Hi All, I have registered just to let you folks know how I solved the laggy problem.
Here is configuration of my laptop. OS: Windows 7 SP1, 64-bit Video: Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
1) Make sure you downloaded and installed the newest drivers from your video card company's website, NOT from your laptop company's website like Dell or Sony. In my case that was http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support 2) Set compatibility mode to Windows 95 for BGEE\Data\00766\Baldur.exe
ONLY in this order and ONLY both steps solved the problem for me.
I hope this helps someone.
Works for me too, with my Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family and Win 7 Premium 64 bit. The introduction video is still unwatchable, but the game runs smoothly so far. Haven't been in any major spell combats yet though.
After trying the .ini addition, making sure I have the latest video driver, and setting Baldur.exe to Win95 compatability mode, the videos are still too laggy to watch, but the gameplay has sped up quite a bit. It still lags in spots (mostly in combat) but it's an improvement. I haven't gotten into any large battles yet, but I imagine those will still lag considerably.
It's not a permanent solution, but it seems to be a decent bandaid to get us through to a real fix.
Would anyone have a hint as to why, while my game runs fine in the normal setup (but with considerable lagging), it does not run at all when I set compatibility to W95?
It now works. Intro video still choppy, in Candlekeep much much smoother. Screen was flicking but going to windowed mode then back to full screen solved this. Launched the Pits, spell animation still lags but considerably less than before. It is probably playable now. Thanks for the help and hope a permanent fix can be found.
(1) \Documents\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\Baldur.ini set to: INSERT INTO options ROWS ( 'Graphics', 'OpenGL Version', '1', 'Window', 'Full Screen', '1',
(2) \Program Files (x86)\BeamDog\Games\00766\Baldur.exe set to: Properties > Compatibility - Run in compatibility mode for: Windows 95 - Disable visual themes - Disable desktop composition - Disable display scaling on high DPI settings
(3) no further tweaks to drivers applied
Not ideal, but at least I can get my party from A to B without dozing off.
I did, however, have to create a direct shortcut to baldur.exe on the desktop, trying to run the game through the client does not work.
What worked for me (I had "application stopped working" after clicking Play in introduction to Candlekeep; and also intro didn't show up only some strange zoomed bricks from menu in with you can choose game type, then I had to click for main menu to appear).
I have notebook with Moblity Radeon HD 3650 and what I had to do is to install new driver from here:
Until today I was using driver downloaded by my Windows 8 64 bit. And it was OK for all games. Anyway I think that rather than new driver what has worked for me was Catalyst Control Center and other stuff with I wasn't using earlier. So install all you can what comes with you driver (all this apps that gives you oportunity to change antialiasing and other stuff). I thing that people with nVidia have similar application so you may try to do same thing.
I have now started the game with a Lenovo laptop that uses Intel(R) HD Graphics (driver up to date). I'm experiencing some pretty severe lag. So I want to change the Baldur.ini file as recommended. And below is what my Baldur.ini looks like. I just want to make sure I make the modification correctly in light of all that is there now. Perhaps someone can advise? I used Notepad to open the file (should have used some other app?)
In another thread the user with HD3000 said they updated to the latest Intel GPU drivers and is able to play the game.
If you do not know what driver to install, visit this page and find Intel Driver Update Utility, click 'Continue'. It's easiest to do this from Internet Explorer, as it quickly installs the appropriate software package needed to scan and update your graphics driver. For plug-in browsers (non-IE) you will need Java installed.
Also, for those still having Intel problems, Go to Intel Display Graphics properties, under 3D tab, drag Global Settings to "performance". Does that help with BG:EE?
Is this something you do in the control panel or in the properties file for Baldur.exe? Sorry for the tech ignorance!
AHF, go over the file Baldur.exe, right-click, select "Properties", then go in the Compatibility section and set it to Windows 95 (+ tick the other options as indicated in posts above).
Dang - seems to be more to that. That said: after playing a little bit into the game, the performance still isn't great. You can run around and attack things alright - but don't even try "looking" at area of effect spells... we're not there yet.
Dang - seems to be more to that. That said: after playing a little bit into the game, the performance still isn't great. You can run around and attack things alright - but don't even try "looking" at area of effect spells... we're not there yet.
I can't play much right now, but in the Pits I noticed some lagging when spell animation (the teleport effects) kicked in. Although considerably better than before.
However the game still is very unstable on my laptop. There is annoying screen flickering which requires constant back-and-forth between windowed and full screen. Worse, I have had 2 full crashes which forced a re-boot to my PC, after using Alt+tab to move from BG:EE to other applications (email, excel, nothing major). Don't know if anyone else has experienced that.
We're just playing around with poor solutions, fundamental graphic instability remains under Intel I feel.
I'm trying to be understanding, but its still leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I should have looked harder at the forums, as i would not have bothered spending the money because there is no official support for Windows 8 or the Intel chipset. I gave up gaming and this was going to be my return to it. Now, i'll wait patiently and see if they find some work around (i understand the issues and sympathize with the intractable Intel issue), but i got rid of all my newer hardware and power hungry machines in favor of an old laptop i could write code on and browse the web. Runs windows 8 great. I hope there's Direct X support in the future, thats the only thing that will likely get me to buy anything more in this line of products.
