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The Infinity Engine: All Good Things Begin And End With Breach

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Posts

  • DeaderinredDeaderinred Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Zell wrote: »
    Same with nvidia cards really, on my 8800GT it has reduced slowdown in Baldur's Gate II, massively reduced slowdown in Icewind Dale II, made Planescape Torment stop crashing constantly and fixed all those graphic bugs the new nvidia drivers cause in all the games. This being the setting that doesn't effect anything at all.

    Maybe ATI cards have no problems running Infinity Engine games flawlessly, but it's still a very good troubleshooting step.

    i haven't had a problem cept in opengl mode for bg2 where you get ungodly flickering, but turning off triplebuffering fixes that.

    Deaderinred on
  • DeaderinredDeaderinred Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Marty81 wrote: »
    My nvidia 7900 gt won't even run BG2 with directdraw on. With directdraw off, it's fine.

    you should be running it in opengl mode, its far superior and faster with nicer effects.

    Deaderinred on
  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    langfor6 wrote: »
    How will I know if the Jaheira romance is bugged, and how do I fix it? I'm using the latest official patch and FixPack v1.12 from Baldurdash.
    The fix ties all the Harper plot events to specific love talks, which makes it easier to manage and should avoid any problems. This is the list of the things that are supposed to happen. If those don't happen, you'll have to look at the romance FAQ on shadowkeeper website and google around.

    Coinage on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    How do you turn directdraw off in Vista? BG2 crashes whenever someone casts mirror image.

    Hoz on
  • AriviaArivia I Like A Challenge Earth-1Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Hoz wrote: »
    How do you turn directdraw off in Vista? BG2 crashes whenever someone casts mirror image.

    Run bgconfig.

    Arivia on
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  • ZellZell Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    You can't turn directdraw off that way, but I think there is an option specifically about mirror image graphics in the Throne of Bhaal configuration program you might want to try.

    Forcing directdraw emulation for games in Vista is somewhat complicated, unless you're familiar with the application compatibility toolkit.

    Zell on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    It's very complicated, I don't know what an SQL server is and which one I can connect to so I can't even enter the program.

    And there is no mirror image option in bgconfig.

    Hoz on
  • DeaderinredDeaderinred Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    mirror image is in the game options in the actual game.

    Deaderinred on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Just tested it, 16 bit and software mirror BLT (all BLT) don't alleviate the situation.

    Hoz on
  • DeaderinredDeaderinred Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    try running the game in opengl.

    Deaderinred on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Does not work. This is a nightmare.

    My next computer will be an XP.

    Hoz on
  • ZellZell Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Run the compatibility administrator program, not the other one, under custom databases right click the first entry "new database", then select create new -- application fix.

    Fill out information, program file location should point to BGMain.exe, under operating system modes select none. On the next page find "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" and enable it, leave the next page as is and click finish.

    Click file, then save/save as, give it a name, save the file somewhere then click file and install.

    Only helps with graphic card problems (and not sure if it actually works in Vista) and as said, somewhat complicated. You should probably try reducing any graphic options in the config program before trying it.

    Zell on
  • DisruptorX2DisruptorX2 Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Sounds like a video card problem. Vista treats the game the same way XP does, for me.

    DisruptorX2 on
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  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    What program do I need to install this .sdb file?

    And this video card ran BG2 fine under XP. I guess it's case by case.

    Hoz on
  • ZellZell Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    The compatibility administrator program, it's in the file menu as I said...

    Edit: also you should try all the default compatibility modes if you haven't already.
    Edit 2: or just right click the database and click install

    Zell on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Did not work.

    I guess it is the video card. Anyway thanks for helping out. I guess I'll just wait to play it when I get a new computer, which should be a while more but at least the experience will be a whole lot richer.

    Hoz on
  • ZellZell Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Assuming you did that correctly I don't really think the video card should matter as that should remove hardware acceleration.

    Does it crash only when mirror image is cast or are there other spells that cause it too? corrupted files might be a problem. Try a reinstall (and if there's any errors during the installation, there's your problem)

    Did you try disabling all graphical effects in the configuration program? Including both enabling and disabling OpenGL? Did you try compatibility modes? (Windows 95/98/XP, disabling desktop composition, run as administrator)

    Zell on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Game won't even start on compatibility modes below XP. And yes, security permissions, all graphical options, and other spells.

