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How to decrease resolution?

chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
Hello guys. I'm here to complain that the game is hurting my eyes. Everything is too small. The original BG ran at 640 X 480, which was, of course, not enough, and I had to scroll the screen to see where a fireball was going to land, but BG EE has upped resolution to some number that seems higher than my laptop's resolution, which is at 1366 x 768. This is the scale I get (the screenshot is from BG2, but just for size):


This way the game looks unappealing and insignificant. There is no charm to it. It's not the scale Infinity Engine games were meant to played at. I think I would like a 800 x 600 option (or its widescreen equivalent), but if that's not possible, just the next step below this one! I can change my laptop resolution to 800 x 600 or in between but that doesn't seem to affect the in-game image except that everything seems blurrier at outside low-res.

Help? I have the GOG version.

Comments

  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    You can zoom in using the mouse wheel and you can change the font size in the graphics options.
  • DevardKrownDevardKrown Member Posts: 421
    BillyYank said:

    You can zoom in using the mouse wheel and you can change the font size in the graphics options.

    this, the Font size goes to like 10 times larger to whats it set and you can zoom in to a level which even makes the Classic game look smoothly animated in comparison.
  • argent77argent77 Member Posts: 3,428
    There are a couple of setting in Options -> Graphics that can help you. As already mentioned, there is a slider to control font size. But there are also checkboxes to lock zoom at 100% (Zoom Lock) and to scale the UI relative to the current screen resolution (Scale User Interface).

    If you want to get closer to the original "look and feel" you could also disable "Sprite Outlines", "Grayscale on Pause", "Highlight Selected Sprite", "Allow Scrolling Out Of Bounds" and optionally enable "Nearest Neighbor Scaling".
  • chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
    Thanks, but zooming in just makes everything blurry. It doesn't look like a different resolution. In fact, nothing I do seems to affect resolution. My laptop is a limited, old machine, though it can certainly run the Infinity Engine. The desktop resolution at the highest, 1366, gives me the scale from the screenshot in game, and, as I said, reducing desktop resolution only makes the in-game image blurrier, but not any larger.
  • chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
    Of course, I have the spirite outlines etc. disabled already. The image is fine, everything is just too small.
  • chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
    No more suggestions? I'm stuck with tiny ants on the screen or pixellated sprites with the mouse wheel?
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    The original art was lost, so Beamdog is stuck with the original sprites made for 640x480 screens. There's only so much that image processing and smoothing can do, and the last time they tried, a bunch of people were screaming to have their pixels back.
    mf2112JustLeftrorikon
  • chimericchimeric Member Posts: 1,163
    But the high resolution looks fine, it doesn't need any smoothing. It's just too tiny. Other versions of the game can provide medium resolution, 800 x 600 or thereabouts. I just had the Original Saga version from GOG installed with the Widescreen mod, and you can set at there just fine. I went for BGEE instead because of the new content, and now I'm far along enough in the game to have to suck it up. But I don't see why the Original Saga looks all right even at 640 x 480, but the BGEE picture, if I zoom in to the same scale, is horribly pixellated.
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    chimeric said:

    But I don't see why the Original Saga looks all right even at 640 x 480, but the BGEE picture, if I zoom in to the same scale, is horribly pixellated.

    The reason is simple: the people in Beamdog don't know what they are doing. Really they have no clue at all.

    They apparently don't understand the difference between game resolution and monitor resolution.
    CrevsDaak
  • Mr2150Mr2150 Member Posts: 1,170
    Do you have an actual screenshot of what you can actually see, rather than an example which is only representative...?
    mf2112
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,713
    Yes, the screenshot doesn't help at all, as it's from BG2, not the EE. To show the difference between that and what you see in the EE you have to upload a screenshot from the EE.
    mf2112
  • BelegCuthalionBelegCuthalion Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 453
    @Erg:

