## Introduction

In a nutshell, Infinity Sounds is a mod for Baldur's Gate II that aims to improve many sonic aspects of the game. The mod allows you to, e.g., restore all the classic Baldur's Gate sounds, remedy a lot of audio-related issues, overhaul creature sounds, revive EAX support, recover unused voiceovers, and tweak NPC soundsets.

## Supported games

The following games are currently supported:

- Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
- Baldur's Gate Trilogy
- Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
- Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
- Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
- Enhanced Edition Trilogy

## Requirements

For the original edition of Baldur's Gate II, the following game engine extenders must be installed before Infinity Sounds for several key components to work:

- TobEx
- TobEx AfterLife

## Compatibility

If possible, try to install this mod last before biffing. Infinity Sounds does not add any new game content or change any of the game rules; therefore, it will most likely not benefit from patches introduced by other mods. If other mods require the same, choose the most convenient order for quick uninstallation of components.

If you intend to use Lolfixer, install it before Infinity Sounds.

In any case, try to avoid installing Infinity Sounds before mods that overwrite, add, or modify: spells, items, or creatures.

## Suggested mods

Below is a list of recommended mods that offer audio-related fixes, tweaks, or content restorations. Generally, install any of these mods before Infinity Sounds. Consult the respective readme files for the exact installation order.

- BG2 Fixpack corrects or restores a number of sounds and voiceovers.
- Almateria's Restoration Project restores missing sounds to many NPCs.
- Nostalgia Pack puts the BG back into BG:EE.
- AC's Miscellaneous Tweaks ports BG:EE, BG2:EE, and SoD soundsets to other BG games.
- Baldur's Gate Voice Pack for EE adds BG1 soundsets to EE games.

## Installation

Infinity Sounds is a WeiDU mod packaged in a ZIP archive. First, extract the contents of the archive into your game directory.

Then, run setup-infinitysounds.exe (Windows), setup-infinitysounds.command (macOS), or setup-infinitysounds.sh (Linux), and follow the on-screen instructions.

To uninstall or change components, run the setup file again and follow the prompts.

## Components

Infinity Sounds includes a total of twenty distinct components. Please read each description carefully before installing.

### Restore BG1 Spellcasting Voices

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

This component replaces the default Latin spell recitation with the sinister and ritualistic incantations from the original edition of BG1.

All the restored sound files have been cleaned of audible compression artifacts or distortion.

### Restore BG1 Spellcasting Sounds

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

First and foremost, this component restores all the classic sounds from the original edition of BG1 to the appropriate spells. Additionally, it brings more consistency to many spells that use sounds reserved for other spellcasting schools.

### Restore BG1 Weapon Sounds

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

Most of the weapon swings and shots in BG2 sound much different than in the prequel. Flails, spears, bows, and crossbows are prime examples here. This component restores all the combat attack sounds from BG1.

Included are tweaked bow draw and release sounds that match the speed of the combat animations slightly better.

### Restore BG1 Armor Sounds

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

Much in a similar fashion as the above, this component replaces the default combat hit sounds with their BG1 counterparts. The former tend to be a bit more abrupt, while the latter have more emphasized clashes and thumps.

This component also includes the leather squeaks and metal clanks as characters move around in armor. The BG1 variants are slightly less pronounced and more realistic. Additionally, the leather armor sounds have been attenuated a little to make them easier on the ear.

### Restore BG1 GUI Sounds

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

For the most part, these are very similar; however, some players may wish to restore the original BG1 sounds for the UI panels, inventory management, and tooltip paper. The most noticeable difference is that the BG2 inventory variants have an additional rattle.

### Restore BG1 PC Soundsets

BG2 English

This component allows you to select the original BG1 soundsets for your custom characters.

### Restore Gulp Sound

BG2 BG:EE SoD

In the original BG2 and BG:EE, potions lost one of the sound effects. This restores the memorable sound played when a character drinks a potion.

### Restore Chunked Death Sound

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

If you enable gore in the game options, you will see a special death animation when HP go well below zero; however, the related "chunking" sound present in the original edition of BG1 is missing in the sequel and the EEs. This component reintroduces the original chunked death sound.

### Tweak Sound Channel Volume Levels

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

These are not to be confused with the volume sliders in the game options. The sound channels are divided into: narration, ambients, actions, swings, missiles, hits, casting, GUI, dialog, characters, monsters, footsteps, and armor movement. The suggested tweaked variant attempts to balance the levels between BG1 and BG2.

