Feedback on hardware related behaviour and on translation (and overall issues or positive aspects)
Isaya
Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 752
Hardware specific feedback
Netbook: AMD E6350 1.6 GHz, Radeon HD6320, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 Home 32 bit SP1, 1366x768, no scaling
No real issue during the intro movie. However there are some occasionnal issues in the sound (though nothing major as in v2011 for instance).
This is not really what I'd call stutter, the voices are clear, however it feels like some small bits are missing : you notice wrong transitions in the sound although the brain misses nothing of it.
These things are also slightly noticeable in the sleep movie, although the cracks of fire make it more difficult to be certain of it.
The gaming experience is good : no issue in the display, the moves. However I just left Candlekeep so I can't comment on what would happen in the big fight with magic.
Desktop computer: AMD Phenom 975 2.4 GHz, Radeon HD4850, 8 Go RAM, Windows 7 Pro 64 bit SP1, 1920x1200, no scaling
The intro movie is really bad at times! There are missing bits in the sound so that it's difficult to understand the words. It seems better at the end. However for all the movie, the fact that the sound is a bit sliced make the whole thing sound like a huge noise covering the normal one. I tried both with the original Windows 7 driver (I reinstalled Windows 7 a few days ago) or with the latest non beta driver (13.1), without difference.
The same applies for the Back Pits intro movie. They sound even worse when I replay them through the menu option. Interestingly, the original Bioware credits video is playing fine.
As a final word, I'll add that the two videos play nicely with VLC in full screen.
Positive
Save for videos, the rest of the game is good at 1920x1200. The fonts are very readable at both resolutions.
It looks like the game uses the bigger of the two BAM for items in the inventory (maybe I didn't notice before). It feels a bit strange but I don't really care.
I like the transparent interface in the bottom although I sometimes try to click in the dialog box to move to the place below it, but it doesn't work, of course!
The fonts are very readable, even without scaling in the highest resolution on my other setup (1920x1200).
Saving and loading is really fast. Area loading time looks short too.
Contrary to some people, I had no issue with Alt-Tab, whether or not the second screen (a TV) was on and used as extension to the desktop. I didn't try to run the game of the second screen though.
Negative
Journal issues
I had a strange behaviour with the journal regarding done quest. After completing Phlydia's quest, checked the journal and didn't see the quest in the quest part anymore. However there was no entry in the quest done part (the list was empty). I only noticed it after completing another quest.
Later I noticed again this short delay when I checked the journal after completing a quest. Closing and reopening the journal was enough to solve this.
I also noticed a misbehaviour of the scroll bar in some instances. When several quests are unfolded, if I'm at the end of the scroll and fold the last ones, at some point the text is not enough to fill the space (capture 1), however the top part remains hidden and while the scroll bar remains displayed, the mouse wheel does not work anymore and it's not possible to click on the scroll bar in the up direction. The only way to show the top is to press the left button and pull to the bottom, which is not intuitive at all! Or you can click in the lower part of the scroll bar and then you get the text only in the bottom half of the display and the scroll bar is gone, so you can't adjust (capture 2).
This looks similar to case 6164.
Hotkeys
Regarding hotkeys, I have mixed results: they seem to work better than they used to, however I found an issue: I was able to select keypad + and - for zoom in the interface, however they don't work in game. It seems that keypad / and * also don't work. However I could use the keypad digits for selecting a character or the group.
Key T to hide the bottom bars didn't work. I tried with another shortcut, same problem. The option to hide all the interface works though.
As a side note, the bouncing behaviour when you reach either end of the list is kind of annoying when you have a scrollbar on the side that already tells you the end is reached: you have to wait before you can click on the button since it's a moving target.
Parda and Karan
Regarding Parda and Karan appearance, I also had issues with Parda. Once, I moved a bit in front of the building with Shank and waited for more than 30 s without seing Parda. Then I moved back to Phlydia to bring the book back, and them Parda appeared just in the corner of the small buiding near Phlydia and he seemed only to start moving when he appeared on screen.
