I have DS1: LOA Edition and DS2 base with Broken World from Retail.

Also have DS2 and DS3 with DLC on both Steam and GOG - so, I should go check these out.

I do remember DS1, DS2, and Space Siege have so many problems w/ full-screen from retail - so it's best to run in Windowed Mode for the in-game settings AND use Borderless Gaming App (just configure any games to be moved to Right Pane so it uses BLG's psuedo-fullscreen feature).

EDIT - Did anyone say try and Older DXWrappers or DXVK on DS1/DS2? I know DXVK does wonder for other games, like Far Cry 1 (kills a lot of stutter problems) and especially GTA4 (HUGE performance boosts, especially on newer Nvidia RTX 3xxx series GPU's and above b/c it can actually utilize the hardware and no VRAM limits).


Did you try this mod, which puts it back into the game?

Time Trials Mod - https://www.moddb.com/games/mirrors-edge/addons/pure-time-trail-map-pack-steam-players1

Would be interesting to see if the FPS tanks in retail Broken World too. If not, then I might look into "procuring" the retail version of BW :P

As for borderless gaming apps, I generally don't have much success, because it always ends up with the mouse being offset by the height of the now hidden status bar (or other general mouse issues), rendering the games basically unplayable. Older games didn't really support dynamic window resizing. And newer games already can run borderless fullscreen, so never really found much use for the borderless gaming apps.

In all truth, I would be very grateful if you could do some experimentation with the retail versions and/or the aforementioned wrappers, and post the results here. I've refrained from buying the DS collection on GOG until now, right because it's missing the expansions, so if there was a way to make the retail versions work, I could maybe go look for them.

Gaming Laptop Specs = R5 5600H, 16gb RAM, 6gb VRAM of RTX 3060 (laptop GPU), 1 TB SSD, W11 x64.

DS1: LOA from Retail - with regular DirectX and no wrappers, seems fine at its max in-game supported res' option, in the 1st area. 60fps here.

DS2 with Broken World - all kinds of problems so far, so give me time. Looks like a full-install off all the retail discs (4-CD for DS2 and then 1-disc for BW) are necessary here, as it has issues w/ the registry files - was trying to avoid the 5-disc install, but looks like I gotta do it in full. DS2 base worked fine on the copy at 60fps with max-res supported in-game on normal DirectX in Windowed Mode with Fullscreenizer, but BW won't - ain't tried wrappers or anything else on it. Gotta legit-install of all discs; it won't take a lazy copy job to get BW going. Gonna be interesting to see how stuff pans out, once stuff's installed the OG way.

BLG (Borderless Gaming App) worked goofy w/ DS2 base, as it wouldn't work when clicking on the boxes properly. Fullscreenizer works much better and properly.

More to come.

EDIT - Okay, DS2 and Broken World installed properly. At max-res, getting 60fps at top resolution supported in-game here in regular DirectX, all running with in-game Windowed Mode with Fullscreenizer.

What about fullscreen? Also, be sure to play the game for a bit, optimally reach a teleport and use it. The FPS starts high, but quickly deteriorates once you move a bit through the world. Doesn't really matter what settings, windowed/fullscreen or whether playing with regular Direct or through something like dgVoodoo (which I use to scale the UI), the behavior is always the same. Also, in options-game, you can display on screen frame rate.

Does retail BW install separately or into the DS 2 folder? And finally, what game version is the retail BW copy? 2.30? If 2.30, I'd be interested in trying the BW .exe file, if you're willing to share.

Just to note, this is how BW can be installed with the digital distribution versions:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1165078098

I only grabbed the .exe and resource/map files from what is included in that, so it must be something in the .exe.

Added screens with FPS values (top left). First is immediately after starting the game, the 2nd is after using a teleport from Eirulan to Amanlu. The FPS very slowly decays further the longer you play, eventually hitting sub 30 FPS constantly.

If normal BW install works fine, then I'll probably grab it from Archive or something and try using it with my retail DS 2.

Also on another note, I'll look into fullscreenizer and see if it suffers from the same mouse offset issues as BLG (tried BLG with Sacred 2, which behaves notoriously badly in fullscreen on modern Windows, so been playing in windowed mode).

7 Days to Die
ANTHEM
Alien Breed Impact
Breathedge
Broken Pieces
Dark Horizon
Dead Island Definitive Edition
DeadPoly
Destiny 2
Deus Ex Human Revolution (original)
Devil May Cry HD Collection
Divergence
Divinity 2 Developer's Cut
Dragon Age Origins
Dreamscaper
Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk The Amulet Of Chaos
Elderand
Extinction
Finals
From Space
Frontline Fields of Thunder
GalGun Double Peace
Gas Guzzlers Extreme
GRAY
Horizon To Crinoa Have Faith in Radiance Prototype
I Am Alive
Icey
Jurassic World Evolution
Lady, The Mage, and The Knight
Left Alive
Legenmdary
Limit Theory Prototype
Lord of the Rings Conquest
Lord of the Rings Online
Lost In Random
Metal Gear Solid
Minoria
Mobile Suit GUNDAM Battle Operation 2
Morbid the Seven Acolytes
NaissancE
Nigata Tale
Nippon Marathon
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
Pestilence
Project Nimbus Complete Edition
Pumpkin Jack
Quarry
Renoir
RIFT Planes of Telara
Ryse: Son of Rome
Scathe
Secret World Classic
Slain Back From Hell
Spirit of the North
Submerged Hidden Depths
Superflight
Tarr Chronicles
Terminator - Resiatnce
Teslagrad 2
Thief Gold
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Torchlight
Velvet Assassin
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Anniversary Edition
Zeitghast
ZOMBI
Zombie Army Trilogy

