52 replies to this topic

[Miloch]

Well I may not know anything about modding itself, but I do know the backup rule very well lol. Otherwise I would still be installing modded games instead of actually playing. I'll try it, thanks Himself

Ehm... there are other reasons you wouldn't want to delete baldur.bcs or overwrite it with a blank one. You actually need the file for various things in the game. You just don't need all the rubbish that every mod and its uncle seems to like to stuff in that file. So blanking it out is a bit heavy-handed of a solution. Unquestionably your game will run quicker if you do it, but that's like saying it'll run quicker if you uninstall the Big World Project and delete all your saved games.

About patching... I'm not if that's wise thing to do after the installation of The Big Picture. The order of doing things seems pretty straight and I have that golden saga edition. In many places it was said not to patch BG1 with that one.

You mean the Original Saga? Like I said, this has nothing to do with patching BG1 since you're using the BG2 engine (and the patch is for that). If it doesn't work or affects things adversely, you can always restore your backed up BGMain.exe. Very few mods in the Big World Project should be patching that (basically the ones I mentioned).

[Arlaya]

I edited my previous post but I'll repeat it here so it's not missed - the file baldur.bcs was not present in override at all, after creating a blank one and putting it there the lags were gone for good and no weird things or crashes occurred Great thanks for the help!

I have but one more question - is it normal that experience tables in BG2 are same as in BG1? I mean for learning spells, disarming traps and opening locks? Not to mention some mod (I've done the automatic install, weidu.log says it's called XPMOD) made all my experience lower by half xP It's pain in the ass tbh, but I'm not sure if it would be wise to mess with the installation if I wanted to remove this one... The component to restore BG2 XP for locks and stuff seems to be installed, just not working, but if I had that 50% reducer gone I would be all happy. I'm not THAT great player to deal with it and not get irritated

Edited by Arlaya, 16 June 2008 - 12:11 PM.

[Altomar]

I have but one more question - is it normal that experience tables in BG2 are same as in BG1? I mean for learning spells, disarming traps and opening locks? Not to mention some mod (I've done the automatic install, weidu.log says it's called XPMOD) made all my experience lower by half xP It's pain in the ass tbh, but I'm not sure if it would be wise to mess with the installation if I wanted to remove this one... The component to restore BG2 XP for locks and stuff seems to be installed, just not working, but if I had that 50% reducer gone I would be all happy. I'm not THAT great player to deal with it and not get irritated

if you want to restore the XP bonus for traps, locks, and scrolls and you have already installed BGTTweaks then you can go to BGTTweak\19 folder and copy/paste xpbonus.2da to your override folder.

[Azazello]

I edited my previous post but I'll repeat it here so it's not missed - the file baldur.bcs was not present in override at all, after creating a blank one and putting it there the lags were gone for good and no weird things or crashes occurred Great thanks for the help!

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Having a blank baldur.bcs is useless. There is far more code in there that you need, than not. It is as Miloch related to, you have found the cure for the Flu -- by cutting off your head.

The reason your don't have a baldur.bcs in your override is because some mod or script biffed it. Don't know what biffing is? The Search function is your friend. (Another piece of advice: don't waste your time researching biffing--it's not that important right now.)

This is why I said you should not follow that advice.

Luckily, you can "save" your game by simply removing that file from override.

What all of this drama does is point to some potential annoyance code in baldur.bcs. If someone really wants to solve your problem, they would teach you how to extract baldur.bcs, ask you to attach it to a post, the person would then edit it to remove as much unnecessary code as possible, then tell you to put that edited file into the override.

I will not be that person.

[Hoppy]

Yes since your game is biffed (by the BWP END_BIFF tool), the baldur.bcs is not in the override which saves the game from lagging in the first place.

Editing anything should be the last thing and try reducing bags of holding, ammunition amounts or even changing NPC's. Who is in the party? Any romances going on? Where are you in the game (not just area but Chapter number)? All of this helps much more than shifting files, and like Azazello said, will hose much more of your game and leave you stumped later on.

Edited by Hoppy, 16 June 2008 - 01:24 PM.

[Arlaya]

Well if that meant cutting off my head that worked really fine if you ask me. No cough, no sneeze and perfect life.

