GemRB Game Engine / News: Recent posts

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

As a year's worth of work this release brings a bunch of improvements. Players will notice
pathfinder speed optimizations, better sound logic, chunking and plenty of polishing.
Non-English player woes have been fully laid to rest, with any combination of game, system
and filesystem encoding properly taken into account.

Sources and packages are available. You can get them from here.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new major release.

It brings in many improvements for Planescape: Torment, configurable AI speed, improved performance and others. Notably GemRB now also
supports PVR(Z) based formats, making content creation easier, most new opcodes/actions/triggers and together with some infrastructural changes,
BG2EE games can now be loaded (still not playable though!).

Sources and packages are available. You can get them from here.... read more

GemRB 0.9.1 released!

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

It features loads of improvements in core game systems, making Icewind Dale II almost completable, but also in the rest of the engine. Among other things this means further improved speed, better unicode support and deprecation of Python 2 support. As usual the release also comes with many smaller features, bug fixes, polishing and code cleanups.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new major release.

Over six years in the making, growing in scope with time, the subviews branch
was a true monster. But the quest to lay it to rest has now been successfully
completed, among other things modernizing the GUI, drawing and input handling. For most use cases, there is no need for the Widescreen mod any more.

The SDL2 backend is now mature and default, OpenGL support is not experimental
any more, most benefiting Mac users. Additionally, in the last minutes between
the merge and this release, Python 3 support was added and our demo
received an ending.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

This release features improvements in several areas, with no new major subsystems. You might be thinking: "What's this, weren't we promised subviews?!" and the answer to that is: yes! Stay tuned for another release in the following days as we integrate the branch back and do some final retesting.

Currently only the sources and some packages are available. You can get them from https://gemrb.org/Install... read more

The GemRB team announces the availability of GemRB 0.8.7, a new minor release to kick off a week of celebrations of the project’s founding anniversary. 20 years ago, on the 21st of August, the project initiator Daniele Colantoni registered it on SourceForge to try to make it a team effort. Many things have happened since, the path was convoluted and bumpy, but GemRB has continued to grow throughout the years.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

The new release brings over 500 changes manifested as bugfixes, smaller features, cleanups and an improved setup experience. More than that, it introduces a new smarter pathfinder with bumping support and other movement related improvements. At the same time work continued on the drawing and GUI handling rewrite — stay tuned for a deeper dive later this week. With this anniversary release out of the way, finishing that rewrite is again our main priority.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

Two years in the making, this release is as full of fixes and polishing as Tiax is of himself. The most noticeable changes are for BG1 players, since it lacked more audio mechanics than any other game, but all the rest received ample attention as well. Modding is now also easier, but you'll have to wait for the next WeiDU release. The pathfinder upgrade was delayed, but you can expect a state-of-the-art version in the next release, which will focus on finishing the GUI handling rewrite. You can help us get there faster: https://github.com/gemrb/gemrb/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md)... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

It has been a while since our last release, but plenty of goodies have landed since. This release brings a slew of minor features and fixes, of which a select few are mentioned below. Of those that aren't, a last minute AttackReevaluate fix stands out, since that action is used all the time in AI scripts.

Wait a minute, but where's the promised return of biography editing, you may exclaim. That branch is very much still alive and being worked on, with more than 1000 extra changes. The rewrite just spiralled out of control. Interested users can take a peek at the subviews branch.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new "minor" release.

With a slight delay of several months, we bring you the first release where you can finish PST! To make it even sweeter, iwd2 levelup was implemented along with a score of related bits and pieces. Of course it also includes an assorted array of fixes and tweaks benefiting other games too.

Full changelog digest:

GemRB v0.8.4 (2016-02-29):
New features:
- pst should be roughly completable
- iwd2 level-up, concealment, hardcoded clabs, tracking
- ToBEx simplified "concentration" option, spontaneous casting for everyone
- bg1, iwd2, (pst) casting sounds

Improved features:
- iwd2 spells (shapes, songs, crossclass mixing, learning), action bar
- lots of pst details and annoyances
- stores, dialogs, scripts, iwd and pst effects
- bugfixes

GemRB 0.8.3 released! ()

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new sweet release.

The text subsystem rewrite that was merged right after the previous release took a lot of effort to stabilize (some kinks remain), but is now mostly complete. As with most under-the-hood work, only dedicated users would spot a difference. More obvious is the support for parties larger than 6 in combination with the 10pp mod (to fix the data). The rest of our mods were also fully converted to WeiDU for simpler installation. On top of that, the usual hundreds of fixes and polishes that should make this one of our best releases yet!... read more

GemRB 0.8.1 released!

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

After a slow year, this release brings several improvements to iwd2 and pst compatibility (thanks chiv!) and the usual assortment of fixes and small
features all around the place.

More notably, two experimental OpenGL renderers are now included thanks to Beholder.
While they are not ready for prime time yet, they are already usable. Some extra changes need to happen first for them to offer a comparably lower resource footprint, but that work is already underway. Until then, the plugin will remain disabled by default on all platforms. Building GemRB from source is required for any brave souls that would like to try it.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new major release.

