How do I achieve actual fullHD resolutions?

Mansen

The second I started up the game I noticed that it wasn't running anywhere near full HD and looked rather as thought it was 1024x768 stretched and blurred to fake my HD resolution (1920x1200 specifically)

Is there anyway to get an actual sharp and non-stretched GUI and resolution appropriate game screen? This seems like a huge step down from what you could achieve in BG2 with the unofficial resolutions (and a bit of modding)

Archaic

I couldn't agree more!

aarionn

My resolution is 1920x1080. GUI and the game don't reflect that resolution. On my other computer I have BG1 with widescreen resolution patch and it looks much much better than BG:EE....

We have here scaling for sure. And no option for forcing resolution in "graphic options menu"...

Also if I play in window, I get game in 1024x768.... How come we cannot set other resolutions for windowed game?

Mansen

You CAN actually change the windowed resolution in an ini file (see the technical FAQ thread for instructions) - but it's the same stretched result as far as I can tell.

Stradlin

That sweet video options menu is pretty much quaranteed to give most people a bit of a " ......." moment.

Here we have Baldur's Gate - game widely recognized as one one of the very pillars of PC gaming. We all agree it is a gme that exists close to beating heart of all that PC gaming is about.
.....And here we have Enhanced Edition of the game. One with tons of corners and edges and UI details that remind of an Xbox game sloppily ported to PC. Something is not right here.

Not to sound overly negative, I'm quite sure I'll end up loving this release as a whole. It'd be foolish to claim there weren't a number of rather disappointing features here and there though.

lurimax

It is running at you desktop resolution. So if you desktop is set to 1920x1200, the game will run at that. The reason it doesn't look like it is because the icons don't upscale too well and end up looking somewhat blurry. Also everything is built to be large so it works better for touchscreen, so yo don't get that same crisp feel you would get if everything was at a proper size

aarionn

@lurimax
Don't get me wrong, but why should I care and be affected because they made GUI for touchscreen devices!?!? I bought PC version. I want my GUI to be crisp and look good at my resolution. That was promised.

Are you saying that we should be happy with this absurd that for the original PC game GUI is ported from touchscreen device!?!? WTF?

Sorry for rant, but I cannot restrain any more when I read answers like this that PC players should be happy with over-sized scaled GUI because it was made for iPad.....

lurimax

Never said that we should be happy with it, just stating a fact

aarionn

@lurimax ahh sorry m8 I misunderstood your post... Maybe I should just leave it as it is and come back in 2 weeks...

IkonNavros

So far it seems that the PC EE version is a 1:1 copy of the Tablet Version.. What will look great on tablets and other Mid Range/Low Range Resolution delivering machines does look not so good on a pc... if you have big enough resolutions around.

Try to play in window Mode, and everything is awesome. Go Fullscreen in 1920x1080 and things turn around 180 degree.

And it enabled the creation of damn nasty technical bugs which many of us are facing.

Mansen

But Ikon... the game looks great using the original games and some very simple mods - ones that don't even have source code level access. We're talking basic resolution enlargement with a replaced GUI to fit (as I recall - been a few years admittedly since I "tutu'ed")

IkonNavros

the original game does indeed look great, but do not forget the EE has some ground level zoom which is always there, that alone makes the image slightly blurry, the gui is as i guess the same as the tablet version. And since tablets do not need that much of quality - resolution - this thing sticks out at 1080P on the pc so much.

And i do not believe that it really runs at the desktop resolution when using fullscreen... it looks.. well.. just exactly if you scale up 720P to 1080P - with all the disadvantages, which is quite sad

Would perhaps been better only to make a tablet version, since a direct quality port from one build to another without taking care about the different quality demands of each build is not the best solution!

vortican

When I started playing, I felt the same way; somewhat disappointed that the graphics didn't look better, but I understand why they do. I tried running in a window last night and it does help the graphics, but the edge scrolling becomes mighty difficult this way. I went back to a window and played a little more and found myself not caring about the graphics anymore. Guess I got used to it once I was more engrossed in the story and gameplay.

WabbitTwaks

In windowed mode, you can simply grab the boarder (left click and drag) and resize it. The game will adjust accordingly. No need to edit the .ini file for that. Unless you are wanting a specific resolution for recording or something. Then, the .ini edit is necessary.

