ambient music looping in BG1 *no action*
Hi, I hope this is the correct place for this discussion:
Thanks for doing BGEE. Here's something from the original BG1 that I couldn't find in the existing threads:
In BG1, most outdoor/indoor areas had continuous, looping, ambient, non-combat music. This was my experience playing BG1 on an old pentium-200MHz machine.
On newer computers (pentium3+), this ambient music hardly starts playing by itself when it should, like when you enter a new area or after combat music has ended. The ambient music DOES start playing when you quicksave or alt-enter between fullscreen & window modes, but doing that every time really kills the immersion you would feel otherwise.
To see this effect, run BG1 and enter the candlekeep inn behind you at the game start. step outside and go back into the tavern repeatedly. sometimes the tavern inn music plays but usually it doesn't. it should always start playing.
I couldn't find anyone talking about this on the internet and it seems most people don't even notice it, and must be thinking that BG1 simply doesn't have so much ambient music in every single area (as is the case in BG2). This silence really kills the original atmosphere/feel of the game, and you would know what I'm talking about after you've tried it.
I tried troubleshooting, and the only thing that works is to slow the game down to the point where it stutters like crazy (using all software BLTs and/or some slowdown utility). but BG1 ran at smooth framerates on pentium-200MHz machines without this problem. I can only guess that the engine is having some problem on faster CPUs and can't properly initiallize musics (on older machines, the transition was very smooth & atmospheric as combat music would fade out and then the ambient music would fade in, rather than a sudden cut-off). Sorry I don't have anything more useful to add since I'm not familiar with programming/software ...
Thanks for doing BGEE. Here's something from the original BG1 that I couldn't find in the existing threads:
In BG1, most outdoor/indoor areas had continuous, looping, ambient, non-combat music. This was my experience playing BG1 on an old pentium-200MHz machine.
On newer computers (pentium3+), this ambient music hardly starts playing by itself when it should, like when you enter a new area or after combat music has ended. The ambient music DOES start playing when you quicksave or alt-enter between fullscreen & window modes, but doing that every time really kills the immersion you would feel otherwise.
To see this effect, run BG1 and enter the candlekeep inn behind you at the game start. step outside and go back into the tavern repeatedly. sometimes the tavern inn music plays but usually it doesn't. it should always start playing.
I couldn't find anyone talking about this on the internet and it seems most people don't even notice it, and must be thinking that BG1 simply doesn't have so much ambient music in every single area (as is the case in BG2). This silence really kills the original atmosphere/feel of the game, and you would know what I'm talking about after you've tried it.
I tried troubleshooting, and the only thing that works is to slow the game down to the point where it stutters like crazy (using all software BLTs and/or some slowdown utility). but BG1 ran at smooth framerates on pentium-200MHz machines without this problem. I can only guess that the engine is having some problem on faster CPUs and can't properly initiallize musics (on older machines, the transition was very smooth & atmospheric as combat music would fade out and then the ambient music would fade in, rather than a sudden cut-off). Sorry I don't have anything more useful to add since I'm not familiar with programming/software ...
Post edited by Balquo on
4
Comments
This is more of an annoyance than a bug. I hope this can get a fix or some sort of adjustment.