BG2 Fixpack Corefixes increase loading time around 6 times

[Guest Zogger]

After installing BG2 Fixpack v6 Corefixes loading time takes ages. Normally a level is loaded in less than ten seconds but with the package it takes nearly a minute or more. After uninstalling it everything works fine again.

I am using BG2 - Throne of Bhaal with latest patch 26498. I have also installed the Beta Patch (26499) because there was mentioned a loading problem on some systems but it doesn't help either.

Any ideas? Btw. thanks for still updating Baldur's Gate 2. Great and now very low priced game

[Miloch]

Post the contents of your WeiDU.log file please.

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for your reply.

 

// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods

// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod

// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #0 // BG2 Fixpack - Core Fixes

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #1 // BG2 Fixpack - Game Text Update

 

And it actually takes two minutes and ten seconds to load a savegame. It is much more worse than I thought. It has nothing to do with the Game Text Update since it happens even without it.

[Guest Guest]

Ok, a system update was running parallel. Without it loading time still takes one minute and 30 seconds.

 

Btw. I am using Baldur's Gate in Wine but until now I hadn't any problems if there are no new special functions used through the Fix pack it shouldn't be the reason.

 

While installing the Patch I got the error message "fixme:msvcrt:MSVCRT__sopen : pmode 0x01b6 ignored" but it still working. E.g. the same appears for the wide screen mod but it still works fine.

 

Is it possible that the Wizard Slayer can use healing and antidote potions with Throne of Bhaal. Tt couldn't use it before otherwise the uninstall of the fixpack doesn't work fine.

[erik]

Install any other mod overriding a lot of files and you'll experience much the same, to varying degrees. It's probably the good old big-override-slowdown, amplified by wine.

 

I'd provide my biffing scripts if I were moderately certain they wouldn't break anything. With them, a 278-line weidu.log install is quite playable.

[Guest Guest]

If it has something to do with the size of the mod isn't it possible to regenerate a cache or something like that? I guess the Fixpack mostly edit some files and don't add so much new data. So why should loading time increase around seven times?

[Bearwere]

maybe it's your filesystem issue? which one do you use?

[Guest Guest]

Ext3 but as I said the standard version with latest Patch installed works fine. And the Bioware patch hadn't any influence on the loading time too, at least not noticeable.

[Miloch]

And the Bioware patch hadn't any influence on the loading time too, at least not noticeable.

The patch just changes the .exe I think, and maybe adds a few files to the override. Whereas the Fixpack and any mod changes a lot more files - even Baldurdash is going to do that. It does this by extracting them from the game BIF files and putting them in the override. So what erik said about biffing will probably help. But you probably want to do this after you've made all the changes to your game you're going to make (installed all the mods you want). You can install mods after the fact, but if you try to change or uninstall any, you'll probably be hosed.

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for your support.

I guess than I can live without the Fixpack. Btw. does anyone know a good Baldur's Gate forum or IRC channel where I can ask game specific questions?

[Leomar]

Thanks for your support.

I guess than I can live without the Fixpack. Btw. does anyone know a good Baldur's Gate forum or IRC channel where I can ask game specific questions?

I hope that you give the BG2 Fixpack once more chance, maybe later. The people have worked really hard on it.

 

For BG questions you can try the SHSForum.

 

Greetings Leomar

[Guest Guest]

The Fixpack is great but if it takes six times more to load a save game I can't use it atm since I often save and restore.

Is there a Howto for biffing?

Thanks for the link anyway.

[Bearwere]

The Fixpack is great but if it takes six times more to load a save game I can't use it atm since I often save and restore.

Is there a Howto for biffing?

Thanks for the link anyway.

1. backup chitin.key and the override folder

2. do "weidu --make-biff override" from the main game folder (if you don't have weidu.exe in it - do "cp setup-bg2fixpack.exe weidu.exe" )

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for the command but it doesn't seem to decrease the loading time of the savegame.

Because of the loading time I really haven't played with the mod but it seems that there are several new loops or other cpu usage since it lags often e.g. if I enter a new area the mouse hangs or if I click on the spell icon I have to wait a second or something like that. I only have 1,2 GHZ and it is running in Wine but I haven't had this problems before. Since I have installed nearly all updates with beta and optional I am not sure if it happens with the standard ones too.

To uninstall I have to restore the whole BG folder?

[Nythrun]

Sweet shrieking baby theanthropos, people! Please never recommend biffing the override again - loading times are contingent on .sav decompression and the game only has to walk chitin.key once.

 

@guest: to "unbiff" your override, you can just delete chitin.key and the override directory, replacing those with the backups you made earlier. Unfortunately, you'll likely need to reinstall anyway. The last stable ToB patch for Windows systems is 26498. Under some varieties of system architecture, loading times would gradually increase as you played through the game (it's not common, I've never seen it, and no one knows much about what causes it). BioWare intended 26499 to fix that, but as you've already noticed, it doesn't work. What it does do is screw up areas you've already visited in your saved games, sometimes severely. Getting rid of that still-beta-after-all-these-years patch does require a reinstall.

 

As for your loading times increase, I've no idea what's causing it - I'm tempted to say that the Fixpack can't do what you've described (nor can any other mod, really), but Wine lags in mysterious ways. Obviously, if your loading times are reasonable and installing the Fixpack causes old save games to load sluggisly, you'd want to ditch it, but I suspect you're going to find that something else is the culprit.