Glory of Istar on GemRB

[Ishad Nha]

Glory of Istar totally overrides BG2: Shadows of Amn, makes the latter unplayable while it is in effect. This is annoying to people who have a lot of mods installed.

Does GemRB enable you to play GoI without messing up the original BG2 installation? If so, that is the way to go, for GoI and any other total conversion mod. Players can play it on GemRB while leaving all of their BG 2 mods and save files in place.

Also helpful would be simple instructions for how to install GoI on GemRB.

 

Really need to have a walkthrough for GoI..

[lynx]

gemrb doesn't affect the way filesystems work, so we can't do much, really. Sure, we could do the file copy round-robin for our users, but the gain would be negligable.

Just install tc's over fresh installs; there are even old guides on how to easily keep multiple installs around if you want to save yourself some space and/or hassle.

 

I say this, because the thing is so old I doubt it has a weidu installer, so you can't easily uninstall/reinstall it on a whim.

 

Mod compatibility and total conversions usually don't go along well at all.

[Ishad Nha]

Can you install GoI directly to GemRB without messing up your BG2 install?

If not, can you at least uninstall GoI at the BG2 end without messing up the GemRB install?

After all it is not a mod dependent upon a parent program. It is a heavily customized total conversion.

[lynx]

gemrb is an engine, it doesn't touch any original data files and is thus oblivious to how things are installed or uninstalled, it just needs the path to the game folder. Even if you screw up your data, gemrb will still work to some extent (depends on what files were corrupted).

 

To make it even more clear, when it comes to goi or other mods, gemrb is practically no different than the original.

[Avenger]

Theoretically possible, with some work. While what lynx wrote is true, GemRB is much more flexible about the data location. It doesn't care which cd path contains it, as long as it is on one.

Also you can change the location of the "override" path.

 

You need to copy the goi files into a separate directory, then pointing gemrb to it (as cd6).

You need to make a copy of the original override dir then copy the goi files into it. You can set the override dir name for gemrb.

Finally, you need to switch chitin.key, i guess, that remains manual.

[Ishad Nha]

Currently, if you uninstall GoI from the BG2 directory, it is also uninstalled from the GemRB folders.

You could have total conversion mods on another installation of GemRB, that would leave the original install for BG2 and its mods.

 

Problems with GoI, these also affect BG2 when played with GemRB. They are not present in the original BG2 game when played without GemRB.

Can't use:

the ASSIGN KEYS dialog.

the Numerical keypad for scrolling.

The G key to Return to Game, mercifully the mouse can still click the button.

 

When using the Map, none of the other page keys work.

 

Weather is on always, sky is dark. Altering the setting in Game Options has no effect.

Game Option settings are all messed up.

 

These are annoying rather than fatal problems. I suppose I have to alter some py files or something? This is my GemRB.cfg set up:

GameType=bg2

GameName=Baldur's Gate 2

Width=800

Height=600

Bpp=16

Fullscreen=0

TooltipDelay=500

GUIEnhancements=15

GamePath=C:\Program Files\Black Isle\BGII - SoA

CachePath=Cache

GemRBPath=.

PluginsPath=./plugins

AudioDriver=none

 

I set GUIEnhancements=0, it made no difference.

[lynx]

how the mod's installation works is mostly the mods problem anyway. Did someone pick up goi or why the sudden interest?

 

the bugs and missing features you mention are unrelated.

[Ishad Nha]

At some point I will be preparing a walkthrough but there is no attempt to finish it. We need serious developers for that.

How do we fix those bugs? I have no knowledge of GemRB.

[lynx]

disable weather in baldur.ini; you can close windows by pressing escape; the rest are all coding tasks.

[Ishad Nha]

When using the Map, none of the other page keys work. This seems to be a general problem that page keys only work from the main screen, not from other pages. (That maybe why the G key does not work, it is another page key.) This is a minor annoyance.

Esacpe key was not able to close any windows.

I may have an installation problem, I will re-install and see if things improve.

[Avenger]

The hotkeys work only in the main game area, this is known to us.

[Ishad Nha]

Attempts to load the Quick Save cause a total freeze: "[Core]: No game to enter..." is the last line on the GemRB command prompt. Quick Save was correctly saved as far as I can tell. Ditto the other save I made with GemRB. By contrast, saves made with BG2 can be opened by either GoI or BG2.

[lynx]

upload it somewhere, so we can inspect the corruption.

[Ishad Nha]

I zipped up the Quick Save folder. I also included the printout from the GemRB command prompt.

(Edit: these files are no longer needed and have been removed.)

It seems like the GemRB can't find or can't read the save files.

If you are stuck you can always look for the string "No game to enter" in the source code and see when it is generated and why.

Edit:

I did find this in the source code, I don't know what it means:

From the Find in Files function of the Crimson Editor:

---------- Find in Files ----------

> Searching for the string 'No game to enter'...

C:\Program Files\Black Isle\Storage - Infinity Engine\gemrb-0.7.0\gemrb-0.7.0\gemrb\core\Interface.cpp(671,26): printMessage("Core", "No game to enter...\n", LIGHT_RED);

> 1 occurrence(s) have been found.

 

if (QuitFlag&QF_ENTERGAME) {

QuitFlag &= ~QF_ENTERGAME;

if (game) {

EventFlag|=EF_EXPANSION;

timer->Init();

//rearrange party slots

game->ConsolidateParty();

GameControl* gc = StartGameControl();

//switch map to protagonist

Actor* actor = GetFirstSelectedPC(true);

if (actor) {

gc->ChangeMap(actor, true);

}

}

else {

printMessage("Core", "No game to enter...\n", LIGHT_RED);

QuitFlag = QF_QUITGAME;

}

 

}

[lynx]

the save contains two stores of the same name (erginn01.sto) and we abort when trying to uncompress it the second time, since the length is 0. Corrupt save.