It seemed Karan was playing hide and seek with me once. He only appeared when I moved passed the corner of the building of the Carbos encounter. Or was it its trajectory from afar that led him there just when he was close enough to appear?
Translation feedback
It's great that this version is demonstrating progress on the translation side. German players now have a proper voice pack including the movies (checked intro and Black Pits intro), player voices and NPC voices (checked only in Candlekeep, so I don't know if the new NPCs are included).
I was able to use French voices for the main character from BG1 after copying the files in lang\fr_FR\sounds. As there are only 3 sets, the game properly used the 3 additional ones from english.
Unfortunately for other languages such as french, this new behaviour currently has drawbacks: there are no voices at all, and it impacts cutscenes, which do not work properly because of that.
When leaving Candlekeep, when the priest casts healing spell, Gorion has two lines to say (also displayed on top of his head). However the first text disappears very fast and is replaced by the second one. The various waits in the script to allow reading or hearing before going on look long before the priest finally casts the spell.
The same thing happen just after, in the ambush cutscene: this time, this makes the main character fail to move (I noticed it on the netbook), Gorion is the only one to walk and disappear from sight until the fight begins. However the meeting dialog with Sarevok was not displayed. Instead of being targetted during the fight, the main character left the scene from the starting point of the move that he never left.
See captures.
I copied the lang\en_US\data directory into lang\fr_FR and replayed the scene. As expected I had the english voices, which removed the issues and all the cutscenes worked as usual.
I believe Overhaul needs to add something in the engine to use the english sounds as fallback it there is no translation. This is working for movies but for some reason it's missing when handling sounds.
I managed to build a set of BIF files for French, including the new content in english. The game and the cutscenes are working properly. It's good to hear Imoen tell me "Eh c'est moi Imoen, c'est bon de vous revoir.". ;-)
There is also a minor issue in the translation of voices: files ERROR01 ("You must gather your party...") and ERROR10 ("You have been waylaid by ennemies...") are not part of the bif files named LocXXX and therefore remain in English.
Netbook: AMD E6350 1.6 GHz, Radeon HD6320, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 Home 32 bit SP1, 1366x768, no scaling
No real issue during the intro movie. However there are some occasionnal issues in the sound (though nothing major as in v2011 for instance).
This is not really what I'd call stutter, the voices are clear, however it feels like some small bits are missing : you notice wrong transitions in the sound although the brain misses nothing of it.
These things are also slightly noticeable in the sleep movie, although the cracks of fire make it more difficult to be certain of it.
The gaming experience is good : no issue in the display, the moves. However I just left Candlekeep so I can't comment on what would happen in the big fight with magic.
Desktop computer: AMD Phenom 975 2.4 GHz, Radeon HD4850, 8 Go RAM, Windows 7 Pro 64 bit SP1, 1920x1200, no scaling
The intro movie is really bad at times! There are missing bits in the sound so that it's difficult to understand the words. It seems better at the end. However for all the movie, the fact that the sound is a bit sliced make the whole thing sound like a huge noise covering the normal one. I tried both with the original Windows 7 driver (I reinstalled Windows 7 a few days ago) or with the latest non beta driver (13.1), without difference.
The same applies for the Back Pits intro movie. They sound even worse when I replay them through the menu option. Interestingly, the original Bioware credits video is playing fine.
As a final word, I'll add that the two videos play nicely with VLC in full screen.
Positive
Save for videos, the rest of the game is good at 1920x1200. The fonts are very readable at both resolutions.
It looks like the game uses the bigger of the two BAM for items in the inventory (maybe I didn't notice before). It feels a bit strange but I don't really care.
I like the transparent interface in the bottom although I sometimes try to click in the dialog box to move to the place below it, but it doesn't work, of course!
The fonts are very readable, even without scaling in the highest resolution on my other setup (1920x1200).
Saving and loading is really fast. Area loading time looks short too.
Contrary to some people, I had no issue with Alt-Tab, whether or not the second screen (a TV) was on and used as extension to the desktop. I didn't try to run the game of the second screen though.