    I'll try the reinstall.

    Hoz on
  • ZellZell Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Also does the game give you an error message when it crashes? does baldur.log say anything?

    Zell on
  • NoneoftheaboveNoneoftheabove Just a conforming non-conformist. Twilight ZoneRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    The Infinity Engine games; continued to be appreciated over time? Or is it just the original fans who cling longest, when most move on in this special case? They render trees better now, but they spend all their time doing it while everything else suffers.


    Like a good book, these games are worth revisiting. The artwork, writing and gameplay are still enjoyable.

    Noneoftheabove on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Game is up and running 100%. I guess something got lost in the first install. CDs are fucking old.

    Hoz on
  • DisruptorX2DisruptorX2 Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Hoz wrote: »
    Game is up and running 100%. I guess something got lost in the first install. CDs are fucking old.

    My BG 1 CDs are in dire shape due to that retarded paper sleeve they came in.

    DisruptorX2 on
    1208768734831.jpg
  • langfor6langfor6 Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    My son figured out how to work a CD-ROM drive while my Throne of Bhaal CD was in it.

    langfor6 on
  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Is XP gained while level drained lost forever?

    Why do all my party members have different levels of XP? I thought it was divided evenly.

    Coinage on
  • DozingDragonDozingDragon Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Can't for the life of me remember, but I do believe XP is still gained while drained, it just doesn't take effect until you are restored.

    The reason your party members have different levels of XP is they actually join your party with varying levels of XP for the most part. This value varies depending on what level you are when they join your party.

    DozingDragon on
  • HozHoz Cool Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    I'm pretty sure you do not get that xp when you're drained.

    Hoz on
  • korodullinkorodullin What. SCRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    As far as I know, level drain in BG2 simply removes your level flags and any accompanying spell slots, class ability daily usages, and such. Your xp seems to be unaffected in any way, shape, or form.

    korodullin on
    ZvOMJnu.png
    - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
  • DeaderinredDeaderinred Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Hoz wrote: »
    Game is up and running 100%. I guess something got lost in the first install. CDs are fucking old.

    My BG 1 CDs are in dire shape due to that retarded paper sleeve they came in.

    tell me about it, i ended up buying the bg collection which consists of the dvds for all the games and putting the originals back in the huge ass boxes on the shelves for all time, fuck that 5 disc install, even worse was when i had to install bg1 on minimum on my old 3gig hdd back in the day, holy shit the disc swapping was so frequent it was actually labelled as a gameplay mechanic on the box.

    Deaderinred on
  • EtheaEthea Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Hoz wrote: »
    I'm pretty sure you do not get that xp when you're drained.


    You get xp while level drained. I have a couple times casted restore on PC to have them promptly level up.

    Ethea on
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Hoz wrote: »
    Game is up and running 100%. I guess something got lost in the first install. CDs are fucking old.

    My BG 1 CDs are in dire shape due to that retarded paper sleeve they came in.

    tell me about it, i ended up buying the bg collection which consists of the dvds for all the games and putting the originals back in the huge ass boxes on the shelves for all time, fuck that 5 disc install, even worse was when i had to install bg1 on minimum on my old 3gig hdd back in the day, holy shit the disc swapping was so frequent it was actually labelled as a gameplay mechanic on the box.

    oh god the swapping and the load times were sooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad
    i spent 100hrs playing BG1, 50hrs were looooooooad times

    Stormwatcher on
    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
    camo_sig2.png
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Hoz wrote: »
    Game is up and running 100%. I guess something got lost in the first install. CDs are fucking old.

    My BG 1 CDs are in dire shape due to that retarded paper sleeve they came in.

    Heh. Dire CDs. Bigger and tougher than normal CDs.

    What?

    hippofant on
  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Man, the Slayer dream and final fight dialogue with Irenicus were awesome. Except that Imoen has the worst dialogue! I thought I would be trading up, but I'd honestly rather listen to Jan, at least other people's reactions to Jan were occasionally funny. And did anyone else laugh
    when Ellesime started talking about love? Irenicus' awesome voice acting redeemed it, but ugh, that was the most cliche thing in the whole game.

