Hello everybody,
I want to upgrade my Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, but a few games in my GOG library, including Baldur's Gate 2, don't have official Windows 10 support. Has anyone tried to play BG 2 or other games with no official support on Windows 10? I just want to be sure all my games will run fine after updating the OS.

If anyone could give me a feedback about this, I would be really thankful.

See: http://www.gog.com/forum/baldurs_gate_series/baldurs_gate_on_windows_10_with_nvidia_560_ti

On my Windows 10 installation, on a bog-standard desktop computer (Intel CPU, nVidia graphics card), Baldur's Gate 1 and Icewind Dale 1 run without any compatibility settings or patches. I actually needed to remove the DDRAWFIX compatibility patch that GOG installs by default.

The version of Icewind Dale 1 GOG sells is the most complete one, with all expansions. This one has had the Baldur's Gate 2 engine backported to it, and it runs fine. Therefore I expect BG2 (and IWD2) to run fine as well. The most troublesome game in Windows Vista and 7 was Planescape Torment, which needed a some compatibility fixes using the Microsoft Application Compatibility toolkit, even when using the latest GOG version. I have not yet tried this game on Windows 10, but I'll install it tomorrow and see.

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edit: I have tested PS:T, which was the most problematic of the IE games under Windows Vista and 7. It even crashed when closing it, and it needed a raft of fixes in the mentioned Application Compatibility Toolkit. (ACTK). For completeness, I list here what I was using on Windows 7.

Download ACTK: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7352
Required settings:

Compatibility Mode: - Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Compatibility Fixes
- EmulateHeap
- ForceDirectDrawEmulation
- IgnoreCRTExit
- IgnoreFreeLibrary
- NoShadow
Select all EXE recognition criteria

My Windows 10 is a clean installation. (First upgraded Windows 7 to activate 10, then wiped the entire drive and re-installed from a CD using an ISO.) To make sure I had the latest PS:T version, I downloaded the installer from GOG.com.

- Installed the game.
- Noticed that it used DDRAWFIX, setting "Force DirectDraw Emulation" by default.
- Noticed that it had set "Run as Administrator only" in the compatibility settings of Torment.exe.

Because I wanted to try to run as cleanly as possible, I:
- Removed DDRAWFIX.
- Removed the "Run as Administrator" check.

Torment started flawlessly. It runs the intro video. There are no mouse cursor trails in the menu screen. The game plays as it should, without any problems (as far as I have been able to determine; can't cast any spells yet to test spell effects). It closes down without crashing.

Torment now runs without ANY compatibility settings, and if this game runs well, I'm confident that any IE game will be able to, in some way or another.

Thank you very much for your feedback, Katsunami! It sounds like even if a game has some issues on Windows 10, it's not that hard to fix them. And it is really weird that you actually needed to remove DDRAWFIX to play PS: Torment correctly, I've never had an issue with this game on Windows 8.1.

Anyway, good to know that you're not having many problems to run those games on Windows 10, guess I'll update soon!

I haven't checked if DDRAWFIX could be left installed for PS:T. I just removed it, because I wanted to test with a completely clean (no compatibility fixes installed) installation. BG1, IWD1 and PS:T work fine without DDRAWFIX on Windows 10, using an nVidia GTX 560 Ti with the latest drivers, at least on my machine.

Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, had problems if DDRAWFIX was left installed. Ironically, on Windows 10, DDRAWFIX actually CAUSED some of the the problems it SOLVED in Vista and 7 (mouse trails, laggy performance, flickering screen). Thus, as said, I just removed it for PS:T at the very beginning.

There is alo an option "Software Mirroring" in Torment's menu. On some old graphics cards, and also the ones not supporting DirectDraw correctly (anymore), characters would walk backwards. This option fixes that. On Windows 7, I needed to have this option checked. On Windows 10, it doesn't matter. Characters move as they should.

As of now, I'm playing Baldur's Gate 1, Icewind Dale 1, and Torment without any compatibility fixes installed, on Windows 10 x64.

I do have the mentioned DirectX 9.0c June 2010 Redist installed on Windows 10; I have not checked if the games would work without it. On Windows Vista and 7, many older games required the installation of Direct 9.0c alongside DirectX 10 (Vista) or 11 (Windows 7), because Microsoft dropped a lot of old stuff since DirectX 10. On Vista and 7, the redist was necessary for the games to even launch, at least on my machine, so I just intalled it in Windows 10 as well.

I've been playing it with windows 10 without any problems. If you're using the widescreen mod, you may have to reconfigure the settings for it, but that's about it.

Great news! Did you had any problems playing other games from GOG, besides BG 2?

Cool, I normally play games without mods, so I guess I won't have many problems.
Thanks for the reply!

I have Windows 10 Professional on my laptop and installed both Baldur's Gate the Original Saga and Baldur's Gate 2 Complete and modded them together using ALL the guidelines provided by GoJays2025 on GOG. It works very well indeed. My GPU is Nvidia, but I did not need to use any "fix" to get it to work right with this game. So yes, it is possible to get it to run smoothly on Windows 10.

How can i get BG1 to play with normal shroud? Right now all the edges of shroud is blocky.

the big issue with wx upgrade is the lack of drivers for older hardware... if you do a fresh install (after upgrading) the g-card drivers will be very old and should be replaced with native intel or amd driver kits.

p.s, in this senario; I recommend you disable Microsoft updates or they will just put their crap old drivers back on.

hi all
just got a new computer with windows 10. re downloaded BG2 from GoG and the game wont work for me. BG1 wont either.

Where would I find those guidelines?


Cheers!

https://www.gog.com/forum/baldurs_gate_series/baldurs_gate_2_essential_mods/post1