Hi - most guides for Morrowind mods seem to be a little out of date - anyone out there advise on :

best graphical enhancements - i like my eye candy :)

best gameplay enhancements - i don't want any things that massively change gmeplay or deviate from the original, but any quality of life enhancements?

Any advice is welcome, really!

I always go with GCD so I can play the way I want. It changes the leveling system so you gain points in abilities as you improve your skills, that means it is no longer tied to level up.

The unofficial morrowind patch is a must.

I also use all the official free DLC, that includes the adamantium armor, the area of effect arrows, siege at firemoth, lefemm armor, and master index.

I use fair magica regen which is a very slow magica regen. The rate based on your abilities.

I use better heads
and the better bodies

true lights and darkness for a better feel in dungeons, now you will need a light source

I also use for the graphics overhaul the MGSO/MGE XE

Finally I do use one overhaul mod in Morrowind Rebirth

Wrye mash X64 to manage them all

In addition, you might consider having a look at Tribunal Delay (this may not be the official name). It prevents you from being molested constantly by the Dark Brotherhood guys (unless you want to get their armour, which is nice to have at level 1, and can be used to make some money very early in the game - I consider it close to cheating, but why not, if you like the benefits).
My preferred one is Master Index (mentioned above), as it gives you an interesting quest line and a series of teleporters all over Morrowind.
Unless it's contained elsewhere or has been mentioned already, I'd use the Tribunal Journal Fix, too (fixes an issue with the journal when playing Tribunal).
My personal favourites are the total conversions, new games built with the help of the Construction Set. There are several games available, I'll mention three: Myar Arannath and Arktwend by SureAI (the guys who developed Nehrim for Oblivion, and Enderal for Skyrim), and Sword of The Perithia. As I myself don't use graphical enhancements, I don't know how compatible these total conversions are with eye candy stuff (it might be worth trying, as they are all CS-based).

Alternatively, you could just start the game with the tribunal plug-in disabled, and not enable it until you're ready to tackle the expansion.

(One other benefit of the expansion is that it allows you to get access to the Fortify Skill effect, which is really good in Morrowind; it lets you get close to Icarian Flight with a spell, for example.)

That's not an option if you plan on using any mods more complex than a weapon tweak or a texture replacer. Pretty much everything requires the expansions. Either directly or by way of being dependent upon another mod that is itself dependent upon them.

Just install OpenMW and follow the guides.

https://modding-openmw.com/

It is the best way to play Morrowind in 2022.

+1 for OpenMW.

It's a reimplementation of the game's engine for modern hardware. It also includes some graphical enhancements (lighting, water, real time shadows, etc).

They have some videos on YouTube that showcase the changes.

I'm not an expert on anything I'm about to say, so take with a big 'ol grain of salt.

Any Morrowind mods that altered the original engine (Gamebryo/NetImmerse) will (almost certainly) give you trouble or simply not work with OpenMW. From my own experience, any modding done through the Construction Set works fine. That said, I don't really use any mods from the internet; I don't know about texture/model mods.

Also speaking from experience, I think the special options should be save game compatible. I haven't played in a while, but there's no harm in trying!

All quests should be possible to complete.

I actually haven't played through the main quest with OpenMW, mostly just goofing around. So I'm probably not the most qualified person to be answering your questions. From the several hours I've spent with it, it didn't crash at all. That's a win in my book (or scroll, as it were).

You are lucky my game stopped responding during a fight with a nix-hound for some reason even though i am using openmw and 2 mods. Had to stop the process, also had the fps counter turned on so maybe that was a reason.
Guess i will have to play more to see how stable it is. and wonder if saving or quicksaving is still better to do inhouse then outside. Oh and thanks for the info.

Edit: could also be a folder name problem since i named it program and just today windows warned me to rename it to program1 so it would work correctly.