    I accidentally partially ruined Yoshimo's quest in Spellhold (I wish I had had the strength to avoid the walkthrough. Maybe for ToB), but I don't want to ruin it anymore by reading the rest of the description, but I have to ask
    Does he have to die? This would screw up my party plans. :(

    Coinage on
  • LindenLinden Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Coinage wrote: »
    I accidentally partially ruined Yoshimo's quest in Spellhold (I wish I had had the strength to avoid the walkthrough. Maybe for ToB), but I don't want to ruin it anymore by reading the rest of the description, but I have to ask
    Does he have to die? This would screw up my party plans. :(
    Last I played, only by an exploit that's not possible to set up where you are by now (console abuse aside). There's no system by which you can retain his services later within the constraints of the game's plot.

    Incidentally, I just read through the Let's Play of BG2+ToB. Oh my. I must recover my disks - and, if I'm lucky, make a complete playthrough with Tutu for once.

    Linden on
  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Man. :( Now I don't have a thief for my evil party! I guess I'll be stuck with Jan again. At least my evil character is a mage so I don't have to worry about his freaking 16 int and superflous thief levels ruining my spellcasting.

    I was also expecting Irenicus to end up being a Child of Bhaal because of the way he referred to Bodhi as Sister, but I guess if I wanted to fight other Children I could just wait until ToB.

    Coinage on
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    You can alter Yoshimo's storyline via game mods, if you want. Normally, there is only one way that things can go down.

    Don't be too put off by Imoen being the only thief in your party, though. IIRC her thief stats are actually considerably better than her character sheet says they are.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • LindenLinden Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Coinage wrote: »
    Man. :( I didn't want to have Imoen in my party at all the second time around, but I guess it's either that or have a 5 man party all the way through the Underdark.

    5-man is entirely doable. A lot of the encounters down there can be made utterly trivial with the right equipment - the Shield of Balduran and Cloak of Mirroring are completely broken if used correctly, for instance. There are a few mid-level spells that overpower the Illithid, as well. Plus, extra experience for the people you're taking!
    I was also expecting Irenicus to end up being a Child of Bhaal because of the way he referred to Bodhi as Sister, but I guess if I wanted to fight other Children I could just wait until ToB.

    I found it a bit of a letdown, to be honest. I mean, it's a reasonable conclusion, but Irenicus is just such a well-written enemy that the opposition in Throne seem comparatively mundane*. It doesn't help them that there's a whole set of them, introduced in phases, and that Throne is comparatively short, but I don't have any real reason to hate them. Jon was damn near perfect.

    Don't take my comments to suggest I thought Throne was a bad game! It was great fun, but it ran into a set of problems resulting from the structure of the series as a whole, and its scale. Watcher's Keep was very well-designed, especially in the first run through.

    * And, well the first enemy in Throne...
    (spoilers throughout ToB)
    Hell, let's look at the Five!
    • Illasera really didn't seem to have any depth to her.
    • Yaga-Shura is a large Koschei, with no clear psyche. I'm convinced that there was an opportunity to do something interesting with his background.
    • Sendai still seems subservient to the Drow culture as a whole - look at the lines regarding the Matron Mothers. What's the deal with this? It seems so undrowlike - to be sure, we don't see a great deal of her position in society, but I'd have hoped for a little more about her impacts on the world.
    • Abazigal has his little purity obsession. Illasera's the only one we learn less about, and I'm not seeing this as a good thing. Obviously, there's been past conflicts (note the dragon he's taken control of), but the scale of these are left unclear. The monk found in the dungeons here brings us to the last member of the Five:
    • Balthazar. Here, at last, we have characterisation. There was so much that could be done with this character and his motivations, but, again, he's seen too briefly.

    Of course, this leaves us with the enemy acting as the capstone of the series. I'm really not impressed by how this opponent is introduced, and it's essentially a return to the same basic motivations that the series used throughout. Sure, 'traitorous servant' is an interesting archetype, but there's not enough meat.

