It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Just had some questions about it and thought I might ask. I've tried it but didn't care for it for a number of reasons. Mainly, it seems the modder was only concerned with the in-game UI, the menus and everything else isn't scaled. So at higher resolutions you end up with a hires in-game UI and little menus and movies. I know some people swear by this mod but I've never understood why. To me the contrast just seems jarring. Even without the widescreen mod, playing at the included higher resolutions presents the same issues. The mod's been out for a long time now, I'd have thought someone would have tried to correct those oversights by now, perhaps finding a way to scale only the in-game UI while leaving the menus and movies at native res so there's no empty space on the screen. TutuGUI allieviates the issue with the smaller menus a bit by providing a nice background, but it still doesn't address the issue of the movies not stretching to fill the screen. Not to mention the entire game window being smaller at higher resolutions with 3D acceleration on than with it off. Isn't there a command somewhere in the .exe or something that can be adjusted to tell it to stretch the movies instead of center them regardless of the resolution?
This is a very old game. The movies and in-game assets are unscalable... period. Even the enhanced editions do not have scalable assets, only UI. That's why the widescreen mod makes everything look absolutely, ridiculously tiny. I hate it.
It's a closed source game with no native mod support for stuff like that. It's really difficult to mod those screens and for very little benefit.

What resolution are you trying to play at? You really shouldn't go above 1280x720.
I've tried several, but wouldn't go higher than 800x600 myself. The interface and videos are just too small otherwise. I've been playing on native res for the most part, actually. It's not that bad, I knew it was an old game but that doesn't bother me, I like old games. I was never able to get this game back when it first came out, just the demo that came with the Forgotten Realms Archives pack (the one that had all the Forgotten Realms gold box games plus the Eye of the Beholder trilogy along with the Baldur's Gate demo). I'll just save hires play for the EE.
Personally I really appreciate the Widescreen mod and think it's a great improvement. I feel as long as you choose a reasonable resolution for your monitors size it's well worth it.

Unfortunately, pretty much inevitably when doing this to old games, increasing the resolution to make general things better some things get worse.

With this I think the worst is some menus feel inadequate, things like the Journal could be better or the worst example being the trading menu.

Movies appearing smaller, within reason, aren't really an issue. If they were stretched they'd easily and quickly look bad, like a blurry old youtube video instead of crisper pixelation.

Overall I'd say it's well worth it with appropriate resolution settings.
Attachments:
baldr000.jpg (441 Kb)
baldr001.jpg (451 Kb)
baldr002.jpg (355 Kb)
baldr003.jpg (356 Kb)
avatar
Grogger: Personally I really appreciate the Widescreen mod and think it's a great improvement. I feel as long as you choose a reasonable resolution for your monitors size it's well worth it.

Unfortunately, pretty much inevitably when doing this to old games, increasing the resolution to make general things better some things get worse.

With this I think the worst is some menus feel inadequate, things like the Journal could be better or the worst example being the trading menu.

Movies appearing smaller, within reason, aren't really an issue. If they were stretched they'd easily and quickly look bad, like a blurry old youtube video instead of crisper pixelation.

Overall I'd say it's well worth it with appropriate resolution settings.
Could at least scale the videos proportionally or try to find a way to do so. no matter how though there will always be some pixellization because they're being upscaled. But even at 1080p they don't look too bad even at 16:9. People just sometimes have purist tendencies and think any imperfection or difference means it's horrible. And the menus are pillarboxed. They don't look that bad stretched to 16:9, though, I've seen it. It's not as though you're doubling the width, the stretch doesn't go as far as that.

I like everything to fill the screen like it's supposed to, which is why I play the originals in 640x480 as they were intended. It doesn't look as bad as some people think, even stretched to 16:9 on a 50" TV the way I have it. It just seems jarring to go back and forth between a completely filled screen and pillarboxed or smaller menus and videos when the game experience should instead be smooth and seamless.