9 replies to this topic

[Circe]

If you follow the mega mod installation you can read about making a biffing routine.
How exactly is this being done?
Should I do it after every single new mod has been installed or just when the mega mod install guide says so?

[radish_hoedown]

after big mods, and big collections of small mods. and you do it via batch files, as far as i know. its quite complicated, so get erebusants templates and CAREFULLY change them to your needs.

edit: PS, if you are planning on installing mods later, which edit files from ones you installed earlier (if that makes sense.. eg DSotSC and NTotSC) then DO NOT, biff inbetween, else the respective installers will not find the required files. good luck.

Edited by radish_hoedown, 14 June 2006 - 12:57 PM.

[CamDawg]

You may want to, you know, make sure you need to biff your files first. It would be prudent before you do something that may cause you to completely reinstall everything.

[radish_hoedown]

Cam, the Mega mod installation guide almost CERTAINLY requires biffing, else the slowdown would be fantastic. well, maybe my pc just sucks, but it was on mine without biffing. *shrug*

[Azazello]

Cam, the Mega mod installation guide almost CERTAINLY requires biffing, else the slowdown would be fantastic. well, maybe my pc just sucks, but it was on mine without biffing. *shrug*

I'm running on a laptop and biffing gave no performance gain (that I could perceive). Last year I ran the old monster with NO biffing, on the same laptop, and definitely had no performance hit. As you wrote, YMMV.

Biffing is a contentious issue, with experienced gamers/modders almost evenly divided between do it/don't do it. Therefore it's hit-(and/or)-miss on whether it should be done or not.

I take a simplistic approach: if a particular mod incorporates biffing (e.g. DSotSC-NTotSC), I biff; if it doesn't, I don't.

For the record, I no longer biff at the end of the MegaInstall, despite erebusant's excellent instruction guides advising us to do so. Again, YMMV.

Personally, I think that you should not biff until your build is as perfect as you can get it - i.e. if you do not plan on doing even one reinstallation of even one mod. If I do have to reinstall, I would start from a totally fresh BG2 install (using the quick method). Safer - but longer - that way.

[Rubberduck]

Cam, the Mega mod installation guide almost CERTAINLY requires biffing, else the slowdown would be fantastic. well, maybe my pc just sucks, but it was on mine without biffing. *shrug*

I'm running on a laptop and biffing gave no performance gain (that I could perceive). Last year I ran the old monster with NO biffing, on the same laptop, and definitely had no performance hit. As you wrote, YMMV.

Biffing is a contentious issue, with experienced gamers/modders almost evenly divided between do it/don't do it. Therefore it's hit-(and/or)-miss on whether it should be done or not.

I take a simplistic approach: if a particular mod incorporates biffing (e.g. DSotSC-NTotSC), I biff; if it doesn't, I don't.

For the record, I no longer biff at the end of the MegaInstall, despite erebusant's excellent instruction guides advising us to do so. Again, YMMV.

Personally, I think that you should not biff until your build is as perfect as you can get it - i.e. if you do not plan on doing even one reinstallation of even one mod. If I do have to reinstall, I would start from a totally fresh BG2 install (using the quick method). Safer - but longer - that way.

Help So for god's sake do i need to do any biffing now or not? Maybe it's my fault cause i am really a noob regarding this .tp2 and biffing stuff or i simply got something wrong but until now i always thought that biffing is a must cause otherwise the override folder gets far too big in size and the game could crash. Now i think that biffing is only helpful in case you have a somewhat slow machine. Believe me guys, but my machine is far from slow
So i can cancel biffing on my to-do list for the upcoming mega-install festival
Please,please,please

[Azazello]

RD, from reading your posts in other thread, keep it simple. You already got your game running, yes? So just play, have fun!

Don't remove biffing from your "to-do list" - but try this if ever you have to reinstall...

...just biff DSotSC-NTotSC and then Bonehill - as erebusant's guides advise - but don't biff anything after that. Play the game for a while, see if you notice any performance reduction (Don't confuse this with the "stutter bug" problem - that's a separate issue). If you have a really good computer, you may not experience any troubles, even with massive override folder.

If your game seems sluggish, you can always biff the rest of your game later. But do remember that if you have to reinstall a mod, or correct some problem with a previously installed mod, you may have to do a total refresh install - just to be safe. A consequence of biffing, but oh well... As I see from your other posts, you're already very comfortable with reinstalling, so no worries there.

