Beginner Questions

[Blue Knight]

I am a newbie to modding and am trying to start out correctly by building a clean install. I have installed BGII SOA, TOB and the official patch. I go into the BG II file and can't locate the bgmain.exe or baldur.ini files. I'm quite computer illiterate but I am trying to learn. Any help in directing me to the correct forum to answer this question would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

[Andyr]

They are in your BG2 directory... Same one with folders like Override, Data in it.

[Saber]

If you want to build a clean install and have a lot of hard drive space, just copy the entire BG2 folder.

[Blue Knight]

Thanks Saber I will try that. I should have put in my original question that I found the Dialog.tlk, Chitin.key and the Override file but it was the other two that were not inside the BG II file.   Thanks to Andyr for the response.

[Duality]

Check:
http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,17555.0.html

It's called "Building and Maintaining a Clean Install" 

[Blue Knight]

Duality, Thanks I was following the directions from that link but when I looked into my BGII files I wasn't locating the two files bgmain.exe or the baldur.ini files. I have the hard drive space to save the entire file but was looking at locating the two files I can't seem to find. Just trying to advance my knowledge and learn some more about computers and modding. Spring is in the air and my computer time is getting limited but I appreciate all the advice I got here and from the forums. BGII is way cool. NWN seems too much like a first person shooter RPG for me but that's my taste. MODS really enhance the BGII game for me. Thanks again for the help.

[Duality]

If you are using a mac then bgmain.exe wont exist. But the baldur.ini should. Unless of course you haven't run the game on this new install or opened the config program. Then I'm not sure if baldur.ini exists.
Otherwise, I would suggest you use the search function to find where they are.
Since they have to be somewhere!

The other thing you might want to backup is the data folder, since some mods biff files and put them in there. (unless you know what files get added, and can delete them without trouble) This however is fairly rare, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

And yes, without mods this game would have died a long time ago. I haven't played an un-mod'd game for years. I find it too boring. But that might be because I am pathetic enough to know most of the lines from memory....

Every once in a while looking at my weidu.log install list, I have to wonder how the game actually runs with all those mods installed.

[Blue Knight]

Duality, Thanks again for replying. You brought up the term "Biff files". I have to show my ignorance...what does this term mean? I will try the search to see where the files are at. Thanks for educating me.

[Duality]

Biff files:
The game stores most of the information it needs in files that are ordered in a way that it can find things easily. If you were to look in the data folder you would see a large number of files that end in .bif.
They have names like creAnim.bif (creature animation), items.bif etc. The items.bif file contains all of the items and their relevant information, the creAnim.bif contains a number of creature animations. etc.

Some very large mods (The Darkest Day, Shadows Over Soubar and Check the Bodies spring to mind), add their own .bif files to the data folder. This is because if the mods were to put ALL of the files they needed in the override folder, it would quickly exceed 10k files that take up over 1 gigabyte. When this happens your game will start running at about 1/100 of the normal speed. It sucks, trust me 

But by turning a number of their larger components (all three .bif their .wav files and their area files, all of which take up a lot of space) into .bif files, they allow the game to find them without having to stagger through the override folder, speeding everything back up.

So, in the end, if you have the space, you might as well make a backup of your data folder, if not, don't worry about it. 

Hope that explains things clearly.

[Blue Knight]

Duality,
Again my thanks, you have explained it well. I hope to have time this summer to expand my knowledge in the modding world of BGII. It's great to know there are people out there that are willing to help out.