The party is as follow - Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Viconia, Edwin and main character. Truth is that I have many bags of sorts, but even when characters with them were removed from party and map it didn't help. No romances active. It was chapter 3 or 4 when the lags began and they continue.

Well about that biffing - I know as much as was in that enormous readme for Big World. I said already - I am no specialist, before I only modded BG2 and BG1 alone and for that you have to need only what WeiDU is. So I have no idea why adding this blank file worked, but it really did with no side effects seen.

[Hoppy]

The blank BCS cuts a lot of adding NPC's, item checks, Global checks for quests and such, so it would create a lot of headaches later as you complete stuff. I think the best way to get rid of the bags is remove them (not just from the person or sitting on the ground in the area) or sell the stuff so that it is removed from the players. Also stashing it in some chests helps (where is that stronghold in BG1? A pub will do ).

Another thing you can try for is particular items that you may have equipped that could be brought in by a mod. Usually for me they just affect the person using or wearing it.

[Miloch]

So I have no idea why adding this blank file worked, but it really did with no side effects seen.

You didn't just add a blank file - you deleted a big huge one. It is as Azazello and Hoppy said - your baldur.bcs got biffed, which means it was still there, just not in your override folder. Adding a blank baldur.bcs to the override is the equivalent of deleting it.

I have no doubt this will break your game at some future point. At the very least, you're going to miss out on a lot of mod-added quests and content and a lot of vanilla quests in the unmodded game too. Kind of defeats the purpose of installing all those mods in the first place, and does so in a very haphazard way. They still have content present, but the global script is a blank slate now. If you insist on going down this road, at the very least, restore the baldur.bcs from the unmodded game. I'm attaching that here. Decompiled, it's 1326 lines of code, to give you some idea of what you're missing (plus however many thousands of lines of code your megamod install added to it).

 baldur.rar   3.73K   194 downloads

[Jarno Mikkola]

But still, most of this all hallohoya could have been avoided if you Arlaya could have just opened your weiDU.log with any text editor and copy/parsed the info in it to the first post on the thread, even though you gain 170+ lines, it's far less than you have to produce by randomly guessing and...

[Himself]

6 - exit the game, regardless of the results, delete the empty baldur.bcs in the override folder

(note to self.. bold this part next time)



Most of the game resources stay (or should, at least) out of the override, an extense override folder can cause slow access to game files. The main BG2 directory has a file called CHITIN.key, this is like an index that tells the game where to look for every resource when needed.

To make things short, every file that is in the override will take precedence over the CHITIN.key index; when a file is in the override, the game will ignore directions for that file pointed by the CHITIN.key, deleting a file from the override will again cause CHITIN.key to index it.

More about this if you understand how biffing works, as Azazello said the forum search function is your friend.

You probably can't end or play the game for long using an empty baldur.bcs, delete the one in your override folder and let chitin.key point to the correct one, even if it is lagging your game. Also return to a saved game before you ever played with an empty baldur.bcs to avoid any problem

For further help you can do the following, it will be a little harder than what you did up to now:

Download, install and open Near Infinity: (not as hard as it may appear)

http://www.idi.ntnu....i/download.html

There will be an index of game files, inside the BCS part, locate the baldur.bcs and save it (botton right option), the file will be saved inside your override folder.

Attach your baldur.bcs in your next message. I'll try to take a look at it but this file is complicated so no promisses, also I'm not very familiar with the BG1 code, probably Miloch or some other helpful person (or just curious) will also look at your bcs and try to help you

Edited by Himself, 16 June 2008 - 11:07 PM.

[Arlaya]

No need to bold, I saw it the last time but since it worked so nicely and I had no idea really what that file does and that it really is needed full, I left it where it was to see if some weird things will happen ;P Actually I just killed Sarevok to see how it worked with the whole transferring to BG2 (it did, that's why I noticed the experience problems in BG2 after all). I guess it's a good thing I didn't do much of side quests to repeat from the last save without empty bcs. Guess that's a price for being stubborn and willing to test everything by myself. Yay for old saves folder.

I also tried removing this Ding0's experience mod to make it back 100%, but by uninstall application it made all BG1, BG2 and ToB lag terribly so it's out of question. The locks and traps experience is working like it should in BG2 when that 2da file is copied. I know now how to NOT install this component with auto-install, but not how to get rid of it though... (search function tells me nothing of use, so does manual for The Big World. Or I can't look properly, also an option).