### Enable Footsteps During Combat

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

Due to a bug, the game engine always disables footsteps during combat, regardless of the `Disable Footsteps During Combat=0` setting available in the configuration files. This is because the key was misspelled in the executable as `Disable Foot Steps During Combat`. This component adds the misspelled key to the configuration files so the game can finally recognize it and play the sounds.

### Mute Reputation Change Sounds

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

This component disables the punishing sound that blares out on reputation loss and the fanfare trumpet on reputation gain.

### Mute Tooltip Paper Sound

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

This is for players who would prefer to disable the paper-like sound played when tooltips roll out on the screen.

### Restore BG1 Ambient Sounds

BGT BG:EE EET

This component adds a rooster crow and an additional horse whinny to the appropriate BG1 areas. It also restores an unused main day ambient to the fishing village area, which matches the rural environment a little better.

### Restore Environmental & Positional Audio

BG2 BGT

The original edition of BG2 utilized the now-deprecated DirectSound3D and EAX 2.0 for hardware-accelerated audio positioning and sound effects (e.g., reverb and occlusion). Thanks to DSOAL, this component revives environmental and positional audio in the classic BG2, without the need for legacy hardware or drivers.

Advanced users may tweak the settings in alsoft.ini located in the game directory.

DSOAL currently does not support EAX 2.0 occlusion effects in BG2, which, in this particular game, are supposed to muffle sounds farther away from the center of the screen. As a result, some sounds will not be processed correctly and may seem to blare at a distance.

Some players experience crashes on game launch with this component installed. Sadly, certain combinations of Windows versions and system configuration may prevent the use of wrappers like DSOAL. Please report any issues so the sources of the crashes can be investigated further.

### Enhance Positional Audio

BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET

While the EEs do not support EAX, positional audio still works through OpenAL, the default API. Unfortunately, due to the lack of configurability, many find the listening experience inadequate, especially with headphones. This is mostly because of the exaggerated panning that splits sounds into either the left or right channel.

This component adds the configurable software implementation of the API, OpenAL Soft, with crossfeed filters enabled to mitigate the channel separation.

Advanced users may tweak the settings in alsoft.ini located in the game directory.

Only the Windows binaries could be provided. Advanced macOS and Linux users can try to build, install, and configure OpenAL Soft following the official instructions.

### Restore & Tweak Soundsets

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET Requires TobEx and TobEx AfterLife

The biggest component of Infinity Sounds attempts to solve many audio-related issues with creatures. Its main goal is to overhaul monster, animal, atmosphere, and NPC soundsets. This includes, e.g., restoring missing sounds and dialogue lines, revamping attack sounds, as well as refining both embedded creature and animation soundsets.

Here are some of the highlights:

- Completely restored BG1, BG2, and IWD soundsets that previously suffered from animation or filename conflicts.
- Restored numerous creature sounds: melee, ranged, battle cry, selection, damage, dying, stand, morale, existence, etc.
- Properly matched attack sound alternatives without "silent attacks" or overlapping sounds.
- Synchronized attack sounds with attack animation frames.
- Restored many NPC lines and sounds: morale, battle cry, damage, dying, selection, rare, etc.
- Addressed a lot of minor soundset inconsistencies.

The game engine fixes provided by TobEx AfterLife for the classic BG2 allow this component to reach its full potential. BG:EE and BG2:EE (patch version 2.6) still suffer from several game engine bugs that make this component less effective. The bugs have been reported to the developers and, hopefully, will be fixed in the future.

### More Existence Sounds

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET Requires Restore & Tweak Soundsets

Misspelled in the game as "existance" sounds, these are also known as creature "idle" sounds and are played at random intervals, effectively acting as mobile ambients. While the component above only restores such sounds to some creatures, this one offers more existence sounds to many additional monsters, animals, and NPCs. The new sounds have been carefully selected from the available audio resources.

### Tweak Existence Sound Delay

BG2 BGT BG:EE SoD BG2:EE EET Requires Restore & Tweak Soundsets

In BG2, the default interval between existence sounds is much longer than in the prequel, which takes away from the experience. This component sets the delay range to the closest matching the original BG1 behavior. Some creatures will use different values to prevent a cacophony.

### Restore NPC Voiceovers

BG2 BGT BG2:EE EET English French German Polish Russian

This component restores minor unused voiceovers found in the game files. You will be able to hear them during dialogues with, e.g., Bodhi, Gaelan Bayle, Edwin, Keldorn, Anomen, Sarevok, Rielev, Nyalee, and several more. Some of the restored audio files have been edited where necessary to match the existing dialogue text. (This part of the component is English only.)