    Linden on
  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Dyscord wrote: »
    You can alter Yoshimo's storyline via game mods, if you want. Normally, there is only one way that things can go down.

    Don't be too put off by Imoen being the only thief in your party, though. IIRC her thief stats are actually considerably better than her character sheet says they are.
    15 points better, and I'm not really sure why. I don't have a problem with her as a character, after giving her 5 more Detect Traps in Shadowkeeper she has the perfect amount of thief abilities for my purposes. But I am trying not to use the same party members twice since there's already so much content in BG2 there's no need to experience those parts twice. And I have no desire to hear Imoen talk ever again!

    The problem with the 5 man party is not so much the combat with enemies as with not raped by traps because I don't have a thief. The combat is actually fairly easy if you are looking at a walkthrough to do all the sidequests, but I imagine it would be quite difficult if you didn't have the walkthrough to reference where they were all hidden. At least that was my problem in BG1, which is what got me addicted to the walkthrough in the first place.

    Coinage on
  • langfor6langfor6 Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Linden wrote: »
    Coinage wrote: »
    Man. :( I didn't want to have Imoen in my party at all the second time around, but I guess it's either that or have a 5 man party all the way through the Underdark.

    5-man is entirely doable. A lot of the encounters down there can be made utterly trivial with the right equipment - the Shield of Balduran and Cloak of Mirroring are completely broken if used correctly, for instance. There are a few mid-level spells that overpower the Illithid, as well. Plus, extra experience for the people you're taking!
    I was also expecting Irenicus to end up being a Child of Bhaal because of the way he referred to Bodhi as Sister, but I guess if I wanted to fight other Children I could just wait until ToB.

    I found it a bit of a letdown, to be honest. I mean, it's a reasonable conclusion, but Irenicus is just such a well-written enemy that the opposition in Throne seem comparatively mundane*. It doesn't help them that there's a whole set of them, introduced in phases, and that Throne is comparatively short, but I don't have any real reason to hate them. Jon was damn near perfect.

    Don't take my comments to suggest I thought Throne was a bad game! It was great fun, but it ran into a set of problems resulting from the structure of the series as a whole, and its scale. Watcher's Keep was very well-designed, especially in the first run through.

    * And, well the first enemy in Throne...
    (spoilers throughout ToB)
    Hell, let's look at the Five!
    • Illasera really didn't seem to have any depth to her.
    • Yaga-Shura is a large Koschei, with no clear psyche. I'm convinced that there was an opportunity to do something interesting with his background.
    • Sendai still seems subservient to the Drow culture as a whole - look at the lines regarding the Matron Mothers. What's the deal with this? It seems so undrowlike - to be sure, we don't see a great deal of her position in society, but I'd have hoped for a little more about her impacts on the world.
    • Abazigal has his little purity obsession. Illasera's the only one we learn less about, and I'm not seeing this as a good thing. Obviously, there's been past conflicts (note the dragon he's taken control of), but the scale of these are left unclear. The monk found in the dungeons here brings us to the last member of the Five:
    • Balthazar. Here, at last, we have characterisation. There was so much that could be done with this character and his motivations, but, again, he's seen too briefly.

    Of course, this leaves us with the enemy acting as the capstone of the series. I'm really not impressed by how this opponent is introduced, and it's essentially a return to the same basic motivations that the series used throughout. Sure, 'traitorous servant' is an interesting archetype, but there's not enough meat.

    Isn't Gromnir a Bhaalspawn as well?

    langfor6 on
  • XagarathXagarath Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Linden wrote: »
    Coinage wrote: »
    Man. :( I didn't want to have Imoen in my party at all the second time around, but I guess it's either that or have a 5 man party all the way through the Underdark.

    5-man is entirely doable.

    As is one, provided they have access to mage magic.

    Xagarath on
  • ZellZell Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    You can leave the Underdark and come back later to do the sidequests. Not sure if you have to do the main quest there before doing so. You can't reenter Ust Natha after a certain point.

    Clerics have a detect traps spell which you might want to try.

    Edit: langfor6: yes, but he's not part of the five.

    Zell on
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