4 replies to this topic

[-Hurricane-]

I have recently re-examined the infamous "BG1 Missing Files" problem. As you may know, the German install of BG1 seems to be missing certain sound files after applying the final patch v5512 for TotSC. Since this issue matters if BG1 is played within a BG2 game, I've investigated the way BGT and BWP, respectively, are currently handling this problem. To make a long story short, I am here to basically give the following conclusion: The BWP's understanding of the issue and its attempt to resolve it are majorly flawed. The BWP's handling of the Missing Files must be deprecated. The issue itself should be resolved by BGT alone.

So what's wrong about BWP's current approach to the "BG1 Missing Files"? You will have to understand the difference between the "traditional" take on the issue and my "new" findings. The whole problem is quite confusing. Please read the post I linked to, especially the third paragraph and the table. At first glance, you might conclude that my findings do not differ from previous descriptions of the issue. But they do. Make sure you fully understand what is happening to those German audio files, as I have detailed it. If you then compare this to previous discussions, such as this one and this one and even the most recent install instructions ("Step Five") for BWP, you will recognize the mistakes that have been made. I will try to summarize the most important errors in BWP's current "solution" to the Missing Files issue.

• BWP isn't 100% correct about which specific files are affected
This is the most harmless error. Look at the table from my BGT thread. Now compare that to the files that BWP considers missing and provides in its BG1MissingFiles package. Contrary to BWP, the following sounds are not missing in BG1:
- intro01.wav
- intro02.wav
- intro03.wav
- introadd.wav
It's easy to see where this mistake came from, i.e. why these files were considered missing, even though they are not: Those four files are located in Override after installing TotSC, and get removed from there after the patch, and are on the German TotSC install disc - just like the other missing sounds. However, even after the patch, these four files are still in German inside their BIF (NPCSound.bif), so they are perfectly present and available in BG1.

• BWP believes there are Missing Files in the English version of BG1
In other words, BWP thinks that the same missing sounds issue, which is well-documented for BG1 German, is sometimes equally present in BG1 English. For that case, there's even the English Missing Files package, which provides the same "missing" sounds in English! Contrast this to my problem description in my BGT thread: By design, the same issue cannot be present in any English version of BG1, not in any way, shape or form! The whole point of the issue in the German version of BG1 is that proper German sounds inside the BIFs are replaced by their English counterparts after installing TotSC and the patch! Hence, any English version of BG1, by definition of the issue itself, cannot and does not miss any of those files! There never has been a "missing files issue" in any of the English versions of BG1. Ever.
So, why the hell does BWP think there is? Why did BWP at one point think its solution for BG1 German would have to be adopted for the English installation of BWP as well? This thread is the answer! More precisely, the BG1-CHECK in the setup of BWP is the answer. Look at the initial posting in the thread. Look at how the English MissingFiles package came into existence. The BWP setup checks for those "missing" sounds in BG1 Override, to make sure that German players have them there. What BWP does not understand is that for any version other than the German one, the non-existance of the missing sounds issue also means that there are no sounds in Override! This is meant to be like that! Only BG1 German is different! BWP basically checks specifically for a modified, German Override directory. Obviously, any English version of BG1 would always fail this check. But instead of drawing the right conclusion from the report in that thread and making this check exclusive to the German BWP setup, the outcome of the thread was to infer that there are also sounds "missing" from an English Override! And even better, this has led to the genesis of the English Missing Sounds package, which is to be installed "in case the BG1 Check fails, because that means your (English) install is missing them" - how ridiculous! BWP's BG1-Check has artificially expanded the purely German issue to another language version. I hope you can grasp the absurdity of this situation.
And just to elaborate on this a little further: I have the English and the German version of BG1. I know how different they are. I know that there are no such issues in the English version. No English sound is ever placed in Override, or removed from Override, or missing from the game. They are all located in their appropriate BIFs, all the time. If you now read those old discussion threads I linked to, you will realize just how wrong some of the answers there were. For instance, when Amodeus described how he didn't find the sounds on his English TotSC disc, this is obvious! Only the German TotSC disc has them (in German), and only the German TotSC installation produces the issue to begin with! I could go on indefinitely.