The full BCS attached.

Anyone needs this WeiDU log? I can post it, sure, but don't want to trash the page if that's unnecessary in this issue.

Attached Files

•  BALDUR.BCS   1002.13K   405 downloads

Edited by Arlaya, 17 June 2008 - 02:21 AM.

[Himself]

TakeItemReplace("NPSW04","LI%NPSW04A","Valygar")

LI%NPSW04A anybody has this thing ? I don't think the game accepts longer than 8 characters stuff.

The correct resource is probably NPSW04A (I'm taking out all of these LI%, there are some)

[Himself]

Okay girl... there are good news and bad news

Bad news is that I'm at work and can't use weidu here, so you would have to wait much later until I get home, or maybe tomorrow

But since you've been around the thread like a hawk searching for its prey

Good news is that you're going to learn a bit more (at this rate you will release your own mod soon eh?)

Open your baldur.bcs at Near Infinity, notice the options Compile and Find, these are in the same row of the Save option.

Press Compile, it should take you here:

TakeItemReplace("NPSW04","LI%NPSW04A","Valygar")

Remove the LI%

Keep pressing Compile and every time it leads you to a line that refers to something ITEM related remove the LI% (if LI% is in a line with Global or something else that has no item in it, don't touch LI%)

After a while your script should Compile without pointing any errors, then save it.

Next go to the option Find, and select "in this script only"

Put this in the box: !InParty("Kiyone")

And search, it should point you to this part:

IF
!InParty("Kiyone")
OR(6)
  PartyHasItem("KiyoArm3")
  PartyHasItem("KiyoArm2")
  PartyHasItem("KiyoArm1")
  PartyHasItem("KiyoBow3")
  PartyHasItem("KiyoBow2")
  PartyHasItem("KiyoBow1")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoArm3")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoArm2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoArm1")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoBow3")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoBow2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoBow1")
END

IF
!InParty("Kova")
OR(6)
  PartyHasItem("KovaArm5")
  PartyHasItem("KovaArm2")
  PartyHasItem("KovaArm1")
  PartyHasItem("KovaDag3")
  PartyHasItem("KovaDag2")
  PartyHasItem("KovaDag5")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaArm5")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaArm2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaArm1")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaDag3")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaDag2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaDag5")
END

IF
OR(3)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KovaDag3",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KovaDag2",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KovaDag5",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaDag3")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaDag2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaDag5")
END

IF
OR(3)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KovaArm5",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KovaArm2",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KovaArm1",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaArm5")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaArm2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KovaArm1")
END

IF
OR(3)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KiyoArm3",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KiyoArm2",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KiyoArm1",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoArm3")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoArm2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoArm1")
END

IF
OR(3)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KiyoBow3",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KiyoBow2",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KiyoBow1",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoBow3")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoBow2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KiyoBow1")
END

IF
OR(2)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KyRing2",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KyRing1",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KyRing2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KyRing1")
END

IF
OR(2)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KvRing2",1)
  NumItemsPartyGT("KvRing1",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KvRing2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KvRing1")
END

IF
!InParty("Kova")
OR(2)
  PartyHasItem("KvRing2")
  PartyHasItem("KvRing1")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KvRing2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KvRing1")
END

IF
!InParty("Kiyone")
OR(2)
  PartyHasItem("KyRing2")
  PartyHasItem("KyRing1")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  TakePartyItemAll("KyRing2")
  TakePartyItemAll("KyRing1")
END

I'm not a modder or coder, but whoever did this deserves a serious beating!

Delete all of this, probably responsible for most of your lag.

Compile and Save.