Negative
Journal issues
I had a strange behaviour with the journal regarding done quest. After completing Phlydia's quest, checked the journal and didn't see the quest in the quest part anymore. However there was no entry in the quest done part (the list was empty). I only noticed it after completing another quest.
Later I noticed again this short delay when I checked the journal after completing a quest. Closing and reopening the journal was enough to solve this.
I also noticed a misbehaviour of the scroll bar in some instances. When several quests are unfolded, if I'm at the end of the scroll and fold the last ones, at some point the text is not enough to fill the space (capture 1), however the top part remains hidden and while the scroll bar remains displayed, the mouse wheel does not work anymore and it's not possible to click on the scroll bar in the up direction. The only way to show the top is to press the left button and pull to the bottom, which is not intuitive at all! Or you can click in the lower part of the scroll bar and then you get the text only in the bottom half of the display and the scroll bar is gone, so you can't adjust (capture 2).
This looks similar to case 6164.
Hotkeys
Regarding hotkeys, I have mixed results: they seem to work better than they used to, however I found an issue: I was able to select keypad + and - for zoom in the interface, however they don't work in game. It seems that keypad / and * also don't work. However I could use the keypad digits for selecting a character or the group.
Key T to hide the bottom bars didn't work. I tried with another shortcut, same problem. The option to hide all the interface works though.
As a side note, the bouncing behaviour when you reach either end of the list is kind of annoying when you have a scrollbar on the side that already tells you the end is reached: you have to wait before you can click on the button since it's a moving target.
Parda and Karan
Regarding Parda and Karan appearance, I also had issues with Parda. Once, I moved a bit in front of the building with Shank and waited for more than 30 s without seing Parda. Then I moved back to Phlydia to bring the book back, and them Parda appeared just in the corner of the small buiding near Phlydia and he seemed only to start moving when he appeared on screen.
It seemed Karan was playing hide and seek with me once. He only appeared when I moved passed the corner of the building of the Carbos encounter. Or was it its trajectory from afar that led him there just when he was close enough to appear?
Translation feedback
It's great that this version is demonstrating progress on the translation side. German players now have a proper voice pack including the movies (checked intro and Black Pits intro), player voices and NPC voices (checked only in Candlekeep, so I don't know if the new NPCs are included).
I was able to use French voices for the main character from BG1 after copying the files in lang\fr_FR\sounds. As there are only 3 sets, the game properly used the 3 additional ones from english.
Unfortunately for other languages such as french, this new behaviour currently has drawbacks: there are no voices at all, and it impacts cutscenes, which do not work properly because of that.
When leaving Candlekeep, when the priest casts healing spell, Gorion has two lines to say (also displayed on top of his head). However the first text disappears very fast and is replaced by the second one. The various waits in the script to allow reading or hearing before going on look long before the priest finally casts the spell.
The same thing happen just after, in the ambush cutscene: this time, this makes the main character fail to move (I noticed it on the netbook), Gorion is the only one to walk and disappear from sight until the fight begins. However the meeting dialog with Sarevok was not displayed. Instead of being targetted during the fight, the main character left the scene from the starting point of the move that he never left.
See captures.
I copied the lang\en_US\data directory into lang\fr_FR and replayed the scene. As expected I had the english voices, which removed the issues and all the cutscenes worked as usual.
I believe Overhaul needs to add something in the engine to use the english sounds as fallback it there is no translation. This is working for movies but for some reason it's missing when handling sounds.
I managed to build a set of BIF files for French, including the new content in english. The game and the cutscenes are working properly. It's good to hear Imoen tell me "Eh c'est moi Imoen, c'est bon de vous revoir.". ;-)
There is also a minor issue in the translation of voices: files ERROR01 ("You must gather your party...") and ERROR10 ("You have been waylaid by ennemies...") are not part of the bif files named LocXXX and therefore remain in English.
0
Comments
Regarding the issue with the quest not appearing as done while not being listed in quests either, I will try to replicate it and take screenshots this time.