Buying from Beamdog / Steam / GoG - what are the differences ?

Musigny

Could someone please help me understand what the pros and cons are ?

This is a general question but I also have a particular case to evaluate.
For obvious reasons, I do not directly ask Beamdog for their opinion about the matter. However a purely technical and objective/unbiased comment would be much appreciated.

I have a rather unusual scenario in mind.
I am afraid some of my old games won't be able to run on modern windows system ("updated without consent").
I'd like to move them under Wine. While doing so, why not move more games with moderate graphical requirements.
I know that Beamdog supports a native Linux installation (it makes sense as they support android) but:
1- I am not a Linux fan. I use BSDs instead.
2- Installing mods on a linux BGEE is not exactly heaven on earth whereas Wine has translation mechanisms for the case sensitive filesytems.

The Win Steam client seems able to run under Wine and I can install several clients on several platforms during a transition period. What about the Beamdog system? Any clue ?

Kilivitz

Beamdog and GoG both have the advantage of not requiring any client to run the game (though you could use the Beamdog client or GoG Galaxy).

Buying from Beamdog, though, ensures you get patches before everyone else as there's no third-party approval process.

The Steam version will soon have achievements, if that's your thing. And I'm not sure, but the game might use their cloud save system, which is pretty convenient should your system go kaput for some reason.

About running different platforms: if I'm not mistaken, buying once from Beamdog also gives you access to all platforms (except Android and iOS, of course). Not sure about Linux, but Windows and MacOS for certain.

Musigny

@Kilivitz
Many thanks for the feedback.
I have no interest in Steam's achievements but I know for sure that I can have multiple installations of the game, provided they do not run concurrently.
I will try to clarify with Beamdog whether I can have a couple of installations too. Using the same computer would be ok for me.

Or perhaps @Dee may answer the question directly.
Would it be possible to have two installations of a Beamdog's game (standalone or through the client) on the same computer. Both Windows based. One still under MS Windows, the other under Wine on a Unix-like platform? I accept to lose the support provided by Beamdog when using Wine as a hosting platform but I hope the license gives me the opportunity to deploy such a setup, that's the point.

Dee

The short answer is yes; Beamdog's installer has no DRM, meaning that if you install the game, then move it somewhere else, you can then install the same game again to its original location and launch both versions separately or even simultaneously (whether on the same or different computers). You can also use the stand-alone installer for one copy and the Beamdog client for the other.

I'm not sure how Wine works (I've never used it myself), but if it allows you to install the Beamdog client on its own without interfering with your existing copy of the client, that should allow you to install the game through the Beamdog client through Wine. @Troodon80 would probably be the better person to answer the specifics, though.

Troodon80

I can't vouch for the Steam version as I have not tried—it runs natively on Linux from GOG and Steam, so I have not had any reason to try elsewise. I don't use Wine on a regular basis, but I was using it before there was a native Linux version of the Enhanced Editions. Back then, the only hiccup I had was that the Beamdog client kept crashing on launch—didn't matter that I installed all the .NET Framework extras and other libraries from the Visual C++ redistributables. That meant I had to download the game on a Windows machine and then transfer it to the target machine—which was fine for me since I have other Windows machines.

It is currently possible to run it under Wine, and it is possible to run the (Beamdog) game installation from multiple machines once transferred. In fact, prior to the native Linux versions, I dual-booted a Vista laptop to openSUSE and the Enhanced Editions ran better under Wine on openSUSE than they did on Windows Vista.

ifupauline

Troodon80 said:

I can't vouch for the Steam version as I have not tried—it runs natively on Linux from GOG and Steam, so I have not had any reason to try elsewise. I don't use Wine on a regular basis, but I was using it before there was a native Linux version of the Enhanced Editions. Back then, the only hiccup I had was that the Beamdog client kept crashing on launch—didn't matter that I installed all the .NET Framework extras and other libraries from the Visual C++ redistributables. That meant I had to download the game on a Windows machine and then transfer it to the target machine—which was fine for me since I have other Windows machines.

It is currently possible to run it under Wine, and it is possible to run the (Beamdog) game installation from multiple machines once transferred. In fact, prior to the native Linux versions, I dual-booted a Vista laptop to openSUSE and the Enhanced Editions ran better under Wine on openSUSE than they did on Windows Vista.

I want to add some infos regarding EE games on Wine.

EE games runs perfectly on Wine. The launcher to download the games (not the beamdog client) available on Beamdog.com though does not work. As you stated it crashes. This can be overcome in 2 ways. First to download it on a computer that has Windows installed on it. Or to run a virtual windows using virtualbox and once downloaded, copy the game to your linux system.

The second and important thing is that if you own a nvidia graphic card, it is important to install Wine before the nvidia linux drivers or else you might not be able to launch EE games. This was the case for me and I have no idea why. Note that I am running a Debian 8 Jessie.

And the last thing is that mod(s) actually work too on wine. I successfully installed Scale of Balance for IWD without encountering any errors.

I did not try a multiplayer game though.

Musigny

@ifupauline @Troodon80
Thanks for the information.
I have no nvidia card, so no such issue to expect.
I haven't tried the setup yet, maybe this weekend.
Both the Beamdog agent and the standalone version seem to use the .net framework as mentionned by @Troodon80 . This is terra incognita for me, therefore I think I will just give it a try with winetricks using the first service pack for 3.5 which cascades the installation of all the others versions (I quickly read this shell script). My understanding is that the Beamdog code uses the version 2 of the runtime (CLR ?), that's what I understand when looking at the loaded dlls with a process explorer but again this .net thing is totally unknown to me.

Thanks for the info about the mods, being able to run them is one of the drivers for such an installation. I am still cautious about the filesystem case translation on the fly though. Let's see.