Essential Icewind Dale 2 UI Mods?

Varwulf

Don't get me wrong, I am super excited (and spiritually and financially supporting!) Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, but my first love is and always will be Icewind Dale 2 when it comes to the Infinity Engine/Dungeon & Dragons games. It's a strange relationship, born probably out of nostalgia more than anything else, but nothing (not even a lack of source code!) is going to separate me from my beloved.

Truth be told, I've already conducted a fruitless search of any old hard drives that may have once been owned by Black Isle Studios on the off chance that somewhere, somehow, even an obsolete version of the code could be contained within.

All silly musings aside, I've recently (finally) given the WideScreen mod for the Infinity Engine games a try in a bid to take the first step at trying to Discount Enhanced Editionify my beloved Icewind Dale 2, only to find myself exceptionally underwhelmed. Granted, I knew it'd be a lot more work than just installing the WideScreen mod, but it still felt like hitting a brick wall just the same.


Attempt at 1920 x 1080 on one of my laptops.


Attempt at 2560 x 1080 on my main screen.

Usually I choose a smaller resolution than my monitor is set at because I like to see things with better clarity (Keratoconus in both eyes tends to make the high definition, small text, etc. graphics of most games very difficult to consume or appreciate), but I feel like even shrinking these down would still leave much to be desired.

--Intro Over--

With all of that out of the way, my questions are thus: Does anyone know of any other essential UI mods out there for Icewind Dale 2 that could improve my user experience overall?

Does anyone out there know of any great/detailed modding tutorials for the UI for this game in particular? I know there are sources out there for the other (less unusual) Infinity Engine games, but Icewind Dale 2 seems to be one that is really difficult to find much of anything for.

I'm ready to cut my teeth on this if the resources are available. Unfortunately, I do lack the free time to just dive in and start from scratch--so if I can find someone who's already started the ball rolling, I might find myself motivated enough to pick up (or share) the mantle, so to speak.

Thanks for reading the mindless babblings of a desperate fool!

Aquadrizzt

I'd highly encourage you to check out Ghostdog's UI for PST which fixed widescreen UI issues for the original PST. That'd probably be the best place to start if you want to figure out how to mod the original games' UI.

IWD2 content is also being adapted as part of IWD in EET, but obviously it has to be converted over to the 2E engine in that case.

Varwulf

Oh nice, I wasn't aware that EET was a thing (looks like a Tutu + Enhanced Edition merge?) and that they had plans to incorporate Icewind Dale 2's story into the mix. That is certainly promising, and something to look forward to.

As for Ghostdog's UI for PST, that's another interesting approach to take too--I was under the impression that PST was a little bit different (structurally) than the other IE games (but never really dug that deep into it), but as you said, it'd be a good place to look for sure.

Thank you for the suggestions. I appreciate it

AstroBryGuy

For Icewind Dale 2, the only UI mods I am aware of are Widescreen and Corvias' Bigger Fonts mod (which could be used if you find the fonts too small after installing Widescreen).

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/38626-bigger-fonts-for-bgiitob-and-other-ie-games/

Varwulf

@AstroBryGuy Another awesome suggestion that I never considered, thank you

Gusinda

Hi @Varwulf, this UI Mod might fix the positioning of the console by placing it in the centre with and using sides to it to fill in. It makes it look a bit more presentable. However, it doesn't go out to the size of the main screen, only to a max of 1920x1200...

I opted to use the manual installation and the 1920x1200 version so I can't vouch for the installer (french), but it does the job.

Gus

Varwulf

@Gusinda Thanks very much for pointing me toward this mod, I will give it a try. It sounds like a promising stepp in the right direction

Edit: Tried it out and it kind of ruined my UI (lots of black space, couple of flickering buttons and other weirdness), most likely due to the ultra-wide aspect ratio on my main monitor compared to the 1920 x 1200 of the highest available with the mod.

Edit #2: Tested on the 1920 x 1080 screen and it works great :P Guess I have to wait for the 2560 x 1080 update, haha.

Rothe123

three mods I use for the UI/Resolution in pair with each other are
1. DDrawCompat-v0.5.1.zip
2. IWD2_GUI Fix 104c.exe
3. setup-widescreen.exe

Start by unzipping the DDRAW and edit the aqrit.cfg file with these settings
RealDDrawPath = AUTO
BltMirror = 0
BltNoTearing = 0
ColorFix = 0
DisableHighDpiScaling = 1
FakeVsync = 0
FakeVsyncInterval = 0
ForceBltNoTearing = 0
ForceDirectDrawEmulation = 1
NoVideoMemory = 1
SingleProcAffinity = 0
ShowFPS = 0

then run setup-widescreen to pick your resolution
then run the iwd2_gui fix 104c.exe to adjust the gui to fit for that resolution