Game can't see my saves after changing compatibility mode from Windows 8 to Windows 95

[anferFFmax]

After a series of long overdue Windows 8.1 updates. The game started to lag nastily. I searched online and it seems the game is having a hard time running with Intel CPUs for some people and apparently I just joined that club. Strange, since it was running just fine on this comp for years. But the solutions I found was to change the game's compatibility mode to Windows 95 for the Baldurs.exe in the game's istallation folder, which I did and it fixed the problem, the game now runs smoothly and nicely. However, the game can't see ANY of my saves after doing that, neither does it see the custom portraits. It was as if the game is no longer seeing or recognizing any of the info in the Baldur's Gate folder in "My Documents" folder. Baffled by this I created a new game and saved it. Went back to the BG saves folders in My Documents and the new save wasn't there. When I fired up the game again, the game can see the new save but still none of the old ones. Changed the compatibility mode back to Windows 8 and the lag returned, and I can see the old saves, however it won't see the new save I made as a test.

So clearly the game seems to store your saves in a different folder if you set the compatibility mode to Windows 95. Which folder is it? I check the game's main installation folder in the Steamapps folder and found nothing. Any help would be appreciated on this issue. I got over 100 hours of gameplay across multiple Playthroughs that are compromised because of this. It's very irritating, since now I have to chose between Windows 8 compatibility mode to access my old saves and play at an unplayable frame rate, or start the whole thing new and continue on without even knowing where the saves are stored on Windows 95 compatibility mode.

[anferFFmax]

Update.

I unistalled the game and re-installed it, and the problem persisted. Then it hit me to re-install the game again, but this time delete the old Lua file thus forcing the game to create a new one upon playing the newly installed game. It worked! My old saves are there, and the portraits are now visible and the game runs normaly. So it seems that what I was having was a corrupt Lua file. It was very interesting though. Since I still don't know what happened to the test save I made on Windows 95 compatibility mode. So although I no longer have the problem, I would still like to know the answer to the OP question for future reference.

[Julius Borisov]

It may mean there's something software-wise blocking changes to the game folder in Documents. See https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/934483#Comment_934483

[anferFFmax]

Thanks for the reply. I thoght it was something like the sort too. However, I haven't figured out how the game saves games in Win 95 compatibility mode without using the saves folder. But with a successful clean install working now, I'll never know how that happened.

[Julius Borisov]

Odd indeed. I don't believe the game can save games into another folder unless you manually change the Engine.lua. The main thing the game is now working for you.

[anferFFmax]

Oh that may explain it. Since the problem dissapeared once I deleted the old Lua, and did a fresh install, then that would make total sense. Gee, I wonder what folder was in the corrupt Lua set up to be the saved folder (thus explaining why I couldn't find the saves). I was putting parameters into the Lua as instructed online on various sources and don't recall changing the save folder but it must have happened. Who knows what other mess I ended up changing. Good thing it hit me to just delete the file since a fresh intall will use the old Lua.

Thanks julius for the help. This should teach me to make fresh backups of my Luas before messing with them.