Bytebrain

Mansen said:

But Ikon... the game looks great using the original games and some very simple mods - ones that don't even have source code level access. We're talking basic resolution enlargement with a replaced GUI to fit (as I recall - been a few years admittedly since I "tutu'ed")

It's much more sophisticated than the widescreen mod.
I would dare most people on this forum to play through the entire original game on 1080P Resolution.
That's 1920x1080!
Everyone in the game looks like an ant on higher resolutions, and you're there, the eye in the sky, watching over a complete map, where most is fog of war, with some ants fighting in the middle.
I've seen it.
It's absolutely useless at higher resolutions.

With the zoom feature and magic they've made on the paperdolls to smooth the worst pixelated edges over, it's magnificent!

Now, I don't want to comment on the GUI, I haven't got the blurring, but I run at a lower resolution, so that might be it.
It would have been nice to change resolution in the game, instead of running the desktop's, that was probably for convenience for the gamers, but I guess it backfired in this case.

I don't know, have people tried lowering their desktop resolution just a bit to see if it looks sharper for you?

IkonNavros

it does look sharper, i tried out on my second computer and the reason seems to be that the gui was built with the intention that it also has to work with the tablet versions. The price for this is that you have on the pc side now a lower resolution gui which does not harmonize well with the rest of the ingame graphics which are way sharper as the gui.

The game graphic is not that bad, i am surprised it looks that ok, but the gui is the big troublemaker here.

But the big question is why we should make our resolution lower to get a sharper gui if there is higher resolution available? In that case i also could have stayed with the original game if i would not care about high resolution support

If the Developers would have said from Beginning "Optimized for Tablet Resolutions" people would never have argued in the first place, since they would know what to expect. But since no one mentioned something like that, people have started to complain, because it seems that the Windows EE is a direct copy from the Tablet-Version, including the lower resolution artwork (GUI).

Mansen

Bytebrain said:

I would dare most people on this forum to play through the entire original game on 1080P Resolution.

I guess we'll have to scratch that one up to personal taste - I didn't find the size of the game screen a problem at all. If anything I welcomed the crispiness of Baldurs Gate and... err.... Whatever the big city in BG2 was called. It really did the backgrounds justice.

Bytebrain

@Mansen
Are you telling me that you ran BG Tutu on 1920x1080 resolution??call the way through the game?
Can't understand why, or how you'd enjoy that, I must say...

Bytebrain

IkonNavros said:

it does look sharper, i tried out on my second computer and the reason seems to be that the gui was built with the intention that it also has to work with the tablet versions. The price for this is that you have on the pc side now a lower resolution gui which does not harmonize well with the rest of the ingame graphics which are way sharper as the gui.

The game graphic is not that bad, i am surprised it looks that ok, but the gui is the big troublemaker here.

But the big question is why we should make our resolution lower to get a sharper gui if there is higher resolution available? In that case i also could have stayed with the original game if i would not care about high resolution support

If the Developers would have said from Beginning "Optimized for Tablet Resolutions" people would never have argued in the first place, since they would know what to expect. But since no one mentioned something like that, people have started to complain, because it seems that the Windows EE is a direct copy from the Tablet-Version, including the lower resolution artwork (GUI).

Well. As I said, there weren't many people playing tutu in 1920x1080, and in a game like BG:EE
running in 720P would be indistinguishable to me... I don't see the problem.
It's not exactly low res...

Mansen

Bytebrain said:

@Mansen
Are you telling me that you ran BG Tutu on 1920x1080 resolution??call the way through the game?
Can't understand why, or how you'd enjoy that, I must say...

Yep - Because I can't stand upscaled content. All of my "classic" games are running 1920x1200 if it is at all possible. Again - personal taste.

I will however add that I have a 26" monitor in front of me.

ElizabethSterling

A compromise solution such as an advanced scaling filter would be an idea. Something along the lines of AdvMame or Sal. As for the interface... that really just needs higher res versions. I can forgive the game window being stretched but surely the UI and fonts need to scale better...

IkonNavros

Bytebrain said:

Well. As I said, there weren't many people playing tutu in 1920x1080, and in a game like BG:EE
running in 720P would be indistinguishable to me... I don't see the problem.
It's not exactly low res...

The Ingame graphic is not the problem, try it out for yourself, watch the gui with a resolution around 1280x720 and then in 1920x1080 and you see that there is a big difference in clarity between that 2 resolutions. I am talking mostly about the icons on the left, they do not scale well between that resolutions.