Last Oricru Demo

For Retail-version of Broken World, it wanted to install in a default path of something like Program Files x86\2K Games\Dungeon Siege II Broken World or something of that sort - which is so NOT where I put it. I often go Custom myself.

I picked a Custom Path of C:\Game Libraries\Retail Games\Dungeon Siege 2\Broken World.

So, I put Broken World in a sub-directory right within my DS2 folder basically.

I try to keep games away from Program Files (old) or Program Files x86; those can be a pain to deal with normally, especially on newer Windows versions.

Full-screen, just tested. No mouse cursor at all. Ran DS2 base. I'm on W11 here. Just checked PC Gaming Wiki here - looks like it's a common issue and why gamers should be using something like BLG or Fullscreenizer to use a psuedo-fullscreen mode to get around it.

EDIT - Yes, BW is version 2.30.

EDIT 2 - Ahhh, I had a EXE of DS2 Broken World stored away that had a mouse-fix already done to it, which I'm guessing I got from online somewhere long ago. So, that fixes that issue for full-screen w/ Broken World; sweet.

UI's too small; might need DGVoodoo2 (DGV2) to mess around w/ UI-upscaling and with a up-rez to 1080p and to MSAA the heck out of it (to fix UI blur on the upscale). Problem is: DGV2 often has an overhead and can cause performance-loss.

This issue is fixed in GOG's version. But as far as I can tell, still true for retail and Steam installs.

Have you tried playing the game for a bit to see if the FPS remains stable? Also, it sounds like retail has two separate .exe files, one for main game, one for BW. The guide I linked overwrites the original .exe. Also sounds like BW does not have to be installed into the original game directory. Strange, as it's not standalone. Can you only launch DS 2 from the original .exe and only BW from the BW .exe?

I am pretty much convinced now that the FPS issues are stemming from how that guide tells you to install BW. You can try it for yourself, if you have DS 2 from GOG. Just install it and then drop the files from the guide into it.

It works, although I'd advice against MSAA. You'll get clear division lines between some elements on the UI. I use 1024x768 ingame and force 1920x1440 in Voodoo. Everything is perfectly readable. Did the same in DS 1.

I haven't tried to run the game for a long-winded amount of time. Will try and do so, when I'm home. I still have my old saves/characters for DS1 LOA and both DS2 & BW - so there's also that.

As for DS2 and BW from retail - 2 separate install paths and EXE files, which both have the same exact filename....but different locations entirely. DS2 base has its own file in its DungeonSiege2.exe in main folder; and BW has its own DungeonSiege2.EXE file right in the BW sub-folder.

As for DS2 [base-game] - I have that from Retail, Steam, and GOG.

Thanks for the info.

I have also ultimately decided, that I'm going to see for myself. I've won some gift card cash on Amazon several years back that I've been using to plug up some holes in my games collection and this seems like a good thing to try locally :P

Interesting @ $9.99 (or so) for such an old and hard-to-find copy of the game. Good luck. Hope it all goes well w/ you. Ouch @ the shipping is the cost of the game or more or so.

I also wonder...since I do have DS2 on both GOG and Steam, I wonder if I can install say DS2 Steam or GOG-version [bame-game versions]...and then actually install my retail copy of BW into its own sub-folder (right within either the Steam or GOG base-game DS2 folder).

Not sure. There might be some registry entries that might not line up for the retail Broken World to detect the GOG/Steam install. But as you have them all, you have to but try :)

And yeah, was surprised by the price as well. Base game goes for 30 USD, which considering that it is actually available digitally, is quite high.

The shipping costs are to be expected when going from NA to central EU. This is actually on the lower end as it's shipped directly by Amazon and not a 3rd party. For those cases, I actually use a shopping facilitator. There are a couple czech companies that have a US address you can send your shipment to first, which drastically reduces the shipping fees from US Amazon (I've seen 30+ USD) and then they reship it to you for like 10 USD or less.

I just started Death Of The Outsider.
Feels like a standalone expansion of Dishonored 2. Not that that's a bad thing.

Yes, that is exactly what Death of the Outsider is: a stand-alone expansion-pack to Dishonored 2.

I do wish there was more content to DotO, TBH - as I feel like we don't spent enough time w/ a certain awesome knife and some really cool skills, which you'll get closer to the end of the game.

That's probably why the game has New Game+ Mode.

Also, I do hope Deathloop comes here to GOG also...

NG+ is not for me. Maybe in the 90s, when I had a lot more time than games/money. My backlog is huge now.

Yeah! And I hope that it's not their last "Arkane style" single player game.