15 replies to this topic

[10th]

I haven't heard of anything like that before, but that says nothing;)

Did you search your BG2 directory for this filename? Moreover if Near Infinity runs on a Mac, you could try to find it in the BMP category. If you find the file you could copy it to your override folder, making a backup of an already existing file beforehand.

10th

Edited by 10th, 11 October 2008 - 05:23 AM.

[Hoppy]

Sounds like AR3501LM did not get biffed. See if you can get one from the CtB folders and drop that into override. It is in CtB/Chores/bitmaps That may fix it for that area.

[Jarno Mikkola]

However, the BiG World Fixpack folder does not actually contain a file with the same name as the one to be replaced. Instead, it contains the following: <filename.patch>. Am I missing something? Does this affect mac users only? Am I the only one who finds this confusing? If so, please excuse my ignorance.

In a way yes, as the Big World Fixpack just patches the files in question with a .bat patcher, which repairs certain files so they work when used 'normally' with the rest of the mods.

[Avatar1138]

O.K., now I'm getting serious, I actually registered!

Jarno, as always, thanks for your answers! I am, however, still a little confused. Does this mean that if I do not use the .bat patcher (which, seeing that I'm doing this on a Mac is probably the case), then I basically won't be fixing the laundry list of files the Big World Guide instructs me to fix? Isn't this bad? Like very, very, your game will crash and burn in hell bad?

Forgive my over simplistic thinking, but if all these files need fixing, couldn't the Big World Fixpack simply include new, fixed versions of the files, so that you actually could "Replace the file named <filename> with the file of the same name included in the Big World Fixpack folder" and avoid the whole .bat patching process altogether?

Steve over at Macinfinity was kind (and patient) enough to give me the unix commands necessary to manually execute the patch command for each required patch file. However, considering the vast amount files that apparently require patching in the Big World installation, doing this manually for each file would be a tremendous pain in the $#!@. I would really like to include TDD, SoS & CtB in my mega-install, but the number of files that require patching in these three mods appears to make a manual install extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Sorry for requesting so much clarification, but I am trying to get as much information on the nuts and bolts of the process as possible before I waste another 6 hours on my next install attempt.

Thanks again for your time and patients with a modding noob.

Edited by Avatar1138, 24 October 2008 - 09:05 PM.

[Leomar]

Sorry, for the misunderstandings. It is our mistake. We have released our new Fixpack before BWP v6 came out. That's why the BW Fixpack has the number v6.01. That means, that all the listed fixes in the guide, you can't do manually anymore, without the pain, you described. Really Sorry.

In the next BWP version all fixes are removed from our guide. The new Fixpack must be started with the "BiG World Fixpack.bat". The order to use our tool is as follows:

- Download all the mods you want to include in your megamod.
- Extract all your mods in your BG2 main directory.
- Then use the "BiG World Fixpack.bat". This tool fixes all your extracted mods.
- After that you can start the Install.bat or install your mods manually.

Greetings Leomar

[Jarno Mikkola]

In the next BWP version all fixes are removed from our guide. The new Fixpack must be started with the "BiG World Fixpack.bat". The order to use our tool is as follows:

But what if you can't use the .bat's as when using Mac, not Windows as OS... Yes, we need a .bat->.command converter utility.

[Taimon]

Isn't wine capable of handling batch files?

[Avatar1138]

Leomar, you have nothing to apologize for. You and your band of merry Modders have created a wonderful tool for getting the most out of BG & the infinity engine. Its simply an unfortunate fact (for us Mac users) that your latest advancement in automating the process, which will be of great use to the vast majority of BG gamers, is not Mac compatible. I can live with that.

Unfortunately, Taimon, I have no idea what wine is (other than I prefer red over white). And although Jarno's suggestion of creating a Bat converter would be nice, I certainly don't expect the Big World community to waste precious programming time creating a work around for the small, non-programming, mac using minority. Would it not be simpler to post the older, not patch requiring versions of the fixed files, so that those of us who cannot used the .bat process can still manually update the files and take advantage of your hard work and efforts?

