyroscope support
• by Vulpen
  • [#6019] Alpha-to-coverage can be toggled on through the launcher
• by wareya
  • [#6360] Raindrop ripples have been visually revamped
• by wazabear
  • [#4067] Post-processing shader support
  • [#5928] Time of day-dependent node switching can be disabled
  • [#6032] Support of reverse-Z depth buffer, which reduces the flickering of distant objects tremendously
  • [#6078] The depth buffer is no longer cleared before rendering first-person models
  • [#6128] Support for soft particles
  • [#6199] FBO rendering support
  • [#6443] NIF stencil buffer manipulations are supported, completing NiStencilProperty support
  • [#6534] Decal texture blending using vertex/material colours is now simulated in shader pipeline
  • [#6592] Geometry-based particle emission support
  • [#6600] NiSortAdjustNode record type support
  • [#6700] Windowed fullscreen support. In this mode, the game is played in a borderless window that matches the display resolution
• by Wolfgang Lieff
  • [#6684] Support of NiFltAnimationNode NIF record type, which represents an animated sequence of nodes.
• by AnyOldName3 and Capo
  • With the bump of the minimum required version of OpenSceneGraph to 3.6.5, the following older improvements of OSG are brought over to every possible build of OpenMW:
    • [#3180] Support of uncompressed colour-mapped TGA files
    • [#3668] Support of palettised DDS files

New Editor Features:

• by cc9cii
  • [#2554] Modifying an instance in the scene widget will scroll the instances table to that instance
  • [#5737] Moved instances are properly deleted from their original cell
  • [#6017] Persistent and temporary instances are properly distinguished upon saving a file to improve compatibility with the original ESM format
  • [#6288] 'Blocked' record flag support
• by pi03k
  • [#890] Table columns can now be hidden using a new menu or with a middle-click
• by SaintMercury
  • [#6721] Record subviews can be opened in an exclusive window as an option
• by unelsson
  • [#6251] Instance movement now follows the mouse cursor
• by VidiAquam
  • [#3245] Instance editing grid and snapping

Engine Bug Fixes:

• by akortunov
  • [#5913] Self-targeted line-of-sight checks no longer cause issues
  • [#6276] 'Deleted' flag is properly supported for groundcover instance records
  • [[#6347](https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw/-/issue...