Baldurs Gate:EE And GemRB

[Sigurd]

Hello, I have recently purchased Baldurs Gate 1 from gog.com and am currently experiencing the awesome feeling of playing a very good RPG on the Pandora. I have had no problems running it trough gemRB 7.0.1 and everything is fine and dandy. However i was wondering, since Baldurs Gate enhanced edition is comming out soon, what is the theoretical outlook for running the enhanced edition on the Pandora?. It seems that from GemRB's forums that they it will require very little effort on their part in order to support the enhanced edition, what i am worried about tho is the ability to run this game trough GemRB on the Pandora? does anyone have any experience with this that they can use to speculate on this matter?

 

[NearTao]

It depends if they are using the same data files under the hood or not. Until it is released I doubt anybody will know.

 

[anntao]

I've had Gemrb with BG1 for a while and everything runs fine but the combat seem really slow... It's not a hardware thing, like it doesn't lag or anything, it's just it feels like there's not a lot going on when I attack... My warrior will move his sword every 20 seconds or so. Have you noticed that as well? It might be normal, I've never played it back in the days.


Planetscape Torment is awesome though!

 

[Sigurd]

It depends if they are using the same data files under the hood or not. Until it is released I doubt anybody will know.

This is what haves me worried a bit:


"Rebuilt Renderer.


The renderer was also cleaned up, and ported entirely to OpenGL for better performance. The graphics are now 100% hardware accelerated."


from http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/2041/bgee-please-read-list-of-things-that-have-been-announced

I've had Gemrb with BG1 for a while and everything runs fine but the combat seem really slow... It's not a hardware thing, like it doesn't lag or anything, it's just it feels like there's not a lot going on when I attack... My warrior will move his sword every 20 seconds or so. Have you noticed that as well? It might be normal, I've never played it back in the days.


Planetscape Torment is awesome though!

I'm fairly sure that's normal, the game is turn based so my theory is that your character is simply "waiting it's turn" however I haven't played it for that long either

 

[bismuthdrummer]

I'd be surprised if the data files went through any kind of overhaul. They're spending time upgrading, fixing bugs, enabling modifications, networking, yadda yadda... I doubt they'll substantially change the datafile formats/structure, and I really doubt that any changes they make would be complete dealbreakers for GemRB (not able to reverse engineer or work around). Even in the event that there was a breaking change, I would think the devs would offer some support or advice to the modding/hacking/tinkering fanbase that made the concept of a rebooted BG even possible by keeping the fire going long after the market for it died out.


But, they're modifying code, so there's always something... the same question arose about the Weidu modding system. And as NearTao and others have said, we'll just have to wait and see.


EDIT: I am aware that in my link they did change the underlying file format from wav to ogg, but I don't regard this kind of a change as substantial since it is merely an encoding change for which, mere weeks after the announcement, the GemRB team added ogg/vorbis support in their official file editor (see the v7.4g release notes).

 

[Sigurd]

I'd be surprised if the data files went through any kind of overhaul. They're spending time upgrading, fixing bugs, enabling modifications, networking, yadda yadda... I doubt they'll substantially change the datafile formats/structure, and I really doubt that any changes they make would be complete dealbreakers for GemRB (not able to reverse engineer or work around). Even in the event that there was a breaking change, I would think the devs would offer some support or advice to the modding/hacking/tinkering fanbase that made the concept of a rebooted BG even possible by keeping the fire going long after the market for it died out.


But, they're modifying code, so there's always something... the same question arose about the Weidu modding system. And as NearTao and others have said, we'll just have to wait and see.

According to what i can find, the maintainers of GemRB does not feel that the changes are going to impact the their compatebility of the enchanced game. The thing i am primarily worried about is GemRB + BG:EE + Pandora = ??

 

[bismuthdrummer]

Runescape Classic is a game that should be talked about more. The game is a lot of fun and has huge potential.

 

[fusion_power]

AFAIK they reworked the graphics to be more HD like, so it could be complicated to make this run onto the Pandora.

 

[bismuthdrummer]

AFAIK they reworked the graphics to be more HD like, so it could be complicated to make this run onto the Pandora.

Could you clarify? The only graphic improvements I am aware of with regard to HD would be widescreen support (UI changes) and things like bit depth. I'd assume these to be adjustable for purpose of porting to the OP. The first statement in this post says that significant texture, background, and model changes are simply impossible due to loss of the art sources.

 

[kingoddball]

On the topic of GenRB, does Planetscape: Torment/IWD2 play fullspeed (or close) like BG?

 

[anntao]

On the topic of GenRB, does Planetscape: Torment/IWD2 play fullspeed (or close) like BG?

Planetscape works fullspeed for me... Only issue is that the different menus (inventory, spells..) get stuck on some sessions but it's fixed by relaunching.

 

[bismuthdrummer]

Planescape, not Planetscape. Traveling between planes of existence rather than planets.


</pedantry>

 

[Grench]

Planescape, not Planetscape. /> Traveling between planes of existence rather than planets.


</pedantry>

Traveling between planets in D&D terms would be SpellJammer.


Thought I would fill that in...