Worthwhile mods

[Fyorl]

I really went to town with installing mods once I found out there was a Linux version of WeiDU. But now loading games is painfully slow. Also, battles involving mages and spell effects get pretty jerky. Running BG2 on Linux is fairly slow as it is so I would imagine they would run fine normally.

 

Anyway I'm just going to list the mods I have installed and was wondering if anyone had an opinion on the ones I should definitely keep and which ones aren't worth it.

 

- Allison (one-day NPC)

- aPack

- Ascension

- Ashes of Embers

- NPC: Auren Aseph (I wanna keep this one as she's a very cool NPC)

- AzenMod

- Item Upgrade Mod Pack

- NPC: Chloe

- Crusader Kit (can probably remove this as I'm not too big on Kits)

- d0 Tweak Pack

- G3 Anniversary Pack

- Imp Asylum

- Dungeon Be Gone (probably remove this as well as the Tactics mod makes Irenicus' Dungeon way more fun)

- MixMod

- NPC Kit

- Oversight

- Quest Pack (I'd like to keep this one I think)

- Redemption

- RPG Kit Pack (could probably remove some of the kits that I would never play)

- Shuri Ninja kit

- NPC: Solaufein

- Song and Silence (there are some good kits but there are also others I would never play)

- SP Item Pack (I already removed this as I found out it was only compatible with SoA but I'm leaving it here in case anyone thinks I should have it and can find me a ToB version)

- The Sorcerer's Place Collection

- Tactics (I'd like to keep this but I may remove the intelligent mages component as I think this may be why mage battles are going so slow. I think the problem is they have huge AI files to make them smarter but BG2 on Linux does not like large AI scripts as I found out when trying to use eSeries and uSeries)

- NPC: Tashia

- Unfinished Business (also like to keep this)

- Under-represented Items Pack (I'd like to keep this as I gave Auren one of the nice new short-swords)

- NPC: Valen (don't plan on ever having an evil party but she's still pretty cool)

 

Well that's the whole list (alphabetically) as far as I know. If there are you think aren't worthwhile or if certain components of them should be removed then please tell me (ignore my comments as well if you want). Or if you'd like to point out the ones I should definitely keep then please do so.

 

Oh and I guess if there are some other mods you think I should have then tell me although I probably won't install it until I've thinned out my collection a bit.

 

Thanks!

[the bigg]

Could you try to run a small "du override" in your BG2 directory? It is known of the game to slow down if the size of the override reaches several hundreds of megs.

[Fyorl]

148M apparently (with the -h operator, 151140 without)

[the bigg]

Well, that shouldn't be enough to cause slowdowns, anyway. There is also a problem with checking the party inventory if you have lots of items in inventory and/or bags of holding (note: 100 arrows count as 100 items, not 1). Try to check if you're carrying suspicious quantities of items, in inventory or in bags (can't give any figures, sorry). I don't think Wine slowness is to be blamed - BG2 doesn't have big requirements, and heavier games are known to run fine.

[Fyorl]

Well, that shouldn't be enough to cause slowdowns, anyway. There is also a problem with checking the party inventory if you have lots of items in inventory and/or bags of holding (note: 100 arrows count as 100 items, not 1). Try to check if you're carrying suspicious quantities of items, in inventory or in bags (can't give any figures, sorry). I don't think Wine slowness is to be blamed - BG2 doesn't have big requirements, and heavier games are known to run fine.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Nope, no big items but loading times are just as slow when starting new games. And Wine is pretty slow when you don't have 3D Acceleration or Direct Rendering (even if 3D acceleration is optional in BG2) because your silly operating system refuses to work with your correct graphics card driver >_<

[the bigg]

Nope, no big items but loading times are just as slow when starting new games. And Wine is pretty slow when you don't have 3D Acceleration or Direct Rendering (even if 3D acceleration is optional in BG2) because your silly operating system refuses to work with your correct graphics card driver >_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ouch, that hurts I installed Suse on a spare PC I still don't use much, and the 3d card doesn't work under Linux, and I can guess how well it works

Does it run fine without mods? If so, you can try a (rather boring) test: uninstall a mod, run the game, uninstall the next, run the game a bit... to see if you can isolate the problem. Unfortuntately, nothing in the list jumps out at me, sorry.

 

Finally, at times it may happen that at the beginning (usually for a couple of areas) the game can be slower.

[Fyorl]

Nope, no big items but loading times are just as slow when starting new games. And Wine is pretty slow when you don't have 3D Acceleration or Direct Rendering (even if 3D acceleration is optional in BG2) because your silly operating system refuses to work with your correct graphics card driver >_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ouch, that hurts I installed Suse on a spare PC I still don't use much, and the 3d card doesn't work under Linux, and I can guess how well it works

Does it run fine without mods? If so, you can try a (rather boring) test: uninstall a mod, run the game, uninstall the next, run the game a bit... to see if you can isolate the problem. Unfortuntately, nothing in the list jumps out at me, sorry.

 

Finally, at times it may happen that at the beginning (usually for a couple of areas) the game can be slower.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Heh yer but I'm workin on gettin this driver to work but I haven't been bothered recently.

 

Yup the game worked fine without the mods (although if you write a large biography then saving times take a while >_<). I'm not too bothered about the loading times, I can be patient but it's the battles that annoy me. I think it's mages as opposed to spell effects that are causing the slowdown as I summoned a few Improved Undead and they cast some spells but didn't slow the game down.

 

When I've got some time I'll go through uninstalling and re-installing and see if I can find the problem.

 

Another thing I thought I'd mention is that GemRB runs one hell of a lot faster. Either because it hasn't had the whole engine implemented or that it's running natively on my laptop.

[the bigg]

The second one - because it's running native drivers & libraries (Windows executables really run natively on Linux with Wine, however the dlls tend to be slower than the original ones, which is what really causes slowdowns)

[Fyorl]

The second one - because it's running native drivers & libraries (Windows executables really run natively on Linux with Wine, however the dlls tend to be slower than the original ones, which is what really causes slowdowns)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

ah right that would be it then.