Just to be clear: If you leave BWP aside completely and install BGT manually with an English BG1, there are no problems whatsoever. All English sounds from BG1 are properly installed into the BGT game, because BG1 English is perfectly fine by default, and the BGT setup simply works the way it should - without any checks blocking it.

• The current provision of the missing sounds is shaky
Given the previous point, I'm only concerned with the provision of the German sounds, obviously.
Even if BWP's handling of the Missing Files would somehow be corrected to only apply to the German setup, the whole procedure is still less than perfect. Admittedly, this isn't quite a real error, but I want to make the point anyway. For example, take a look again at the currently popular instructions for successfully installing BWP. If you follow this guide closely, you will mess up the installation of the missing German sounds. Look at "Step Three". All the vital BWP components are to be downloaded, including the German Missing Files package. Then it is said to extract all of those packages to the BWP/BGII-SoA directory (except bg2fixpack), even though the Missing Files go into BG1 Override! This means the BG1-Check will fail even in a German setup. I know this is just an oversight in the posting, which could easily be corrected. However, the broader point here is that the Missing Files component is another source of trouble in the BWP setup, which is already overly complicated for unexperienced users.


Luckily, there is a better way to handle the whole problem. Instead of trying to fix those errors in the BWP setup, the whole Missing Files component should simply be taken out. As I have mentioned in the beginning of this post, the issue should be resolved by BGT. Think about it: Why did BWP provide those German sounds in the first place? Because the setup assumes that the Mega Mod installation will include BGT, and BGT needs those sounds. So why not let BGT take care of it? Consequently, I've already submitted the necessary changes to the BGT setup in my BGT thread (see the first link at the beginning of this post).

If BGT incorporates the changes and someone tries to use the new BGT version with the current BWP setup, there will be no problem. BGT just won't use the files placed by BWP anymore. In the long run however, the Missing Files component of BWP should be discontinued.

Edited by -Hurricane-, 18 March 2012 - 04:16 PM.

[William Imm]

I fixed the guide's oversight. Thanks for pointing that out.

[10th]

If you follow this guide closely, you will mess up the installation of the missing German sounds.

And that's exactly the problem Leonardo described. There was/is NO need for yet another 'how I managed to install BWP'-guide. That's because exactly that problem - where to unpack the missing files to - is mentioned in the first few introductory pages of the BWP.pdf.

What the BWP creates with the missing files package is minimal redundancy, as there will be several pairs of two identical files located in your bif-files. Which doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things if you're looking at installation sizes up to around 30 GB.

What your findings will undoubtedly do, is further reduce the clutter in a BWP installation and the potential for rage-quits from frustrated BWP-beginners.

10th

Edited by 10th, 19 March 2012 - 11:31 AM.

[William Imm]

Well, since there were no real clear guides on how to install BWP - ShadowTek's guide was actually pretty good in that respect, once you correct it (which I am doing). If anything - we don't really need another guide right now.

[-Hurricane-]

Thanks to Ascension64, version 1.15 of BGT has been officially released. The SHS mirror isn't up-to-date just yet, but there's a direct download link in the release thread. I therefore want to remind everyone involved with the maintenance of the BWP or BWS that from now on, when using BGT 1.15 or newer, all the "BG1 Missing Files" packages for German, English and Spanish are obsolete, specifically

this (German) and this (English) and this (Spanish) package.

(For the Spanish version, please note that this has nothing to do with the bif files provided in the separate and independent Sonidos de TotSC en castellano package, which is still necessary for any Spanish installation that includes TotSC, as evidenced in this post and the surrounding discussion in that thread.)

IMPORTANT for the maintainers of BWP: Please adjust the BG1-CHECK if it hasn't already been done: BGT doesn't need nor look for nor import any WAV files from the BG1 override folder anymore! The BWP check that looks for those ERROR, INTRO or TSCNA wave files in BG1 Override is outdated with BGT 1.15 and must be removed from the BWP setup routine.

Edited by -Hurricane-, 11 June 2012 - 10:40 AM.