As the title says. I severely dislike having to make accounts for every game publisher that wants to send me advertisements, collect data or whatever.
It’s usually an instant dealbreaker for me at this point
Publishers needing their own launcher already puts them on shaky grounds with me.
But I really liked the original BG 1 & 2, so I’m willing to not just refund it immediately and actually ask around first for solutions.
If you’re using Steam (or any kind of shortcut I suppose), add --skip-launcher to the launch options. Here’s how to do so with Steam:
- Right-click the game in your library and select Properties.
- Look for the Launch Options field at the bottom of the General tab.
- Add “–skip-launcher” and close the properties window.
- Launch the game as normal.
Thank you for the step-by-step. Steam can be a bit of a maze when you don’t fiddle with these things so often. :)
Edit: Apparently it’s " --skip-launcher" the extra dash matters XD
In future, drop by the PC Gaming Wiki first - it’s a great resource for exactly this kind of question.
The Launcher bit was a helpful add-in by a another kind user. I didn’t ask about that specifically, just mentioned that I dislike extra launchers.
My question was far more stupid than that. However, people came through for me regardless. And very fast at that. And for that, I am thankful.
I wish all these games had skippable launchers, i refuse to touch any game that needs a launcher beyond Steam
Thank you for the info on this, will be using it going forward.
Not sure if you did this on purpose, or if something else did it as part of editing, but your bulleted steps included an en dash (–) instead of two short dashes (–).
Have had issues in the past with that, generally with WYSIWYG type editors combining your – into either – or —.
Ugh word does this. I didn’t realize until I wrote some documentation for a cli tool I made for a client and I wrote the documentation in word because they are fairly non technical so I wrote in the documentation sample arguments they can copy and paste and shipped it feeling good that it would work flawlessly because I tested the crap out of it. Or so I thought because they immediately hit back with it doesn’t work. I spent hours recreating their environment and watching it work no matter what I tried to get it to not work. Then I hopped on a call and had the client step by step show me what they did and they opened the word doc and copied the example commands, changed the arguments to be correct and run it. I followed along on my own machine and then I fucking saw what had happened. Fucking Microsoft Word replaced my " " with “ ” (straight quotes for smart quotes for those who cant see the difference). A quick patch of the cli to properly parse those and things were working again.
Copying out of MS products always seems to leave junk behind. The worst one is the zero-width space (unicode U+200B or hex e2808b) . Sharepoint loves to scatter these all over so any copy from a sharepoint source has to be put in a plain text editor and have a run through with a regex to find any invisible formatting characters.
I typed them directly into my comment from an Android phone, and it continues to display as two hyphens/minuses for me. Are you it’s not your client trying to be clever?
Does it launch with directx or Vulcan when you do this?
You can also make it launch the Vulkan version with skipping the launcher. Seehttps://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/
If anyone happens to be playing on Steam Deck (or any Linux desktop), the launch options are slightly different:
-
DX11 no launcher: –skip-launcher
-
Vulkan no launcher: bash -c ‘exec “${@/bin/bg3.exe}”’ – %command% --skip-launcher
Though for this particular title, the Vulkan one is really crashy on my system rn, which is ironic since the DX11 shaders are converted to Vulkan on Linux.
On my system dx11 crashes right away, so vk it is…
Larian themselves warn that Vulkan should be the least stable of the two options at the moment. That said, I’ve heard tons of conflicting reports, so it may be super dependent on specific hardware.
Ironically, with the final (not the pre-purchase) release it’s the other way around. Vulcan crashes after the airship cinematic… (I’m also on Linux)
-
directx is the default and you must apply another switch to start with vulkan https://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/
You can start the exe you want directly from the directory, there’s one for each renderer: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Baldur’s_Gate_3#Skip_Larian_launcher_on_startup
For me it chose direct x so I had to use the launcher. Vulcan is much better for me (just be sure to not use triple buffer for nvidia cards). Just choose skip and check the box that says ‘do not ask again’ and the launcher is less aggravating.
What differences do you see when you use Vulcan? And what’s the deal with triple buffering?
Triple buffering basically means that the GPU can temporarily store frames in three different locations in VRAM. This has implications for smoothness and frame time, so it should in theory always be the best option for v-sync and avoiding tearing.
Vulcan should be more efficient so you should get somewhat better performance, though my understanding is it depends on card (AMD cards are kind of designed for Vulkan, but not so much nvidia cards).
My experience is that the directx reflections and post processing look worse. Triple buffering on was causing screen tears.
vulkan is more efficient on AMD than directx, as I understand it.
When Vulcan worked for me it used less Vram, then dx11 does now on linux.
It looks like the following should work (from one of the links above)
Not to sound like a dick, but how does this have so many upvotes? There’s a button to skip it and never ask again right there.
It’s lemmy, we hate anything regarding accounts, privacy and the corpos man!!