The contrast is the problem. The difference between clarity and blurred icons... this can be damn distracting. And since you can not compare tablets with normal computers, the usage of the same icons for 2 different quality wise machine systems is a bit of a failure.

Bytebrain

IkonNavros said:

Bytebrain said:

Well. As I said, there weren't many people playing tutu in 1920x1080, and in a game like BG:EE
running in 720P would be indistinguishable to me... I don't see the problem.
It's not exactly low res...

The Ingame graphic is not the problem, try it out for yourself, watch the gui with a resolution around 1280x720 and then in 1920x1080 and you see that there is a big difference in clarity between that 2 resolutions. I am talking mostly about the icons on the left, they do not scale well between that resolutions.

The contrast is the problem. The difference between clarity and blurred icons... this can be damn distracting. And since you can not compare tablets with normal computers, the usage of the same icons for 2 different quality wise machine systems is a bit of a failure.

Sure, I understand, I just can't go that high res on my monitor.
What I was hinting at in my earlier post, was that if the GUI look sharper if you just go down slightly in res, to 720, why not play in that resolotion, at least until an update or mod is released.
I would have a hard time differential between 1080P and 720P in a game like this, and even if I could, I would forget it in minutes when I'm playing the game...

Mansen

Because if I go windowed and turn down the resolution I will obviously only have a window that fills up half of my screen. That's not good to me

Bytebrain

@Mansen

That's not what I'm suggesting.
I'm suggesting that you try, just for the hell of it, and for the promise of less irritation and higher enjoyment for yourself to change your desktop res down, just one step at a time, 'till you find the right res for the game not to have a blurry GUI.
Maybe turning it down only to 720P would do the trick, you won't know until you've tried.

Mansen

It's upscaling either way and equally "blurry".

IkonNavros

Well, i wait for playing until most of the bugs are fixed Btw. there is already a mod available wich does change the gui - but only in the main game window - so it is not yet perfect.

But as guessed, the modding community works way faster as the Beamdog Devs, which i can understand quite good, since that "minor" stuff is low priority for them, since they do of course more care about the tablet version, since there will be the way better sales numbers

The Windows EE is just a bonus for them, which is a bit disappointing, but very understandable seen from a Commercial Point of View.

Bytebrain

IkonNavros said:

Well, i wait for playing until most of the bugs are fixed Btw. there is already a mod available wich does change the gui - but only in the main game window - so it is not yet perfect.

But as guessed, the modding community works way faster as the Beamdog Devs, which i can understand quite good, since that "minor" stuff is low priority for them, since they do of course more care about the tablet version, since there will be the way better sales numbers

The Windows EE is just a bonus for them, which is a bit disappointing, but very understandable seen from a Commercial Point of View.

I don't think they see it that way at all.
Of course they have to concentrate also on the tablet release, they've promised customers it'll be released in November, like the windows version.

And even though they hope it'll sell well on the AppStore due to the vast amount of iOS gamers, I'm sure they realize it's a huge gamble, because it's a hard niche game, and the price is very expensive by iOS standards.
It may chrash and burn. I surely hope not, I want to see Bg2:EE on my iPad too..

Regarding the unified interface, I'm not sure if I agree with the decision, but it was probably done that way for economic reasons, to ease the workload a bit. It's a very small team, working in a shoestring budget here.
The GUI doesn't bother me personally, but I understand it's a big issue for many, so it may have been a mistake they did it the way they did.

IkonNavros

Well, if they would have made in the first place a high resolution gui and scale that down later for the Tablet Versions.. That would have been not that much work and compared to the situation right now it would have saved the Devs a lot of anger and crictis from the Community.

It is a bit strange that Beamdog falls into all that small traps, they have already made a HD port for one other game already, so they should already have a bit experience, what is a go and what is a no-go.

reedmilfam

They seem to have made a scalable resolution, so that it will adapt both now, and in the future. The graphics are fine and better than original.

Stradlin

IkonNavros said:

So far it seems that the PC EE version is a 1:1 copy of the Tablet Version.. What will look great on tablets and other Mid Range/Low Range Resolution delivering machines does look not so good on a pc... if you have big enough resolutions around.

Try to play in window Mode, and everything is awesome. Go Fullscreen in 1920x1080 and things turn around 180 degree.

And it enabled the creation of damn nasty technical bugs which many of us are facing.

It is finger nail chewingly ironic how we now have a PC port of an iPad game many recognize and regard as one of the very pillars in PC gaming.