Then Find the part that reads like this:

IF
GlobalTimerExpired("CauseDarkness","GLOBAL")
Global("DarkestDay_DarkTimer","GLOBAL",1)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  Weather(RAIN)
  SetGlobalTimer("CauseDarkness","GLOBAL",600)
  SetGlobal("DarkestDay_DarkTimer","GLOBAL",0)
RESPONSE #100
  Weather(SNOW)
  SetGlobalTimer("CauseDarkness","GLOBAL",600)
  SetGlobal("DarkestDay_DarkTimer","GLOBAL",0)
END

Do not delete this part, but start deleting everything that is UNDER this part (its a huge amount of things), until you reach this:

IF
Delay(400)
CombatCounter(0)
OR(6)
  HasItemEquipedReal("SoulArm3",Player1)
  HasItemEquipedReal("SoulArm3",Player2)
  HasItemEquipedReal("SoulArm3",Player3)
  HasItemEquipedReal("SoulArm3",Player4)
  HasItemEquipedReal("SoulArm3",Player5)
  HasItemEquipedReal("SoulArm3",Player6)
THEN
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110983) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110984) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110985) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110986) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110987) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110988) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110989) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110990) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110991) // No such index
RESPONSE #10
  DisplayStringHeadOwner("SoulArm3",110992) // No such index
END

The above is the last part you should delete.

Compile and save.

Run your game and see how it goes

That should solve most of your lags, there IS still a ton of things that could be deleted or improved in your baldur.bcs, but lets do that only in last case ok.

Maybe you do something wrong in the process that can screw up you baldur.bcs, then remember that you have a copy of you baldur.bcs attached to your own message above that you can use to start again

If this works.. you own me a dinner

Edited by Himself, 17 June 2008 - 07:46 AM.

[Arlaya]

Did as you told me, but it still has 28 errors in those item parts, even without LI%'s (in the same records where LI%'s were and are gone as well) and lags are present, maybe this can cause it. No idea. (Yet. Yet. I'm learning and trying to understand it... slowly)

I'm hawking over here because right now I'm curious of solution(s) more than disturbed by those lags and terribly impatient when I wanna know something

And btw, I really am a huge n00b at this stuff, but I see buttons fine, I'm not a blonde from jokes You need not to worry I'll have a problem with such things x) And with forgetting about the backups in my own posts either x)

(I removed the rest you told to remove too).

[Himself]

and lags are present

Damn..

If you wanna read some useful stuff:

http://iesdp.gibberlings3.net/main.htm

Always read the BG2: ToB sections, there you'll see listed under scripting the Actions, Identifiers and Triggers

Actions are what you see under the RESPONSE part at scripts, Triggers are what you see under the IF, and Identifiers (blabla.IDS files) are use to tell things appart, for example (O:Object)

I'm going to PM you later (or tomorrow) so check for private messages (top right corner of the forum, under statistics, shows when you have got a message )

Will watch the game now, Italy just scored!

[Hoppy]

Now you have the full baldur.bcs in your override which isn't going to get rid of any slowdowns, it will add to it, otherwise it would not be biffed.

[Arlaya]

No worries, I've got a full backup and I screwed up another thing on my own so I recopied all biffed stuff. I need to get rid of cutscene from one mod to check something else and it IS possible but I have no idea how. Someone on the forums mentioned it in the Region of Terror discussion, but no one replied to him.... duh Modded games are evil.

Edited by Arlaya, 17 June 2008 - 02:13 PM.

[Himself]

I'm finally at home.. but going to sleep


Its strange that you can't successfully compile you baldur.bcs without errors even after removing those LI%, one of the bad things of Near Infinity is that unless you can compile your script without errors all of the other changes you do to it will be meaningless (it'll screw up when you save your file).

You can delete the baldur bcs at your override any time, it will cause the biffed one to take its place, not that this will help you

Anyway sent a PM

[Miloch]

Of course, you may not actually need the baldur.bcs in the BG1 portion of the game (since BG1 didn't have a baldur.bcs) unless BG1-portion megamods add to it (and they probably do).

Can you note here what the errors are when you try to compile the script? It could be something stupid, like the proper specific.ids entries not being present, which is what I just found on my own test BWP install. If so, you should copy and paste the contents of that file too.

LI% could've been a variable typo (%LI% might've substituted for something at some point, but who knows).

[Arlaya]

Those errors were in parts responsible for Valygar's swords imporvements as he levels up. I don't need them at all, I never play with him or his weapon anyway

Thanks to Himself I understand the bcs's file building now. Gonna try and clean it up and see about the lags.

Okay, the conclusion (if anyone had the same problem) - for me it was a matter of baldur.bcs file length. Nothing helped, but reducind it's size from around 1000 to around 600 Kb. Now it works fine and has still vital functions for mods inside

Edited by Arlaya, 21 June 2008 - 05:18 AM.