    There are two options here:

    a) Let the "game resolution", as you call it, do the zooming globally for the whole game, meaning to run the game at nominally 640x480 as it was created in 1999 (or whatever other resolution to set ingame), and scale it up to the screen as a whole monolith, applying some kind of smoothing or accepting big, visible pixels on todays screens. Either the game, the operating system / graphics cards driver, or the screen will do just that.
    Advantage may be that on a technical level outside the game the user can decide what he wants, while the disadvantage ist that the game itself is limited to one single proportion of everything (aspect ratio, UI elements, ...) which does not really fit to the todays approach of running things on more than one platform and more than one device type.

    b) Or as it is now: just sync the "game resolution" to the systems resolution (that is ideally the phyisical resolution and therefor the best to get on that system), running the game framwork at as high resolution as possible. Then let the user set the zooming ingame the way he wants it, that is to scale or not scale the user interface, zoom the content the way the user sees fit, and do the smoothing as good as it can be done within that (even allow the user to set how the smoothing should be done ideally).
    Advantage here is that the game elements can adjust to different screens independently from each other. "Disadvantage" is that the developer has to care about the smoothing instead of letting the users system just do it (good or bad he can't control, it's just happening from the devs point of view).


    The second approach to me is far more like "having a clue" or care for the result actually, under consideration that the original game data is what it is – low res pixel art that can't be changed (i'm aware you can do different things if the game data is made of polygons that are rendered realtime, or highres pixel textures that just surpass any resolution ever displayed on screen, but we are not having that here).


    to the original poster:
    i think we need a screenshot to see what you are actully describing ... my assumption is that you are expecing the look of a 14" CRT screen, but now on a 24" TFT screen.
    Mr2150mf2112
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756
    edited June 2016
    I found astonishing the lengths some people go to defend their precious Beamdog.

    the disadvantage ist that the game itself is limited to one single proportion of everything (aspect ratio, UI elements, ...)

    @BelegCuthalion,

    the above statement is simply wrong. Even the original games had elements of the GUI that would scale to account for different resolutions. Obviously, for the original game that was limited to the supported resolutions, but still prove your whole point wrong.

    Syncing the "game resolution" to the "system resolution", without providing the possibility to choose otherwise is IMO an unnecessary limitation.

    Edit: Besides, asking for a screenshot is kind of pointless, unless you want to test the scaling algorithm of whichever software you use for viewing and processing images, e.g. XnView and the like :)

    Post edited by Erg on
  • BelegCuthalionBelegCuthalion Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 453
    Erg said:

    the above statement is simply wrong. Even the original games had elements of the GUI that would scale to account for different resolutions. Obviously, for the original game that was limited to the supported resolutions, but still prove your whole point wrong.

    The original games (ToB state) were just patchworking more framing material around the actual UI when run at higher resolutions, they were not scaling anything. Additionally, it did not scale any game content at all, it just showed more of it, making things smaller until unusuably small in very high resolution. Things like other screen proportions than 4:3 were not considered either.
    So when running anything but the native resolution, any scaling to the screen was left over to the system or screen hardware. No big problem back then, but no solution for todays screen sizes and resolutions.
    I don't get how this unvalidates the whole point?
    Erg said:

    Syncing the "game resolution" to the "system resolution", without providing the possibility to choose otherwise is IMO an unnecessary limitation.

    It just makes no difference actually, as each computer running high resolution is far more powerful than needed to run this game. There's no technical benefit in running it lowres, and then let the driver or screen scale it up. This would just make the UI lowres-ugly on top of the lowres-ugly game content (instead of making at least that more beautiful with new highres sources like they did).
    Running the EE games with unscaled UI and zoomed out max gives you about what you got when running the original games at high (or too high) resolution (everything gets just very small there). Running it with scaled UI and zooming gives you about what you'd get when running in lower game resolution (but with the benefit of having at least sharp UI instead of pixels there too).

    So tell me, where exactly would be the prime shining kill all benefit of lowering the game resolution, proving that beamdog have absolutely(!) no clue what they are doing? It should be easy to make that point if it is so absolutely clear, but you are leaving out that point.
    Erg said:

    Edit: Besides, asking for a screenshot is kind of pointless, unless you want to test the scaling algorithm of whichever software you use for viewing and processing images, e.g. XnView and the like :).

