Baldur's Gate series under fusion

[rotlex]

I'm feeling sentimental, and have been thinking about running the PC version of Baldurs Gate\Baldurs Gate II under fusion on my iMac. Before I literally attempt to find it in the dig site that is my basement, or possibly my parents house, can anyone tell me from experience if it will even run under Fusion?

I'm using Windows XP in fusion, so I'm thinking it should? Or am I wasting my time even trying to find my copy, LOL.

thanks

 

[tanjacob]

I'm very interested in this too, for the old Bioware games (BG series, IWD series and Planescape) are probably the most demanding games I'll play (other oldies can be played on DOSBox) and I'm not too keen to boot into XP just to play them. VMWare doesn't say anything on the website but I know Parallels 3.0 supports them and the first Neverwinter Nights.

Would appreciate if someone can help please!

 

[Dark Dragoon]

I've just installed Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn under VMware Fusion running a copy of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise.

It seems to run pretty well with 3D acceleration turned off, there is some minor flicker with objects and the mouse cursor, but I would say not enough to spoil the game. Sound seems to work fine.

The graphics test in the setup options didn't work properly, with 3D acceleration enabled it showed the top left corner of the 3 boxes, without 3D enabled enabled nothing happened except I lost the mouse cursor.

It may work better if I patched the game, was running XP, I used a mouse and if I wasn't taking up most of the processing power with a video conversion.

 

[tanjacob]

I've just installed Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn under VMware Fusion running a copy of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise.

It seems to run pretty well with 3D acceleration turned off, there is some minor flicker with objects and the mouse cursor, but I would say not enough to spoil the game. Sound seems to work fine.

Thanks. Do you have to edit the mouse settings as per the release notes of Fusion?

 

[Dark Dragoon]

Thanks. Do you have to edit the mouse settings as per the release notes of Fusion?

No I didn't change any of the mouse settings,
can you post a link to where it says to change them.

Not sure if it makes a difference as it's still a pointing device, but I use a graphics tablet set to absolute positioning rather than a mouse.

 

[tanjacob]

No I didn't change any of the mouse settings,
can you post a link to where it says to change them.

Not sure if it makes a difference as it's still a pointing device, but I use a graphics tablet set to absolute positioning rather than a mouse.

Here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion/doc/releasenotes_fusion.html#games

The file says:

Customizing the virtual machine's mouse settings for playing games
Most games require some custom mouse settings to work correctly. These settings lock the mouse to the virtual machine when you are running a game. Note: These settings will affect the acceleration setting of the mouse, and disable the ability to automatically move the mouse between the virtual machine and your Mac. The setting in the user's preference file will also prevent the use of the drag-and-drop feature from all virtual machines to the host machine. Remove the settings to revert back to default behavior.

To customize the virtual machine's mouse settings for playing games, use TextEdit to make the following changes while the virtual machine is powered off:

In the virtual machine directory, add the following line to the end of the virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file:
vmmouse.present = "FALSE"
In your home directory, add the following line to the end of the file ~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/preferences:
pref.motionUngrab = "FALSE"
These configuration settings do not take effect until you shut down the virtual machine, quit VMware Fusion, and then restart VMware Fusion and the virtual machine.

Note: The configuration file setting vmmouse.present = "FALSE" and the preference file setting pref.motionUngrab = "FALSE" are incompatible with Unity view. To use Unity view, change the configuration file settings for vmmouse.present and pref.motionUngrab to "TRUE" or delete the lines from the configuration file.

 

[JeffTL]

I've been getting my BG2 fix under Boot Camp with Vista. That works really well, so don't hesitate to use Boot Camp if that's what it takes.

 

[JollyRogers]

Just got it running on my MP using cider/wine. Runs great except I can only use full screen and the mouse pointer is always seen ingame over the hand mouse pointer. I haven't tried VM Fusion or such, but it should work at least with the software rendering option for BG.

 

[tanjacob]

Just got it running on my MP using cider/wine. Runs great except I can only use full screen and the mouse pointer is always seen ingame over the hand mouse pointer. I haven't tried VM Fusion or such, but it should work at least with the software rendering option for BG.

How do you do that? I looked at the Cider website and couldn't make head or tail out of it... no downloads or whatever.

 

[katorga]

I use Wine for older Windows games

I've had nothing but trouble using XP for older games like BG, Fallout, Planescape Torment. They are too good to give up, but it is just a pain to get them running under XP and even more painful to deal with the low resolutions on a laptop screen.

I use Wine on Linux and Crossover (commercial wine) on OS X to run them with more compatibility than XP offers. And, it runs them in a window.

Shoot, I run WoW and Guildwars on linux (and OSX for GW) using wine, and it works well.

 

[tanjacob]

Update

Tested it a few days ago. BG2 works on XP/Fusion just fine, at least at the introductory sequences. No mouse configuration needed but resolution needs some adjustment. Not sure about the recommended VM settings though.

Will try out the other methods once I am able.