Hi All,

I'm at a loss, actual pulling my hair out.

I for a project decided to build a single boxed PC that runs XP and is a platform for 4 players to plug into and play old school games on a dedicated rig.

The build was a stellar success!!! and multiple games I own are back in action.

Except a few I really want to play, The main cause of frustration... Baldurs Gate 2.

I have the original CD's I even bought the GOG version alas the ISO will not load on the XP machine (is not connected to the net so all installs must be transferred via USB)

Does anyone have any experience in making these things work on an XP dedicated unit?

I just keep running into faults or errors or more frustratingly no response at all.

For those interested specs for the Quad box are:
Boards are the intel itx d945gsejt
Chipset is the intel atom 1.6ghz
2 gig of ram
onboard graphics chip which uses 256MB of the total RAM as dedicated graphics ram
HDD are ssd 64Gigs


** Please note I have tried both the Windows XP virtual Drive and Daemon tools to try and mount the ISO's and still have negative results

Regards
Van Pam

Sorry, could you provide some further information. What version of baldurs gate 2 are you using. How are you trying to install, what error messages etc. are you getting.
I am a bit confused by your post as you say you brought the GOG edition and can't get the ISO to load, GOG games are exe files, you just stick the exe and the bin in the same directory and run the exe?
Both BG2 classic and "Enhanced" both should run fine on WinXP.

Maybe your problem is not a Windows XP issue, but a GPU issue. From your description, I guess you have
some integrated Intel GPU (GMA 3150, 3100 or 950). That GPU supports a very low version of OpenGL (v1.4, I think)
and when you try to run the original BG2 from GOG, I'm pretty sure it runs on OpenGL. You could run the BG2
Configuration file, located in the game's main directory and change the graphic options to DirectX, DirectDraw or
something, it should work better on your PC.

EDIT: I wanted to add some ideas about your ISO problems. I know of a couple of kinda old utils to mount disk images
they are called Virtual CloneDrive and MagicISO, both of them are free and should work well in Windows XP.
And if everything else fails, you can always buy an External DVD Player/Writer with a USB port, they cost 20-30 USD
and you could use it to install the game from your CD's.

I'm trying a redownload and trying again. they should work you are right but for some reason they just weren't working.
I have both the exe and the bin in the same folder.

I double click the EXE file and nothing happens. I got a small hour glass once. but that goes away and back to nothing.

This is exactly the same experience with a freshly downloaded pair. I have an external CD drive but I don't want to be switching CD's ect all the time plus I need it to run on all 4 PC's at the same time


EDIT: I have also tried installing the game via my laptop onto a portable HDD then copying entire install file onto the XP machines. This leads to an openal32.dll file missing message.
I attempted to copy an openal32.dl into the install folder to get an openal32.dll is not a valid windows image message

Do you have/can you run baldurs gate 1 from gog? Or icewind dale? Maybe pop in a help desk ticket as not really following your setup. You have 1 machine which four seperate people have accounts on?
I wouldn't use the cds, as you say the disk swapping would be a pain and running an ISO will just suck resources for no reason. Focus on the gog installer and get that running.
The error you are getting is telling you that a necessary installed component is missing - open al. Putting the file in the directory will not work as the openal package needs to be installled - another reason to use the gog installer is to get this down automatically.
Does the gog installer run ok on your laptop? Also, did you try installing openal directly on the machine in question and then copying over the install? Can't remember how portable by is now.

I'm going to give this a go. Would you recommend both the SDK pack and installer or just the installer? You are an absolute champion!!!! it seems so silly that this was all that was required though.

If anyone else has these problems my solution path was:

- Download the OpenAl32.dll installer from the link above
- Copy to portable HDD
- Use a seperate PC to install GOG game onto portable harddrive
- Copy complete game folder to XP system.
- open zip file for OpenAL32.dll installer and install onto XP system
- Create shortcut to desktop from Game Folder EXE
- Open game successfully

Glad I could help, but kudo's should go to this post also: That put me on the track of linking the OpelAL installer to you. In answer to your question, I myself have just used the installer link and that was enough, but I see after your question you edited your post to tell that you did so. I'm glad you can play Baldur's Gate now. In my opinion, it's the best game ever.

Installation and program starts up now which was a massive step forward.

Now I'm getting a freeze at character generation page. i have tried running in compatibility modes and not getting a different result this is occurring in both Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2 freezing at both the same point

I'm wondering if your graphics are up to it, Intel Atom on that board is really old and not really designed for games.

Have you got the most 'recent' driver installed? https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18119/?product=39942

I think the graphics on board your Atom is the Intel GMA (Graphics Media Accelator) 950, see here for a description:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-950.2177.0.html

Even though Baldur's Gate is an old game, "it will even run on a toaster" doesn't really apply. I myself experienced severe stuttering when I ran it years ago on a laptop with GeForce Go7300 onboard graphics. The GMA is a class lower than that, as you can see with the above link.

You could try if you have better luck with the disk version. There's a way to get round the disk protection so you can run the game without the disk inside your PC, but I'm not allowed to post it here I think (*). But it's a solution I myself used in the past to save my disks and save me the hassle.

If you want an XP retro machine to play old games, it wouldn't cost much to get a second hand PC, that's far more powerful than your old Intel Atom.

*hint: due to your privacy settings PM's can't be sent to you, you might change that.

You only need the installer. The SDK (software development kit) is needed if you do some programming that includes OpenAL.

I think the graphics processor isn't actually that bad. It runs multiple games from the same era and later years including games like Diablo 2 and unreal tournament. it opens just wont move past the character generation

I wouldn't really know what causes it then, I don't remember having encountered a freeze at character generation.
But to help get the picture clear, so that perhaps someone would know, 2 questions:

What version of BG are you running. Disk? GOG installer? Classic BG or BGEE? And if you run from disk, is the game patched to the most recent version?

Second, exactly at what point in character generation does the game freeze: what is the last screen that does load and what action causes the game to freeze?

I'm currently attempting to run both BGEE anfd BG2EE from a GOG installer (I managed to get XP to recognise the installer yesterday so the only issue now is the crash)

the game freezes in character creation in the gender selection. you can select a gender but when you click done/next it frezees on that screen.