If this is not possible, can someone provide an explanation of the consequences of not replacing "the faulty files Animate.ids and ANISND.IDS" for TDD, SoS & CtB? I've progressed to the point in my second BG2 only install where I am ready to install the big BG2 mods. I don't want to proceed until I find out if the game will be playable without replacing the faulty files.

Thanks again for your guidance and support. It is greatly appreciated.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Unfortunately, Taimon, I have no idea what wine is ...

See, Taimon is talking about the Wine, Linux program that let's the user use Windows programs, but it has nothing to do with OSX Macintosh'es... Unless you have installed Linux on your Mac just to run a Windows programs.
PS: it won't work...

[Taimon]

Wine is a windows emulator which allows you to run windows applications on different platforms.
I think it already has been ported to the MacOS X platform (both ppc and x86).
You probably have to run "wineconsole cmd" to get a batch interpreter.
Maybe there is already a wine-package for your operating system, I don't know. You could ask some of the other mac users here.

But if you are not familiar with these things, you are better off patching the files manually.

[Leomar]

The required patches are inserted only on your computer. BWP offers no modified mods in order to not infringe
any copyrights, but only the instructions how to install the mod as well as complete solution proposals (the
patches and the batch files).

This is the recent situation. Additional you get more informations about the newest BW Fixpack and why we changed to patch the mods instead of replacing files of them, here (you need to read the first post only):
http://www.shsforums...showtopic=35450

Sorry, that we have not a running Macintosh Fixpack at the moment. I think if you need some fixes, you can ask for them and someone can run the newest Fixpack with the mods on Windows to patch the needed files and upload it for you. But you can imagine, if you want much files, that this is timeconsuming for the others. With our new patching procedure, we don't want to support a second Fixpack with replacing files only, because it is to much work for us. I hope you can understand that. And hold in mind, that each existing patch can change with a new Fixpack release.

A better solution for the future is, that we get our tools running on macintosh, but we are don't working on this at the moment and I don't know if someone has the experience and time to do that.

I hope someone can upload the patched animate.ids and ANISND.IDS of TDD, SoS and CtB for you.

Greetings Leomar

Edited by Leomar, 25 October 2008 - 05:40 PM.

[Avatar1138]

Leomar, absolutely no need for apologies. In fact, if it wasn't for the efforts of yourself and a few other dedicated modders and programmers, I would not even be able to attempt this. And as I said, I certainly do not think that developing a separate fixpack for the 5 or so Mac users who are attempting a mega-install is a good use of time or resources. The fact that you, Jarno, and the rest of the mega-mod community take the time to respond to my noobie questions is really more than I could ask for. Cheers!

I also understand your move to an automated install system for the fixpack, and have no problems attempting to manually patching the files myself. For the Animate.ids.patch, I used the following process: I opened the patch file with textwrangler. Upon examination, it appeared that the only change the Animate.ids.patch file is making is replacing the line

"0XE0C0 IC_SNOW_TROLL" with
"0xE0C0 IC_SNOW_TROLL"

I then opened the original Animate.ids file (in the Rule folder of TDD) and changed "0XE0C0" to "0xE0C0". My 1st question is, wil this work? Specifically, with this manual change do the same thing that the patch file would have done?

2nd, is there a tech file somewhere that explains what changes the patch files make and whether they are game critical (i.e, failure to patch the file will result in a CTD) verses other types of fixes that are not absolutely required to make the game playable? As an example, if my manual patch of the Animate.ids file does not work, would this make the game unplayable?

What I would like to do is compile a list of patches that are absolutely required to make the mega-install work, and focus on manually patching those files (assuming my manual patch method actually works!)

Again, you time and help is appreciated!

[Leomar]

Thanks for your understandings.

"0XE0C0 IC_SNOW_TROLL" with
"0xE0C0 IC_SNOW_TROLL"
Specifically, with this manual change do the same thing that the patch file would have done?

That is exactly what a patch from the fixpack does. We have no tech file, but if you study our Fixpack you see, which files were patched and which will be copied (there are some). Normally it is not to hard to understand the procedure. Additional has the Fixpack folder a read me, where the fixes are listed. If you want to do it manually and follow the patch entries carefully, no CTDs should happen.

Greetings Leomar

Edited by Leomar, 27 October 2008 - 03:01 AM.