[seanas]

I take a simplistic approach: if a particular mod incorporates biffing (e.g. DSotSC-NTotSC), I biff; if it doesn't, I don't.

i'm with Azazello entirely here: dont biff unless the mod does it automatically for you (or provides a .bat file for you to run).

biffing is a solution to a specific problem: game lag/ stutter caused by over-full override folder. biffing isnt a solution without a cost, however: it makes it exceedingly difficult to uninstall mods you've biffed, and it's not especially hard to break yr game during the biffing process, either.

so don't go biffing on yr own unless you've got game lag/ stutter and you know for sure it's caused by an enormous override folder (ie, you know it's not caused by buggy NPC dialogues, over-stuffed bags of holding or scripting errors - and all three of these are more common than override folder problems).

[erebusant]

I take a simplistic approach: if a particular mod incorporates biffing (e.g. DSotSC-NTotSC), I biff; if it doesn't, I don't.

i'm with Azazello entirely here: dont biff unless the mod does it automatically for you (or provides a .bat file for you to run).

biffing is a solution to a specific problem: game lag/ stutter caused by over-full override folder. biffing isnt a solution without a cost, however: it makes it exceedingly difficult to uninstall mods you've biffed, and it's not especially hard to break yr game during the biffing process, either.

so don't go biffing on yr own unless you've got game lag/ stutter and you know for sure it's caused by an enormous override folder (ie, you know it's not caused by buggy NPC dialogues, over-stuffed bags of holding or scripting errors - and all three of these are more common than override folder problems).

Agreed! I just upgraded my computer with a few components that brought me from the stone age to current, and that in itself made a remarkable difference in game performance!! It's amazing the difference between 1X and 8X AGP when you can actually use hardware acceleration!

A note about biffing and having to re-install. If you have the hard drive space, it is prudent to save your override directory, your chitin.key, your dialog.tlk, and your WeiDU.log files in a seperate backup directory, at discreet points during your installation. If you find you have to backtrack in your install, I have had good success with deleting the override directory, the dialog.tlk, the chitin.key, WeiDU.log, plus any .bifs in your data directory that are created after the restore point you are going back to, and any of the debug files from the smaller mods. Then you restore your override, chitin.key, dialog.tlk and WeiDU.log to the point you want to start re-installing, and go.

[Rubberduck]

I take a simplistic approach: if a particular mod incorporates biffing (e.g. DSotSC-NTotSC), I biff; if it doesn't, I don't.

i'm with Azazello entirely here: dont biff unless the mod does it automatically for you (or provides a .bat file for you to run).

biffing is a solution to a specific problem: game lag/ stutter caused by over-full override folder. biffing isnt a solution without a cost, however: it makes it exceedingly difficult to uninstall mods you've biffed, and it's not especially hard to break yr game during the biffing process, either.

so don't go biffing on yr own unless you've got game lag/ stutter and you know for sure it's caused by an enormous override folder (ie, you know it's not caused by buggy NPC dialogues, over-stuffed bags of holding or scripting errors - and all three of these are more common than override folder problems).

Agreed! I just upgraded my computer with a few components that brought me from the stone age to current, and that in itself made a remarkable difference in game performance!! It's amazing the difference between 1X and 8X AGP when you can actually use hardware acceleration!

A note about biffing and having to re-install. If you have the hard drive space, it is prudent to save your override directory, your chitin.key, your dialog.tlk, and your WeiDU.log files in a seperate backup directory, at discreet points during your installation. If you find you have to backtrack in your install, I have had good success with deleting the override directory, the dialog.tlk, the chitin.key, WeiDU.log, plus any .bifs in your data directory that are created after the restore point you are going back to, and any of the debug files from the smaller mods. Then you restore your override, chitin.key, dialog.tlk and WeiDU.log to the point you want to start re-installing, and go.

@all: that's why i love this forum (i really do). you'll always get an answer to your questions
Besides you don't know me. I'm known for my rather difficult way of solving problems. That's at least what my wife says
Just to finish this i am very curious about getting the best out of this game (the best i've ever played so far) so keep on tracking down every part and aspect of the game i can find. Including modding, walkthroughs and items. This was just another thing i found that i couldn't deal with cause i never understood for what purpose i should do this editing and biffing. But i'll do as you advise: keep it cool, relax, get a (german) beer and let my machine do the rest B)