Additionally, over a hundred unused minor NPC lines and sounds have been restored, complete with subtitles: morale, battle cry, damage, dying, selection, etc. This includes Chief Inspector Brega, Cor Delryn, Dermin Courtierdale, Gaal, Goldander Blackenrock, Guardian Telwyn, Guildmistress Busya, Isaea Roenali, Lathan, Lehtinan, Logan Coprith, Lord Jierdan, Terminsel, and more.

### Additional NPC Voiceovers (by Salk)

BG2 BGT BG2:EE EET English

While examining the dialogue files, Salk discovered that some character lines were clearly intended to be voiced, and hired artists to record the missing voiceovers. The characters in question are: Captain Samand, Countess Santele, and Mateo (all three met during a side quest in Saradush). Salk kindly offered the voiceovers to be part of this mod.

## Credits

### Infinity Sounds authors

- skellytz
- Tash

### Contributors

- Salk – component Additional NPC Voiceovers
- Selphira – French setup prompts and subtitles translation for Restore NPC Voiceovers
- Ychap – German voiceover transcription for Restore NPC Voiceovers
- yota13 – Russian subtitles translation for Restore NPC Voiceovers

### Voiceover artists

- @alfonsogiansa – Captain Samand
- @livingsamantha – Countess Santele
- @slipstreamer – Mateo

### Special thanks

- Andrea C. for extensive beta-testing, bug reports, and tons of invaluable feedback.
- Insomniator for receiving the suggestions and adding the requested features to TobEx AfterLife.
- Salk for testing since the earliest version, hiring the voiceover artists, and offering the additional voiceovers to be part of this mod.
- Everyone from Spellhold Studios, The Gibberlings Three, Pocket Plane Group, The Black Wyrm's Lair, and other modding communities for keeping the Infinity Engine running.

### Tools used

- Audacity
- Community Filename Prefix Reservations
- Cross-Platform Modding Variables
- DSOAL
- iconv
- IESDP
- Near Infinity
- OpenAL Soft
- WeiDU
- WeiDU Syntax Highlighters for Notepad++

## Version history

### 2.2(9 July 2025)

- Restore NPC Voiceovers: French subtitles translation (thanks to Selphira)
- More Existence Sounds: added existence sounds to gibberlings
- Tweak Existence Sound Delay: adjusted the custom delay values
- Updated DSOAL to r661 and OpenAL Soft to r9950

### 2.1(29 June 2025)

- New component: Enhance Positional Audio
- Restore NPC Voiceovers:
  - German voiceover transcription (thanks to Ychap)
  - Russian subtitles translation (thanks to yota13)
  - Polish voiceover transcription
  - Restored Aerie's minor unused voiceover (thanks to Ychap)
- Tweak Sound Channel Volume Levels:
  - Disabled the hardcoded volume variation of armor movement sounds
  - Attenuated footsteps and armor movement sounds
- Restore BG1 Spellcasting Sounds: restricted the BG1 variant of eff_m10.wav to Dispel Magic and Remove Magic
- Tweak Existence Sound Delay: increased the existence sound delay of several creature types
- Restore & Tweak Soundsets: amplified the walking sounds of ghouls, wolves, and dogs
- Support for translations with UTF-8 character encoding
- Compatibility with BG2 Fixpack component EE-Style GTU
- Updated DSOAL to r659 and OpenAL Soft to r9933
- Repackaged with Windows, macOS, and Linux installers in a single ZIP archive (thanks to Argent77)

### 2.0.1(22 October 2023)

- Restore Gulp Sound: restored the gulp sound when using potions in BG:EE (thanks to Parys)
- Restore & Tweak Soundsets: added rare selection soundset slots compatible with EET (thanks to Graion Dilach)
- Restore BG1 PC Soundsets: prevented the installation of the legacy soundsets on EE games (thanks to Graion Dilach)
- Moved the restored NPC sounds with added subtitles from Restore & Tweak Soundsets to Restore NPC Voiceovers

### 2.0(17 August 2023)

- New components:
  - Tweak Sound Channel Volume Levels
  - Enable Footsteps During Combat
  - Restore BG1 Ambient Sounds
  - Restore Environmental & Positional Audio
  - Restore & Tweak Soundsets
  - More Existence Sounds
  - Tweak Existence Sound Delay
  - Restore NPC Voiceovers
  - Additional NPC Voiceovers (by Salk)
- Support for BG:EE, SoD, BG2:EE, and EET
- Support for Project Infinity