Yeaaah, also f*ck sync D:< /s
Posted from Sync
Apparently others also found the advice helpful.
yeah thanks for posting this. super helpful to learn i can skip the launcher entirely.
lemmy saw an opportunity to hate on something and started roaming at the mouth
Select the “continue without login” option
I am an idiot. I didn’t click to the next page after it suggested I make an account.
I just close down the launcher immediately.
nah, asking the question still gave us the ‘skip launcher’ instructions, so this is a win!
Thanks for making me feel slightly better about it. ;)
I had the same issue. Feels a bit shady to make people click Get Started anyway, but at least the launcher is skippable entirely.
I’ve just kinda gotten used to there not being an easy way around it. Hence my ‘Going Straight to the Forums’ reaction.
i didn’t see that option anywhere. Gimme a sec, I’ll check again
Oh, are we starting the reddit tradition of making no effort at all and just immediately asking the community for help instead?
Great.
I can certainly see we’re keeping the reddit-tradition of being an angry little muppet at any given opportunity alive.
Yes, I asked a public forum for help about something I didn’t know. And they came through for me, more so than I would have expected.
You can go back to being angry elsewhere now. Shoo…
You could have just… LOOKED. I’ve got no problem when its a question with more nuance than a google search can answer easily, or if its an opinion based question, but all I ask is people just TRY before making a post somewhere when the answer is so simple.
And you didn’t even have to click on my shitty post as it already had (SOLVED) in the title
Because I want you to do better next time.
Oi. You two. Take it easy hey.
Sorry dad.
It literally says “Skip” right underneath the thing you’re complaining about. If you’d taken the time to look at the screen, you’d have seen it itself.
Some people have bad eyesight. Some people have been deeply trained by the modern web to ignore most of what’s on the page (most of it being ads or other bullshit). Some people make mistakes.
Have some patience and kindness.
And to those who wont be patient or kind, just know that the next time the self-checkout machine yells at you and the cashier has to come scan their badge and gives you grief, you deserve it. Can’t you just use the machine correctly!?!
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Before that, there’s just a button that says “Get Started!” Right underneath the sentence “Sigh up for a Larian Account.” Otherwise the launcher was blank.
I mistook that as being a forced sign-up, as with some many other games nowadays.
Also, I’m not complaining about anything. I was looking for advise as there seldomly are easy, search-engine friendly, solutions to forced sigh-ups.
If you’d taken the time to read through the comments, you might have gleaned the context for yourself. But since you took the time to click on a (SOLVED)-post and then write the same message the guy before did, I felt compelled to spell it all out. Just for you.
Just hit skip, dumbass
No need for name calling. Everyone gets frustrated and misses things.
Agreed. If you have a point, make it. No need to be rude about it.
Don’t gotta be rude. Let’s be better than that
Removed by mod
No. Are you just here to be an ass?
Yes
It’s the entire reason I have Internet access
You can also go to the installation folder and find the bin folder and create a direct shortcut to bg3_dx11.exe to skip the launcher entirely.
I’ll never understand why publishers really need to add a launcher after launcher
I think they probably need you to use their account in order to allow cross-play coop.
At the very least it gives them a way to potentislly contact you with offers. Corporate people probably also think it makes you more likely to get another title from the same publisher, though depending on the launcher I think it’s actually the reverse.
Is it though? Lots of people don’t have the same mindset and welcome things like newsletters and ads. Something like 70% of web clients don’t use adblockers.
Thank you so much. I’ll do that.
I’ve also seen folks mention adding a
--skip-launcheroption to your launch options to achieve the same
But do you really wanna miss out on those sweet Twitch drops? /s
Also it’s tied to their cross save functionality.
Cross save would be great if we didn’t have to pay again to play on different platforms. Until then, cross-save is a “feature” that looks good on paper but it effectively worthless in practice.
Yeah. It was legit useful for Divinity OS2, as the switch legit couldn’t handle a game where you did everything, picked up PC version from a steam sale and finished the save.
then id first need to make a twitch account
I know people don’t like to create accounts, but Larian seems to be doing fine when I created the vault account(for their prior kickstarter redeem etc.) It doesn’t work with launcher and I contact support to then know they have a new system so they can link steam/twitch/gog for their game specific feature(cross save and twitch integration). So if you ever want to do a session in the future using the twitch integration, you would have to register account to be able to link and use that. It lets viewer check character build/inventory and quest logs, so you can have like 3 viewer like your buddy playing together while you control the choice, your buddy can vote for decision making or direct their character’s combat choice. At worst you can be the only viewer to your stream and just use it as a 2nd screen to have over view of character build or inventory.
example screenshot of twitch integration
Indeed. But I have no intention of linking anything up with Twitch, or any other streaming service for that matter.