Well, I have Lenovo S10-3 netbook, GMA3150. 2 problems: strange sound in videos instead of normal one. Game itself runs smoothly, except for spells. Fireball cause millisecond lag, but spells like entangle... They lowers my FPS down to 5-7. What should I try first?
a DirextX path for the game, it's the whay to go. Intel OpenGL support is poor to say at least
I saw @TrentOster saying something similar to that in another thread. Does anybody have a clue as to how long something like that may take?
it depends on the number of openGL functions they use, how the use them and how well the graphic layer is isolated from other parts (n-tier programming architecture)
since the engine is old, I have no clue, but it can be really painful. BUt the already re-engineered and cleaned the souce code from the original engine, plus fixed more than 400 things.
Is this something you do in the control panel or in the properties file for Baldur.exe? Sorry for the tech ignorance!
AHF, go over the file Baldur.exe, right-click, select "Properties", then go in the Compatibility section and set it to Windows 95 (+ tick the other options as indicated in posts above).
I switched it but to no avail. The strange graphic remains:
Went into the 00766 folder that's in baldur's gate enhanced edition > data
Right clicked the baldur.exe, properties, compability, change to win 95 and disable visual themes (think that's what it's called, running XP Swedish version -.-)
Video is still laggy but made most of the in game lag disappear. Haven't tried the driver updates yet.
I also have Windows XP and apparently "Intel® 6, 5, 4, 3, 900 Series Chipsets" (according to Intel detection).
Using the Win95 compatibility and disabling visual themes as described above by @sandstrom91 did the trick for me too. Videos don't work (very slow and choppy, noise instead of sounds) but the game seems to be playable now with only minor visual glitching. Although I haven't tried a massive combat situation yet.
HINT FOR ADDED PERFORMANCE:
I like to use Razer Game Booster when I'm gaming with my laptop (which is definitely not optimized for gaming). It shuts down unneeded processes to allow the game to use the maximum resources possible. I didn't put a link here because I'm not sure where I downloaded my own version, but just google it. I like it a lot (and am not paid to say so
It's placebo effect.
The engine it's not whatsoever heavy on any machine (unless you're running a tablet w/ old atoms) Game Booster is not needed for this engine (although it's a great little progam that does the trick when you're close to the border line on CPU and RAM)
I'm not sure where to drop this one, maybe one of the devs will find it here.. but the ANGLE project has been going for some time and seems like it would be a perfect fit ifi it could be adapted. http://code.google.com/p/angleproject/
@AHF i had the same issue with fallout, never could play the game in reason of that.
Did you tried to mess a bit with your video card configuration? At the risk of saying bullshit, try to change the Vertical Sync, the Texture FIltering options, Antianalising options (gamma correction mainly maybe).
It's a suggestion based on NVIDIA card configuration options, so give a try for a fast solution. Just test one each time, change the settings and start the game, if it doesn't fix, undo the change and change something else.
I like to use Razer Game Booster when I'm gaming with my laptop (which is definitely not optimized for gaming). It shuts down unneeded processes to allow the game to use the maximum resources possible. I didn't put a link here because I'm not sure where I downloaded my own version, but just google it. I like it a lot (and am not paid to say so
It's placebo effect.
The engine it's not whatsoever heavy on any machine (unless you're running a tablet w/ old atoms) Game Booster is not needed for this engine (although it's a great little progam that does the trick when you're close to the border line on CPU and RAM)
My laptop has all sorts of things going on so Game Booster helps me. I'm sure it's not needed by everyone.
So after having played it for a little while, although the Win95 compatibility mode does speed up the game, any resource-heavy effects (water, spells) and large amounts of 'on-screen activity' cause horrific levels of lagging.
The compatability is a poor-man's solution to this problem, although it does make the game playable. you just have to be patient during combat engagements I suppose.
Comments
Which card do you have? Can you watch the intro video as well?
Thx.
D.
It's not a permanent solution, but it seems to be a decent bandaid to get us through to a real fix.
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, build 7601)
Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
4096MB RAM
DirectX 11
Display 1
Intel HD Graphics Family
1696 MB
1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Display 2
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M
3254 MB
1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
For the record, I am using Windows 7, Intel Mobile 4 series, with the latest drivers installed.
I have followed these steps to the letter I did, however, have to create a direct shortcut to baldur.exe on the desktop, trying to run the game through the client does not work.
I have notebook with Moblity Radeon HD 3650 and what I had to do is to install new driver from here:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/catalystlegacywin8.aspx
Until today I was using driver downloaded by my Windows 8 64 bit. And it was OK for all games. Anyway I think that rather than new driver what has worked for me was Catalyst Control Center and other stuff with I wasn't using earlier. So install all you can what comes with you driver (all this apps that gives you oportunity to change antialiasing and other stuff). I thing that people with nVidia have similar application so you may try to do same thing.
