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Baldur's Gate seriesNeed help playing fullscreen BG without blur(20 posts)solved(20 posts)solved
(20 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 17, 2016
I'll get this out of the way first: I have no interest in the EE editions. I have no interest in the Widescreen mode either. I want to play the original games without any mods.

That said, here's my problem GOG, I hope you can help me. When playing Baldur's Gate in windowed mode (640x480) everything looks sharp and nice. Tiny, but nice.

But when playing in fullscreen, everything turns a bit blurry. I have attached two images to illustrate the difference. They are in JPG, sadly, but wouldn't fit otherwise. You will be able to notice the difference, though.

I suggest you watch them at fullscreen (if your monitor is 1920x1080, like mine). See how example 1 is blurry compared to example 2. Example 2 is exactly how I want my BG to look in fullscreen: sharp, big, nice. Both images were 640x480 originally, just upscaled differently.

What I want to know is how I can get my game to look like example 2 instead of blurry like in example 1. Is it even possible? If you can help me solve this, I will be able to play all IE in crisp detail as opposed to blurry looking.

Example 1 is an in-game screenprint (scaled to fit my monitor) while example 2 was hand-made using Photoshop's nearest-neighbor scaling option. So I guess the solution has to do something with that.

I would love you guys forever if you could help me out with this, it's driving me crazy!
Attachments:
example_1.jpg (371 Kb)
example_2.jpg (361 Kb)
Post edited April 17, 2016 by Lucas9
This question / problem has been solved by ZellSFimage
Posted April 17, 2016
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Lucas9: example 2 was hand-made using Photoshop's nearest-neighbor scaling option.
Right. I don't understand why you've done this, or is it purely to show how you would "like" it to look? If so, you need to specify what video card you are running. For example, with ATI cards you absolutely want Morphological Filtering off, as with AA and such other enhancements, which are irrelevant to BG original. It boils down to your OS and hardware, basically.
Posted April 17, 2016
Right. I don't understand why you've done this, or is it purely to show how you would "like" it to look? If so, you need to specify what video card you are running. For example, with ATI cards you absolutely want Morphological Filtering off, as with AA and such other enhancements, which are irrelevant to BG original. It boils down to your OS and hardware, basically.
Hi! I did it to illustrate what my issue with the game was, otherwise some people may have not understand what I meant.

These are my specs, according to Speccy:

- Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
- Intel Core i5 4440 @ 3.10GHz
Haswell 22nm Technology
- Motherboard: CX / Air Computers. CX-H87-M1
- Graphics: 1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series (XFX Pine Group)

Basically, I wanted to know if there's a way to change how Baldur's Gate is upscaled, so it looks sharp and pixel perfect instead of blurry.
Posted April 17, 2016
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Lucas9: - Graphics: 1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series (XFX Pine Group)

Basically, I wanted to know if there's a way to change how Baldur's Gate is upscaled, so it looks sharp and pixel perfect instead of blurry.
Right, as I mentioned earlier, go into your ATI control panel and make sure you turn off all such unnecessary enhancements, but especially Morphological Filtering and AA. They are irrelevant to BG, and will cause blurring.
Posted April 17, 2016
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Hickory: Right, as I mentioned earlier, go into your ATI control panel and make sure you turn off all such unnecessary enhancements, but especially Morphological Filtering and AA. They are irrelevant to BG, and will cause blurring.
I just disabled every enhancement except one I can't seem to disable, which is the Texture Filtering Quality, which goes High->Standard->Performance, but there's no Off. Could that be the issue?
Post edited April 17, 2016 by Lucas9
Posted April 17, 2016
avatar
Lucas9: I'll get this out of the way first: I have no interest in the EE editions. I have no interest in the Widescreen mode either. I want to play the original games without any mods.

That said, here's my problem GOG, I hope you can help me. When playing Baldur's Gate in windowed mode (640x480) everything looks sharp and nice. Tiny, but nice.

But when playing in fullscreen, everything turns a bit blurry. I have attached two images to illustrate the difference. They are in JPG, sadly, but wouldn't fit otherwise. You will be able to notice the difference, though.

I suggest you watch them at fullscreen (if your monitor is 1920x1080, like mine). See how example 1 is blurry compared to example 2. Example 2 is exactly how I want my BG to look in fullscreen: sharp, big, nice. Both images were 640x480 originally, just upscaled differently.

