6 replies to this topic

[asterix404]

Hi everyone. So I had spent many many hours trying to get this all to just magically work with linux when I realized that I had a windows computer. Wine will not use .bat files which is a huge pain if you want to use Big World Install.bat (which I did because it makes life so much easier) . If you have access to a windows computer I highly recommend doing a full install and run the Big World Install.bat with all of your mods. For the widescreen mod, make sure that this is the screen resolution for the computer you are going to play on. For me, I have a very nice 1080p monitor so I did 1920x1080. I also included the beta of SCS for some of the party AI script fixes. I also used the generalized biffing mod because you just have to. The SCS AI slows down the game quite a lot, generalized biffing makes it playable. 

 

Anyway, so once everything worked on the windows computer I copied over the 30GB folder. I dd'ed the ToB disk and loop mounted it so wine could find it. Then I ran wine TobExLoader.exe and it just all magically worked. I had BG2, fully modded, in beautiful 1080p. Actual frame-rate depends on location but ranges because 20 in umar hills to 30 in a single room. TobEx is fully wine compatible. There are some dll's which you need to install to get multiplayer to work but that is about it. I am really impressed. 

 

So I had a mess of pitfalls getting there. Mods are generally not compatible with linux+wine+Weidu.exe. The Weidu for linux died on me a few times and complained that I wasn't running it in the game directory. There are a ton of errors I think accessing a weidu file which causes the mods to crash. This was discovered when I wanted to change something in a mod and 5 other mods had to be uninstalled and re-installed. The mods were installing perfectly under windows but errors caused it to break in linux. 

 

My message to people trying to run BG2 under wine is to build everything under windows, make sure everything is the way you want it to be, and then move everything over. Assume you cannot change anything once you move it to linux but once it is on linux, everything will work. Not even sound is an issue anymore. It plays with a few flaws but nothing major. It runs at or better than on windows. 

 

Oh yea, I also have a 10$ Radion graphics card with 512MB of DDR3 memory. It is cooled by a heat-sink. This is not a high end gaming computer and it will play flawlessly. Most of the time I get 27FPS with a full install of SCS running and generalized biffing. I know that this might not be the most coherent post, I am just jubilant right now. I can make this into a step by step guide if need be. 

[tuxr]

Cool. I didn't try with BG2 but I ran (a modded) NWN on linux at some point, it worked flawlessly.

I don't recommend setting the resolution that high though... 1920x1080 is too big IMAO.

My screen is 1920x1200(16:10), so I'm running the game at 1440x900. You just need to keep the aspect ratio, to get rid of the black bars. On 16:9 monitors I recommend 1280x960 or even smaller. More details here.

I don't like going too large on the resolution because then I have to replace the fonts with something bigger. That messes the gui up a little, as it's not made for big fonts.

Edited by tuxr, 05 November 2013 - 09:16 AM.

[The Imp]

I don't recommend setting the resolution that high though... 1920x1080 is too big IMAO.

My screen is 1920x1200(16:10), so I'm running the game at 1440x900.

Well. also you have to remember that with recommendations of the resolutions, one needs to take in the effects that concern the players eyes, the distance of the display and other such facts... it's individual to each setup. I use the 1920x1200 for example, but that's cause I use that at the windows background level too.

 

Hmm, the "lag" of the various FPS'es, are you using all the #25 fixes said in there ? Yes, and if your base RAM(not the graphic cards) is bigger than 2GB's you also might wish to make it available for the Operation System level... these a .bat application for a Windows(can't find it for the moment) that allows a feature -"large address aware,"- mode, which allows more than 2GB's ram at Windows level for any application.

Yes, I am aware that most of the above fixes are written for the Windows ... but it's better knowing that there are ways to learn to do them that not know their existence. Or some psycho-philosophy cheese like that.

[tuxr]

 but that's cause I use that at the windows background level too.

 

What do you mean by this, the desktop's resolution? 

[The Imp]

 but that's cause I use that at the windows background level too.

What do you mean by this, the desktop's resolution? 

Dah, yeah... ...

[dabus]

The resolution windows uses to display its dektop, which usually would be the native resolution of the monitor.

[tuxr]

Well, yeah, but as long as you keep the aspect ratio it shouldn't be a problem(ie:black bars). Anyway, it's down to personal preference. I tried playing it at my monitor's native resolution(1920x1200) but didn't like it very much. Things were too small on the screen. 1440x900 is what works the best for my playing style in BG2

Edited by tuxr, 05 November 2013 - 11:19 AM.