Features
GemRB is a portable open-source implementation of Bioware’s 8 Infinity Engine versions.
- Runs the Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment games, their expansions and mods
- Cross-platform: runs on Windows, OS X, Linux, *BSD, Android, iOS and more
- Free Libre Open Source Software, available under the GPL
- Nearly feature-complete (TODO)
- Usability innovations, including touch based input, scaling and arbitrary FPS
- Extensible plugin-based design that removes many limitations of the Infinity Engine
- Increased moddability over the originals
Not convinced? Check out some screenshots and videos or perhaps the FAQ.
Status
| Game | Playable | Completable | Polished | TODOs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baldur’s Gate 1 | yes | yes | yes | bg1 |
| Planescape: Torment | yes | yes | no | pst |
| Icewind Dale 1 | yes | yes | yes | iwd1 |
| Baldur’s Gate 2 | yes | yes | yes | bg2 |
| Icewind Dale 2 | yes | yes | no | iwd2 |
| GemRB demo | yes | yes | no | demo |
| New game | no | no | no | New game |
| Any Enhanced Edition | no | no | no | EE |
PST is completable, but has some notable missing features, making it the least polished game. Similar holds for IWD2. Both still require a lot more love to reach the level of the other games.
The GemRB demo is bundled with GemRB, so it can be ran immediately.
Multiplayer is not supported.
If you can’t wait to see what improvements the next release will bring, a terse overview of what has already been done is in the changelog in the making, updated approximately every 100 changes.
Wide screen, higher resolutions
The original games only supported a fixed list of resolutions through their data, with the widescreen mod enabling more choice. GemRB on the other hand supports whole-window scaling (resize the window to see), which in effect produces larger pixels and looks best at integer multiples of the base resolution (eg. 3x bigger). GemRB also supports arbitrary resolutions without the widescreen mod, but in that case the GUIs will remain the same size, only centered.
| Setup | Resolution | Pixel scaling | Requires mod |
|---|---|---|---|
| Originals | Fixed | no | no |
| GemRB 0.8.7 | Fixed | optional | no |
| GemRB 0.9.0+ | Arbitrary | optional | no |
| Widescreen | Arbitrary | no | yes |
So feel free to run at any resolution and if you’re discontent with the GUI, consider installing the widescreen mod and bigger fonts.
If you’re using scaling, you can change the type of interpolation used with the ScaleQuality configuration
key. It defaults to “best”, but if you want a sharper image, “nearest” is a better choice.
Confused? Watch this video explainer.