CREATE TABLE options (
section string,
name string,
value string
);
INSERT INTO options ROWS (
'Window', 'Full Screen', '1',
'MOVIES', 'INTRO', '1',
'Game Options', 'Footsteps', '1',
'Game Options', 'Memory Level', '1',
'Game Options', 'Mouse Scroll Speed', '36',
'Game Options', 'GUI Feedback Level', '5',
'Game Options', 'Locator Feedback Level', '3',
'Game Options', 'Bored Timeout', '3000',
'Game Options', 'Always Dither', '1',
'Game Options', 'Subtitles', '1',
'Game Options', 'Keyboard Scroll Speed', '36',
'Game Options', 'Command Sounds Frequency', '2',
'Game Options', 'Selection Sounds Frequency', '3',
'Game Options', 'Effect Text Level', '62',
'Game Options', 'Infravision', '0',
'Game Options', 'Weather', '1',
'Game Options', 'Tutorial State', '1',
'Game Options', 'Attack Sounds', '1',
'Game Options', 'Auto Pause State', '0',
'Game Options', 'Auto Pause Center', '1',
'Game Options', 'Difficulty Level', '2',
'Game Options', 'Quick Item Mapping', '1',
'Game Options', 'Environmental Audio', '1',
'Game Options', 'Heal Party on Rest', '0',
'Game Options', 'Terrain Hugging', '0',
'Game Options', 'HP Over Head', '0',
'Game Options', 'Critical Hit Screen Shake', '1',
'Game Options', 'Hotkeys On Tooltips', '1',
'Game Options', 'Area Effects Density', '100',
'Game Options', 'Duplicate Floating Text', '1',
'Game Options', 'Tiles Precache Percent', '100',
'Game Options', 'Pausing Map', '0',
'Game Options', 'Extra Feedback', '0',
'Game Options', 'Filter Games', '1',
'Game Options', 'All Learn Spell Info', '1',
'Program Options', 'Font Name', '',
'Program Options', 'Double Byte Character Support', '0',
'Program Options', 'Drop Capitals', '1',
'Program Options', '3D Acceleration', '1',
'Program Options', 'Maximum Frame Rate', '30',
'Program Options', 'Path Search Nodes', '32000',
'Program Options', 'Tooltips', '60',
'Program Options', 'Translucent Shadows', '1',
'Program Options', 'Sprite Mirror', '0',
'Program Options', 'Gamma Correction', '0',
'Program Options', 'Brightness Correction', '0',
'Program Options', 'Backwards Compatible 3d', '0',
'Program Options', 'Volume Movie', '90',
'Program Options', 'Volume Music', '40',
'Program Options', 'Volume Voices', '100',
'Program Options', 'Volume Ambients', '40',
'Program Options', 'Volume SFX', '80',
'Window', 'Maximized', '0'
);
It should read:
INSERT INTO options ROWS (
'Graphics', 'OpenGL Version', '1',
'Window', 'Full Screen', '1',
....
In another thread the user with HD3000 said they updated to the latest Intel GPU drivers and is able to play the game.
If you do not know what driver to install, visit this page and find Intel Driver Update Utility, click 'Continue'. It's easiest to do this from Internet Explorer, as it quickly installs the appropriate software package needed to scan and update your graphics driver. For plug-in browsers (non-IE) you will need Java installed.
Also, for those still having Intel problems, Go to Intel Display Graphics properties, under 3D tab, drag Global Settings to "performance". Does that help with BG:EE?
Is this something you do in the control panel or in the properties file for Baldur.exe? Sorry for the tech ignorance!
Dang - seems to be more to that. That said: after playing a little bit into the game, the performance still isn't great. You can run around and attack things alright - but don't even try "looking" at area of effect spells... we're not there yet.
'Window', 'Full Screen', '1',
isn't supposed to be duplicated (that line should appear only once, right?), unfortunately this didn't work.
However the game still is very unstable on my laptop. There is annoying screen flickering which requires constant back-and-forth between windowed and full screen. Worse, I have had 2 full crashes which forced a re-boot to my PC, after using Alt+tab to move from BG:EE to other applications (email, excel, nothing major). Don't know if anyone else has experienced that.
We're just playing around with poor solutions, fundamental graphic instability remains under Intel I feel.
the graphic layer is isolated from other parts (n-tier programming architecture)
since the engine is old, I have no clue, but it can be really painful.
BUt the already re-engineered and cleaned the souce code from the original engine, plus
fixed more than 400 things.
So, they know the engine pretty well.
slow slow play.....
The engine it's not whatsoever heavy on any machine (unless you're running a tablet w/ old atoms)
Game Booster is not needed for this engine (although it's a great little progam that does the trick
when you're close to the border line on CPU and RAM)
Did you tried to mess a bit with your video card configuration? At the risk of saying bullshit, try to change the Vertical Sync, the Texture FIltering options, Antianalising options (gamma correction mainly maybe).
It's a suggestion based on NVIDIA card configuration options, so give a try for a fast solution. Just test one each time, change the settings and start the game, if it doesn't fix, undo the change and change something else.
The compatability is a poor-man's solution to this problem, although it does make the game playable. you just have to be patient during combat engagements I suppose.
Hrrrm, very frustrating.