Clean and Modified Versions on Same Computer

AHF

This may be an unsophisticated question for the modders on this site, but is it advisable and/or possible to run multiple versions of BG:EE on your PC? My thought is that if I start modding a game, then this would make things difficult if I decided to do a multi-player game with someone with the vanilla version (or who just doesn't want to play with the same mods). I'm not sure how this could be done or if it is a good idea but would appreciate the thoughts of those who know this area better than I do. (i.e., everyone with something to contribute on modding!)

Isaya

Yes, it's possible to run several versions of BGEE on the same computer. I have an original directory and a copy for mod experiments. All I did was copy the whole installation directory. I usually run the second copy directly with Baldur.exe (in Data\00766). However I didn't play very much, so my experience is limited.

Beware though. You only have one game directory in MyDocuments for storing save games, portraits, etc. of all configurations and the settings (Baldur.ini) is shared among all copies. If you install mods that make your save games incompatible between the two configuations, you'll have to be careful in your save game naming scheme not to be lost.

AHF

Thanks. I suppose the only way to know if the mods make the saves incompatible is to test it out so keeping a backup Baldur.ini file is the way to go?

Cuv

Yeah, keeping a backup of your ini is always a good thing to do. I also keep a clean backup of my dialog.tlk.

AHF

Good advice. Thanks.

Son_of_Imoen

Isaya said:

Beware though. You only have one game directory in MyDocuments for storing save games, portraits, etc. of all configurations and the settings (Baldur.ini) is shared among all copies. If you install mods that make your save games incompatible between the two configuations, you'll have to be careful in your save game naming scheme not to be lost.

Will BGEE create one huge save-game folder for all of your installs? That's messy. I sometimes have 4 or 5 parallel Tutu-games running, if I have as much BGEE campaigns in the future and they all share the same save-folder, that folder would get very unwieldy. It would be nice if Beamdog implemented a feature to separate them.

Isaya

@Son_of_Imoen and @AHF : just create one Windows user account per different installation. Since BGEE stores Baldur.ini and the save games in the "My documents" folder of the Windows user account, it's a simple way to split your game data.

Edwin

I haven't tried with BGEE, but at one time I had 5 flavors of TUTU and a compplete conversion mod (Classic Adventures) on my machine at once.

Son_of_Imoen

Isaya said:

@Son_of_Imoen and @AHF : just create one Windows user account per different installation. Since BGEE stores Baldur.ini and the save games in the "My documents" folder of the Windows user account, it's a simple way to split your game data.

But then you'd have to switch account each time you play, with no access to your music for instance if you want to open BG? Or would switching just be needed for installing?

I think it was a bad move on beamdog's part to do it this way.

Edwin

@Son_of_Imoen Actually...making several accounts with segregated permissions is a very interesting way to go about having several different flavors of BG-BG2-TOB install on one computer.