It is a mix of new engine features, painstaking BG1 polishing, much improved IWD2/3ed support and hundreds of miscellaneus fixes. Almost a thousand revisions have been made since the previous release, so the following changelog does it no justice:

GemRB v0.8.0:
New features:
- iwd2: Chapter 0+1 completable, full spellbook and ECL support
- multibyte font support (chinese, korean, japanese)
- favourite weapon/spell tracking, bg1 dreams
- most gemrb overrides were moved and are now moddable via game override
- initial bundled gemrb demo stubs... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

The biggest novelty is a cleanup of the ingame configuration guis and the ability to save the configuration back to the disk. It is written to the GameDir or if that is unwritable, to the SavePath as gem-baldur.ini (or equivalent). *All* subsequent reading and writing will be done with that file, so changing the original will have *no effect on GemRB*.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

It has been a good half year since the last release, but we were not slacking off the whole time. While the android SDL2 situation is still unfavourable, the engine continues to mature. This time much of the effort was spent in adding missing iwd2 functionality like feats and subtle rule differences. Besides the usual cohort of bugfixes, this release also brings automatic logging to a GemRB.log file (under GamePath, CachePath, /tmp or none in that order) and a VLC plugin for the few unlucky players with game video in non-MVE/BIK format.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new release.

After many years of wading through hordes of bugs and Myconids, we can finally say that the Baldur's Gate saga is playable from start to end in GemRB!
We now support custom (vector) fonts, which can make dialogs much more easy to read on very small/big displays and has great i18n potential. There have also been other mobile device oriented improvements and the usual huge array of hard-to-categorize new minifeatures and bugfixes.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

There were two main areas of focus, spellcasting and input. Casting is now properly difficult and time consuming, while in the input area there were many fixes for multitouch and keyboard shortcuts. On top of that this release brings the usual assortment of random features, bugfixes and internal cleanups.

Currently only the sources and some packages are available. You can get them from [url=http://gemrb.org/wiki/doku.php?id=download]here[/url].... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

In it you will find a wide assortment of important and less important fixes and additions making the games more playable and truer to their origins. For the details, try GemRB yourself or check the changelog below for some highlights.

Currently the sources are available and a windows build just a few revisions before the release.

Full changelog digest:... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

Since the last release was several months ago, this one brings both a bunch of bugfixes and some new noteworthy features. A lot of work has gone into unhardcoding the Planescape projectiles and the Modron maze, but there are still some big roadblocks on the way to make PST work properly. Then there was an assortment of improvements to spellcasting, implementing various casting failures and wild magic.
There were also a few usability improvements - the game type can now be autodetected and the free BG2 demo can be used to try GemRB without installing any of the full games. This is also the first release with the Android port included.... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new (minor) release.

While hardly the biggest changes, the main highlights are the worldmap and action handling improvements that make HoW playable. All the stores and temples now function properly, while in BG2 users are more likely to notice that summons now have full actionbars of their own - spellcasting summons and illusions are not useless anymore. Also noticable are the sound improvements (no more death sounds on load) and the much less buggy sparkle graphics.... read more

10th anniversary of GemRB and the 0.6.2 release!

Exactly ten years ago, the project was registered on SourceForge. Over the years this enabled multiple people to contribute, track bugs and host releases. Started by a single coder who has since moved on to other things, it is now developed by a healthy team of IE fans. To celebrate this anniversary, a new release was made. While it is minor by number, a lot of annoying bugs were fixed since 0.6.1!... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new minor release.

Much of the work has gone into restructuring and cleanup, but we still managed to squeeze in some new features.

Currently only the sources are available.

Full changelog digest:
GemRB V0.6.1 (2010-06-16):
New features:
- a minimal dataset
- reputation penalties on death or injury
- casting level bonus/malus (wild mages, clerics)
- tinting for different times of the day and weather effects
- a BI(n)K player plugin for the IWD2 movies
- new actions, turn undead... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new major release. A lot of work has been done in various parts of the codebase, but the highlight is the ability to play through the entire bg1 and iwd!

Currently only the sources are available.

Full changelog digest:
GemRB V0.6.0 (2009-11-03):
New features:
- BG1 and IWD are roughly completable!
- levelup support for bg1 and iwd, dream cutscenes in ToB
- more hardcoded projectiles and avatar animations
- evasion, backstabbing and basic hide in shadows
- compatibility with the widescreen mod (unreleased) allows for multiple
custom resolutions
- contingency and sequencer spells, beginnings of wild magic support... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new "minor" release. A lot more work has been done on projectiles, the scripting system, effects and combat. Combined with the numerous bugfixes, this enabled the first rough, but hackless BG2:SoA runthrough!

Currently only the sources are available.

Full changelog digest:
New features:
- BG2:SoA is roughly completable!
- almost all missing IE's hardcoded projectiles, spell hit projectiles,
projectile trails, projectile failure (spell), projectile effectlists
- auto-reloading of projectile weapons in case the ammo stack runs out
- damage resistance
- sorcerer style spellbooks, reading of iwd2 spellbooks
- target following to other areas
- the null sound plugin is now always loaded last by default; for old
installs see the provided configuration example (DelayPlugin)
- intelligence and wisdom dictated lore bonus
- a GUIEnhancements config option (on by default) that enables a few
extra controls (for convenience and larger mods)
- PST death counters (don't anger the Lady)
- initial support for targetting by portrait... read more

The GemRB team is proud to announce a new major release. The berserking development rage still hasn't ended and only a month since the last release a few important milestones have been reached. Combat and various actions are now much improved, many of the projectiles that were hardcoded in the IE now work, time is handled better ... Coupled with a bunch of other bugfixes and new features this means that now a few of the games are roughly playable beyond their starting areas!... read more