[ladyjaye]

I'm writing the following thread so that if others have a similar issue running Baldur's Gate (and their application version is 1.0), they could try the below solution.

Tonight, I decided to try playing Baldur's Gate for the first time in 4 years. I had an old game install from 2004 on my external disk drive and have Classic installed on my G5 running OS X 10.4.11. Try as I might, the game would not load -- Classic would start up and the BG icon would appear on my Dock but nothing else would happen. And if Classic were loaded, the game's CDs were rejected by my computer.

After some research, I found out that Graphsim has a 2.2-MB update for BG. After downloading the update, I tried running the new application version as indicated in the read-me file. Still failed at it. This time, I got an error message regarding the .ini file. Trashing it would still not solve the issue.

Finally, I decided to trash my old install, delete it and reinstall the game. After it was done, I restarted my computer (not just Classic) and voilà! The game is now running. The game isn't perfect (the sound is not running at the right speed, so even female voices sound male and the narrator's voice is very deep; it also runs fast, so your character runs rather than walk from point A to point B). I tried saving and got a savefile read error message, but that same savefile loads just fine, no matter what), so don't despair if that happens.

You can find the 1.02 Baldur's Gate update at http://www.graphsim.com/support.html -- select Baldur's Gate/Tales of the Sword Coast in the dropdown menu.

[ladyjaye]

I might have spoken too soon... Managed to fix the sound issues but then I got the save crash message (unreadable AR2600.are file message). From some search, found out that easytutu is the successor to bgtutu and that BG, its expansion and BGII are required to make easytutu run (fortunately, I have all three).

There's a detailed tutorial here on easytutu: http://www.usoutpost...m/easytutu/mac/

I will try to install it later and will post here on success or failure of the whole endeavour. One thing's for sure: Baldur's Gate doesn't like Panther!

[the Battle Cat]

There is an old thread around here that dealt with the problem of old programs running on fast computers but I couldn't find it. Basically it involves downloading a program that keeps your computer busy by looping through a calculation. Anybody remember that program?

Your low voice sound issue may be Quicktime related. Perhaps a downgrade in Quicktime would help but I don't know what version you would need to go to.

[devSin]

Under 10.4.11, Baldur's Gate in Classic will suck tremendously (on any computer). It's extremely prone to constant, unavoidable issues.

You should have better luck with Tutu, although BG2 isn't without its own problems under Mac OS X (but it should be playable at least).

[ladyjaye]

The sound issue seems to be frequency-related. When I changed the sound settings on the Mac from 33,000 to 44,000, it solved the problem.

After more research, I found out that the saving crash problem comes from the fact that the installer fails to install all necessary files on the computer. Apparently, it's also necessary to copy ALL the files from the CDs to the hard drive. I'll try that before attempting to go the easytutu way. I just want to play out all my options before I basically give up and ask my mom to give me her old iBook G3 w/ Panther (IIRC) when she gets rid of it.

From what I've read, looks like the issues running BG and other games from that era stems from Tiger itself.

*Update* I was pretty tired (and distracted) when I made this thread, and this is why I reversed Panther and Tiger in my mind. I meant that my G5 runs Tiger 10.4.11.. In any case, to the suggestion of TBC, I will post a more detailed how-to troubleshooting guide here once I've tested the best ways to run BG on Classic for Tiger.

[Jude]

Why did you have your Mac sound set to 33,000 Hz? Isn't 44,100 Hz pretty standard?

Anyway, I dug through my old FAQ & patch files and found some known issues listed by Graphsim (see below). I seem to remember that even under OS 9 the game had some problems installing all the files correctly. Also, I think I had to set either the monitor or the game (or both) to 800x600 at 85Hz for it to work right. Also, note the Uninstall warning below!
Good luck.
Jude
--------
Baldur's Gate Known Issues
Revised: August 02, 2000 .
-------------------------------------------------------

* Uninstall feature of the Installer

In some unusual instances the Uninstall feature of the Installer
has been know to erase folders that alphabetically precede
"Bladur's Gate" (folders that begin with the letter "A") from the
top level of the Hard Drive. Please do not use this feature of the
Installer. All installed "Baldur's Gate" elements are located in
the "Baldur's Gate" folder. To uninstall, simply drag the "Baldur's
Gate" folder into the trash. To receive a substitute Install CD,
customers may fax an image of their "Baldur's Gate" CD 1 along with
a mailing address to (972) 386-7875. Please note that this
installer replacement does not contain an updated version of
Baldur's Gate.



* System 8.1 incompatibility (missing "controlslib" file)

We now have a beta patch that should fix this problem. Get it here.



* Stability and Speed Issues

While most people do not have this problem, some report both
unstable execution of the game as well as poor performance. Many of
these cases have been solved buy loading a bare minimum number of
extension and also by increasing the amount of memory given to the
Baldur's Gate application. Try these, one at a time, attempting to
load minimal extensions first. Then, if still necessary, increase
the "Baldur's Gate" "Preferred Size" to 75000. This may necessitate
an increase in Virtual Memory a well.

Some users report degraded performance during game play. We do not
have a fix for this problem as yet. Currently, the best solution is
to save the current game, exit and then restart the "Baldur's Gate"
application and then re-load the saved game. Check the "Readme"
file located on "Baldur's Gate" CD 1 for additional performance
enhancing ideas.



* Missing ".tlk" file

This is an error that occurs during the install of "Baldur's Gate"
when an attempt is made to install to a volume or folder whose name
includes a "/" character. To work around this problem, remove the
existing "Baldur's Gate" folder by dragging it into the trash.
Then, simply reinstall "Baldur's Gate" onto a volume or folder that
does not include a "/" in the volume name.

-------------------------------------------------------

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Copyright 1999 Graphic Simulations Corporation.
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Voice: (972) 386-7575 Fax: (972) 386-7875

[Thain Esh Kelch]

I would very much like a walkthrough (Including updates? Pretty pretty pleaaaase, so I dont have to google for hours myself.. ) on how to get BG1 up and running using Tutu! Im gonna do it in a not so distant future.

[ladyjaye]

I didn't knowingly set my sound to 33,000, there seems to be some app on my computer that sometimes changes it down from 44,000 (not that I usually notice it, except when I used to play Full Tilt Poker and the sound would suddenly stop working within the application).

Anyways, I found out that the error message from saving does appear every time. However, it doesn't mean that the game isn't saved or that the savefile is corrupt. I have to manually delete the temp file before starting a game, which temporarily solves the problem -- until the following game session, when it happens again. And installing the entire game doesn't change a thing.

@Thain Esh Kelch: I haven't tried using Tutu, but to be frank, I'm not sure it'd be a much more efficient (this whole install issue is with Classic). I could give it a try though, although I'd have to install a more recent version of Tutu (I already have an older version of BGTutu from a couple of years back, from when I tried running BG2 on my iMac when I got it in 2005).

In any case, as much as it is a PITA to run the game, it does work somehow, and better than Diablo I if I must say so.