I just want the games I buy to launch when I press play. No sign-ups, no extra launchers popping up. Just the game I bought, that’s all. :)
OP is concerned about their privacy, rightfully so. Them requiring you to make an online account after you have purchased the game is entirely unjustified. They could already tie information to the account with which you purchased a licence.
Connecting Twitch and whatnot would work against your privacy: even if Larian does not do anything bad, they will share data with these connected accounts.
Yep I understand those and just saying the obvious reason why one might want to create account, and you can skip or disable launcher entirely as mentioned in this thread.
Cross save( especially between consoles<->PC ) requires linking accounts, Larian disabled it now because of a hotfix bug since PS5 version is not released yet and causing PC player issues.
And I honestly don’t know what kind of threat Twitch has over your privacy on a fresh Larian account. See here is a brief breakdown what they can see:
- Larian: they now know I have a twitch account, potentially my twitch account’s email address.
- Twitch: they now know I have BG3, on top of Rocket League and some games I used too stream with a friend. And I am on that garbage tier cause the account is a burner(to sign up stuff that might get spam mails), I never spent a dime on twitch, my user experience data is probably worst since I only go straight to the channel I want to get drops with and never “browse the recommendation”. BG3 I had to go to the game’s page and click on the drop enabled one then afk for 2 hours then I just close it.
So unless there is some secret tech I am not aware of, please do let me know why and what else might be shared that have threat to my personal info/privacy.
There are more to this than an email account.
Larian has access to your game saves, and so if they wanted they could deduce your play style and so parts of your personality from it, things which are useful for targeted ads and other things.
If you say Larian can be trusted, this is probably not much of a concern, I mention this only because of Twitch. Twitch relies on data mining, and if Larian analyzed your saves for things like above, they they would have things to trade. But I have no idea about BD3, maybe they know more significant things than that.With Twitch, it’s a little different.
First, they obviously (because they have personal recommendations) collect information on your interests, like what content do you prefer, but as you said this does not apply to you.
However Twitch also has several mechanisms for getting you to give up your phone number or email address: they don’t support standard time based 2FA authentication, instead they can only send codes in SMS or email, and 2FA is required if you want to stream (even only once) or get your own API key to be use for archiving programs and such using the twitch API.
The problem is not actually connecting Twitch with your Larian account, it is connecting it with anything at all, and if the other connected account also does data mining then it’s even worse, because if the collected information gets to Twitch, they will probably be able to tie it to a real world identity (like a phone number, payment account, or a honest primary email address (that may even include your real name)), but also some history on how easy is it to get you to spend money, or just how easy it is to get your attention, and then pass it all off as something even more valuable to “business partners”.Also, I’m not actually sure if Twitch would bother with support for connecting accounts of services from which they can’t extract much value.
So my main point is that I don’t know about Larian, but Twitch is only in it to gain something from it, and they would scoop up whatever Larian makes available.
I am pretty sure they can’t give information to 3rd party other than the necessary part since they are EU based. And usually when you link account, it’s where you started the linking asking information from the target platform. In this case it’s Larian asking Twitch for auth so that a Twitch user is linked to a Larian account so they can access your viewing time and distribute the drop. (No, you don’t need to link if you are just viewer and not wanting the drop, it’s the streamer needs to the twitch integration like the voting extension, etc. I still have mine disabled. ) It’s usually outlined when you try to link and it will show what’s requested during the linking process.
Maybe I am not really careful from your perspective, but I have like 5 gmail/yahoo/proton email accounts that does different things depending on the information I want to share with the registered site. Didn’t go crazy like some one site per e-mail account, but it’s sufficiently safe over the years. I have never had a data breach/account stolen with my practice so far. (or getting unwanted emails on my banking/work related account.)
As for hiding my identity entirely from internet it’s probably a bit too late to the big corps cause stupid me registered a FB like every “dumb fucks” that did, oh, and google too when I do business with them.
Just to let you know, while you are adding to the conversation in some ways, in many ways you are distracting from it. I know you likely have good intentions, but you have pivoted completely away from the original ask and are muddying the waters of the conversation a little with the additional input in the complete opposite direction.
The twitch integration may have nice features but the OP, myself, and likely many others don’t care and just want to play our game in peace without constant studio specific launchers and accounts and etc. Bringing twitch integration up makes now us focus on that as the discussion point rather than the clearly user antagonistic features such as lack of a button to skip creating an account.
I only created this after so many post of “I don’t know why Larian would need to put up a launcher and ask for an account”. It’s to show what it actually do and why they needed it. And of course the user can just go with other higher voted comment thread. I think it is a legit reason and usage to ask you to create account and using the feature they provided, and it’s also totally fine that you don’t. (I didn’t created an account when I was checking back and forth with Larian support about the vault account I used to use for their website. I just skip and play EA as always until like 4~5 days later a guy explained this new account situation. I created account like 1 day before launch since I want to get the twitch drop.)