What I want to know is how I can get my game to look like example 2 instead of blurry like in example 1. Is it even possible? If you can help me solve this, I will be able to play all IE in crisp detail as opposed to blurry looking.

Example 1 is an in-game screenprint (scaled to fit my monitor) while example 2 was hand-made using Photoshop's nearest-neighbor scaling option. So I guess the solution has to do something with that.

I would love you guys forever if you could help me out with this, it's driving me crazy!
I wouldn't recommend Baldur's Gate with perfect integer scaling. It's not pixel art and IMO does not look pretty. If you still do this, remember with sharp scaling you definitely only want to stick to exact multiple resolutions. Otherwise you get nasty scaling artifacts.

That said, what you need is DxWnd. Create a profile and

On the main tab , check the following:
* Path: bgmain2.exe path
* X: 0
* Y: 0
* W: An exact multiple of the resolution you're running Baldur's Gate
* Y: An exact multiple (needs to be same multiplier as W) that of the resolution you're running Baldur's Gate
* Desktop center

On the video tab, check the following:
* Modal Style
* Hide desktop background
* Hide Taskbar
* Screen resolution: Monitor native modes

On the Input tab, check the following:
* Force cursor clipping

On the DirectX tab check the following:
* Compensate Flip emulation

Then just run bgmain2.exe

If you want nearest scaling all the way (which is a crime against image quality) then just set X and Y to your screen resolution.

And if you hate black bars and can accept some blurring, do the above but just change your desktop resolution to the closest multiple you can find.

For example, set your desktop resolution to 1280x960 on a 1920x1080 monitor, set X and Y to 1280 and 960... That's my preferred approach for pixel art games (but not Baldur's Gate).
Post edited April 17, 2016 by ZellSF
Posted April 17, 2016
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Hickory: Right, as I mentioned earlier, go into your ATI control panel and make sure you turn off all such unnecessary enhancements, but especially Morphological Filtering and AA. They are irrelevant to BG, and will cause blurring.
avatar
Lucas9: I just disabled every enhancement except one I can't seem to disable, which is the Texture Filtering Quality, which goes High->Standard->Performance, but there's no Off. Could that be the issue?
I doubt it. Look at ZellSF's reply re. DXWnd. I just tried it on 1280x960 (4:3) and it works really well (I have a 1920x1080 native monitor), provided you are ok with black borders.
Post edited April 17, 2016 by Hickory
Posted April 17, 2016
avatar
ZellSF: Then just run bgmain2.exe

If you want nearest scaling all the way (which is a crime against image quality) then just set X and Y to your screen resolution.

And if you hate black bars and can accept some blurring, do the above but just change your desktop resolution to the closest multiple you can find.

For example, set your desktop resolution to 1280x960 on a 1920x1080 monitor, set X and Y to 1280 and 960... That's my preferred approach for pixel art games (but not Baldur's Gate).
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOUUUU.

You have no idea what a happy man you've made me! I spent over 10 hours these past days looking for a way to achieve it, I even came across this program too but never knew how to use it properly.

It won't be today, it won't be tomorrow, but the day I get a job and my first check I promise I'll contact you and buy you a game of your choosing!

Thanks again! :D
Posted June 09, 2018
Performing some necromancy on this thread because I think DxWnd is an amazing solution for those who want the original BG experience on modern monitors.

Following ZellSF´s instructions sets up DxWnd to run BG in a borderless window and scale that window to 1280x960, which is a perfect, crisp, 2x scaling of the game´s original 640x480 resolution, achieving an effect similar to what DOSBox can do (and GOG´s config utility let´s you do with all their DOS games), or how you can scale up WadjetEye´s pixel art adventure games (Blackwell series, Primordia, etc.).

Since this thread and its instructions are a few years old by now, I have added screenshots of my setup of BG in the current version of DxWnd (v2_04_79), which has some differences compared to the version ZellSF shared his settings for.
Attachments:
screen_shot_2018.png (261 Kb)
screen_shot_2018.png (231 Kb)
Post edited June 14, 2018 by Lorfean
Posted June 10, 2018
can you also share screenshots of how it actually looks like?
Posted June 14, 2018
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burn: can you also share screenshots of how it actually looks like?
Yes. So, when you take a screenshot while running the game like this, you'll just get a 640x480 screenshot because that is the resolution the game is actually running in -- DxWnd just runs it in a borderless window, scales the window up 2x, and hides your Windows desktop.

