Am I the only one who still thinks the Original BG 1 has something about it which still makes it better than EE?
Or am I loosing my mind? :S

It doesn't have garbage new content. That's a pretty big bonus.

Regardless.. Ya know people tend to prefer newer graphics and effects - and the game mainly remains the same in it's core [disregarding SoD of course]

The main reason I prefer the classic BG over the EE it's just it.. It's a classic...

One question though (And please to send me to the executioner if there's a post about it already), is there a way to make the game run in full screen mode with wide-screen (1600x900) resolution? I hate the smudged espect ratio makes when you play on full screen with the original game on wide screen

I haven't finished originals and got enhanced versions. I like the zooming and a bit easier inventory and font increase without mods. First impression was that it seems alright, although characters seem a bit more cartoony than I remember.
Maybe it's just that sprite smoothing or something.

It plays very different than Tutu or the Enhanced Edition, but if you ask me the Enhanced Edition has enough useful features by now to make up for it. Widescreen mod.

The UI will look pretty bad, but the UI mod supports very limited resolutions. No 1600x900.

Anything higher than 480x640 ?

This is BG1 classic with that GUI mod @ 1280 x 728 (The closest it gets to 16:9)

No, you're not alone. Plenty of people think the same, me included. BG1 is also better than BG2 in my opinion.

You're not alone. I really dislike EE. I really love the BG1 as it is, even though it is not perfect. What bothers me a bit after all these years is that it feels somewhat empty in several places (not enough NPCs). But the new content in EE is terrible, simply awful. It really acts on my nerves.

Btw, what I love about BG1 is the free world exploration where it could really feel like I was venturing far from the beaten tract (which is missing in BG2) and how big the Baldur Gate city feels (Athatkla feels small in comparison). Also plot is great with all its twists and turns...

When EE was announced I thought they will try to expand BG1 along the lines of the expansion and maybe enrich the few places that felt a little bit empty. But what a great disappointment it was to me...

I admit that there are many things I like about the EEs; zooming out to show as much of a map is just tremendously neat feature, the UI looks more polished and user friendly (larger font sizes), the quick-loot function is quite handy as is that you now see the changes in THAC0, AC, etc. when you switch items, and so on and so forth. It's also nice that I can just install EE and start playing, whereas I have to install at least the Tweaks mod, and then (for maximum enjoyment) the BG Trilogy mod when I'm playing the originals.

But all in all, I still prefer the original games. I can't put my finger on why that is, but it just is. I do miss some of the EEs features (mostly the zoom), but I still prefer playing the originals. They're simply more inherently consistent than the EEs.

I am trying to understand how exactly the wide screen thing work with the classic stone UI [no the tutu one.. I don't want the entire game to run under BG 2 engine]

Can anyone give me a quick tutorial on how exactly to enable the game to run on any higher resolution than 640x480 and how to install the classic stone UI for that resolution.. I don't actually mind to play the game on 1024x768 if it's possible.

Thanks in advance =]

All right, first of all, install and launch Baldur's Gate at least once - just going into main menu should be sufficient. Now, download files from the two links posted by ZellSF (widescreen-v3.07.exe and TWM_GUI_beta0,994.exe)

After finishing these downloads, open the widescreen-v3.07.exe file. A standard installer will pop up. When it asks you for a path, point it towards where you have Baldur's Gate installed (it might even detect this automatically) and click Install. When the installation is finished, a cmd window will pop up. You can input options into this window by typing them and pressing Enter when you're finished - so to pick language as English, type 0 and press Enter and so on. If you follow the values shown on the image I have linked, you'll end up with a game running @1280x768 (16:9 aspect ration, so it should fit your screen). When installation is finished, launch your game and try getting in-game - UI will be all screwed up, but we'll get to that later, important thing is that it's now running at the desired resolution.

Now for the UI mod. Launch the TWM_GUI_beta0,994.exe file and extract it into your Baldur's Gate folder (you'll have to manually select it in the extraction window) first. Now navigate into your Baldur's Gate folder and find a file called Setup-TWM_GUI.exe. Open it. You will be presented with a similar command window that you've seen during widescreen mod installation - again, input desired value on your keyboard and press enter to confirm. These are the values I have used, but I highly recommend reading the forum post linked by ZellSF with the download link and choosing which options you want for yourself. When you launch the game now, you should see UI displaying properly without weird black borders and on entire screen (or filled with background image when the UI graphics can't fill entire screen)

If you run into a weird graphical glitch where borders of fog of war are strangely spiky, let me know and I'll tell you how to sort that out.

That's an amazing guide! Thank you very much! But regarding the "weird graphical glitch where borders of fog of war are strangely spiky" - I do get it even when I am trying to run the game on native resolution even before all the wide screen/GUI thingies... Is there a way past it?

Yup - when in-game, go to menu, graphics options and there set the color depth to 16 and enable Software Mirror BLT. And pray it won't make the game run insanely slow.

Agreed.

Also, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is a much more improved edition to the original Baldur's Gate.

:)