    No, i was asking for the screenshot to see what the original poster is talking about actually, as i don't get what exactly the problem is or how it would get any better if he could lower the game resolution instead of zooming in and scaling the UI. I didn't want to scale it in some other program or whatever, just see what he's meaning with things being too small.
    Erg said:

    I found astonishing the lengths some people go to defend their precious Beamdog.

    yes, i've gone too far with arguments obviously, while you have developed an efficient way of just dropping some line with some absolute statement without arguments about how absolutely bad the EEs are.

    I find it more astonishing how this is pulling you back to the forums again and again for no obvious reason (no one has taken anything from you with giving the EEs).Usually this is about some mediocre content by beamdog, and there i get it that some just don't like, hate, disagree what beamdog did – everyone may have his opinion, and discussing content, there are no absolute facts (i don't like everything either, actually i'm just happy what was done technically for the infinity engine).

    But in this specific topic, which is purely technical, i was astonished you did the same thing again – dropping a line about how clueless the developer is in your opinion, without giving any hint on the whys, even obviously not thinking it through that what was did was not "absolutely" wrong, nor it would be any better to do it the other way around. Here we are talking logics and technical facts, not taste and opinion, so i poked (a bit too extensive already) to see what you'd bring as actual arguments beyond absolute statements and opinions, but there's nothing so far.
    Mr2150mf2112ronaldo
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    Since the OP said the problem was graphical in nature and with the EE game, a screenshot actually taken from an EE game would be helpful.
  • BelegCuthalionBelegCuthalion Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 453
    edited June 2016
    @Chimeric to get back to the topic, i just realized you have posted a screenshot in your first post, but it looks like not being the latest game version (actually being rather far behind, pre 1.3 patch? (current patch level is 2.3, but not on all platforms / distribution channels yet, but you should at least be able to get 1.3)

    To compare what you can get in 2.3, i have made some screenshots, running the game at 1600x900 resolution:

    3 of them are with unscaled UI, and different zoom levels from extremly far out, to rather close (this should be equivilant to about what was possible back then with the original game). And another one with scaled UI.

    Zoomed fully out, unscaled UI:


    Zoomed somewhere in between, unscaled UI:


    Zoomed in rather close (closer than this it gets ugly), unscaled UI:


    Zoomed some medium level, scaled UI (note that the portraits on the right are using about the whole height of the screen available, the difference to unscaled is not much on my screen, but it can be on a more squarish screen):




    When looking at the full resolution image (not the scaled version embedded), you can see that despite the zoom level and therefore scaling of the content, the UI itself stays crisply sharp. This is only possible as the game resolution is set autmatically as high as my physical resolution.
    If you would (or could, but you can't) lower the game resolution, then those elements would get rendered at lower resolution than your screen can display too, then get blurred or blocky, depending on what your graphics cards driver or TFT scaler is doing to the image output when making it full size on the physical screen.
    mf2112Mr2150
  • BelegCuthalionBelegCuthalion Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 453
    edited June 2016
    And here's another one, taken at 1366x768px resolution, scaled UI, two different zoom levels:



    I have set the content to linear scaling, smoothing things instead of making it blocky when zooming.
    If you set it to nearest neighbour, your content will be "sharper", but blocky. As the original game data is as it is, there are just 3 ways around this:
    - linear scaling with "blur" (smooth)
    - nearest neighbour scaling with "blocks" (sharp)
    - zoom out so far that content pixels are small enough no scaling up is needed (this means though your game figures get smaller and smaller)
    - (4th option: lower your systems screen resolution in system settings, and let your driver / screen do the scaling - you *have* that option, just not ingame, and you likely won't like the visual result)
    mf2112
  • ErgErg Member Posts: 1,756

    I don't get how this unvalidates the whole point?

    Yes, I'm aware that you don't get it.

    i don't get what exactly the problem is

    No need to repeat this, I know that you don't get it.

    Chimeric to get back to the topic, i just realized you have posted a screenshot in your first post, but it looks like not being the latest game version (actually being rather far behind, pre 1.3 patch?

    ROTFL!
    BelegCuthalion
  • BelegCuthalionBelegCuthalion Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 453
    yes, beat me, harder!
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