So I've made a mock-up of what it would look like on a screen with a native resolution of 1920x1080. I grabbed this screenshot online because I'm at work atm, so there could be some slight quality loss. Make sure you zoom in to 100% (mouse over the zoom % and click when you see the "view actual size" pop-up) to get a proper idea of the graphics quality -- the whole idea is that the presentation is NOT blurry, as with other scaling methods, but crisp.

Screenshot
Post edited June 14, 2018 by Lorfean
Posted June 17, 2018
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Lorfean: Performing some necromancy on this thread because I think DxWnd is an amazing solution for those who want the original BG experience on modern monitors.

Following ZellSF´s instructions sets up DxWnd to run BG in a borderless window and scale that window to 1280x960, which is a perfect, crisp, 2x scaling of the game´s original 640x480 resolution, achieving an effect similar to what DOSBox can do (and GOG´s config utility let´s you do with all their DOS games), or how you can scale up WadjetEye´s pixel art adventure games (Blackwell series, Primordia, etc.).

Since this thread and its instructions are a few years old by now, I have added screenshots of my setup of BG in the current version of DxWnd (v2_04_79), which has some differences compared to the version ZellSF shared his settings for.
So I am trying to get BG II to give me something other than a tiny window in the middle of my Surface Book screen with its 3000 x 2000 resolution. When I edit-add in the latest version of DxWnd following the options shown in the screen shots (except for using 2400 and 1800, with is the highest integer multiple of the 800 x 600 configured resolution that fits within my native resolution), my choices for the target executable are bgmain.exe and baldur.exe. The first still gives me my tiny window, but the cursor does not work and I have to Task Manager my way out. The second also gives a tiny window, but at least the cursor can be used.

Anyone succeed in getting DxWND to work with BG II?

Thanks


[[New Information]]

Found in a different thread a way of using DxWnd for BG 2 that works:

1. Download DxWnd and extract the archive.
2. Run dxwnd.exe.
3. Go to Edit > Add.
4. Under the Main tab, enter the path to bgmain.exe.
5. Under the Generic section, uncheck "Run in Window." This will restore your display resolution when the game is minimized.
5. Under the Input tab, Cursor handling section, uncheck "Correct mouse position."
6. Click OK.
7. Double click the newly created icon that appears within the DxWnd program window to run the game.
Post edited June 17, 2018 by mhawes
Posted August 04, 2018
So I wanted to replay Baldur's Gate II and lately, well, I've started liking integer scaling more for games where I before wouldn't. So I had to figure out how to integer scale Baldur's Gate II in OpenGL mode.

I ended up with an overly complicated AutoHotkey script:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=71167293144078366256
It basically runs the game in windowed mode, uses Windows magnification to zoom it to the largest integer scale that fits in your desktop resolution and then tries to translate mouse coordinates when scrolling. It's very messy, but I thought someone might find it useful.
Posted September 17, 2022
Caution to everybody to use the correct file - BGMain2.exe (NOT BGMain.exe!)

Thanks to @ZellSF's brilliant post, I was able to configure vanilla BG to run in faux full screen/window mode that also allows me to seamlessly tab out of the game.

I only wish there was a way to screenshot the game in its original resolution. My monitor is 1920x1080 so I run the game in 1440x1080 to keep the original aspect ratio but have it occupy the full screen. However, that also makes the screenshots 1440x1080 - unlike the normal way of running the game that also makes it full screen but keep the screenshots in the original unchanged resolution of 640x480.

One can't have both, it seems...
Post edited September 17, 2022 by misterbuzzkill
Posted April 14, 2024
Necroing this old thread again.

But I have been having no luck with this program. I have been following the instructions that everyone here have provided and nothing seems to work. At best I get a tiny 640 by 480 screen down to the left with the rest of the screen being black.
Have been trying loads of different wrappers and scaling options for a while now with no success which is quite a bother given it get's very blurry if you try to play it as is.

(And in response to misterbuzzkill above, there doesn't seem to be any BGMain2.exe, only BGMain.exe)
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This is my favourite topic
Community
Baldur's Gate seriesNeed help playing fullscreen BG without blur(20 posts)solved(20 posts)solved
(20 posts)solved