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Big Screen Beta

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  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    I dont like how the big screen beta looks - It looks too badly scaled on my monitor (1980x1080) a bit like bg widescreen mod. Im fine with the default setting. Having said that, it would be nice if the idons were a little sharper.
    Excalibur_2102AlesthesThomasMink
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    Yeah, in line with @ajwz says, the only issue I have with the default setting is that the UI buttons might be just a bit crisper. But that very slight blurriness to the buttons is fine in order to have the interface properly proportioned (as with the default).

    I mean, if they could somehow manage to provide the crisper resolution of the big screen in a normally proportioned interface, that'd be awesome. But anyway...
  • Excalibur_2102Excalibur_2102 Member Posts: 351
    I hope it is possible to get the UI a bit sharper in its current state. Do that, then add in an option for the Widescreen mod style UI, and everyones happy :D (I hope).
  • DukeGrDukeGr Member Posts: 43
    agris said:

    @DukeGr While I think you're being overly pessimistic, I agree about the UI. If @TrentOster wanted to add a higher res UI to the PC development build, why I think we would accept the lost ~100 mb gladly.

    Now, if they go the route @Nathan mentioned, a hybrid of unscaled live game window, scaled inventory / journal / menus, I think that would be the best option.

    The reason i may sound pessimistic is because i am a software developer myself and my field is interface design. I recently made a cross platform UI that scales properly in all resolutions. Most graphics are vector based and where not we have high resolution stuff that scales down if needed.

    I just dont like seeing blurry stuff in 2012 its so 2002 hehe.
    MasonguitarSpaceInvader
  • ioannismanioannisman Member Posts: 43
    agris said:

    @DukeGr While I think you're being overly pessimistic, I agree about the UI. If @TrentOster wanted to add a higher res UI to the PC development build, why I think we would accept the lost ~100 mb gladly.

    Now, if they go the route @Nathan mentioned, a hybrid of unscaled live game window, scaled inventory / journal / menus, I think that would be the best option.

    You do understand how unprofessionally and discriminating that sounds for all us pc users, do you?
  • ioannismanioannisman Member Posts: 43
    DukeGr said:

    agris said:

    @DukeGr While I think you're being overly pessimistic, I agree about the UI. If @TrentOster wanted to add a higher res UI to the PC development build, why I think we would accept the lost ~100 mb gladly.

    Now, if they go the route @Nathan mentioned, a hybrid of unscaled live game window, scaled inventory / journal / menus, I think that would be the best option.

    The reason i may sound pessimistic is because i am a software developer myself and my field is interface design. I recently made a cross platform UI that scales properly in all resolutions. Most graphics are vector based and where not we have high resolution stuff that scales down if needed.

    I just dont like seeing blurry stuff in 2012 its so 2002 hehe.
    I am a pc user and I fully agree with you my friend...
  • DukeGrDukeGr Member Posts: 43
    edited December 2012
    In the end what i do not understand is why are we even discussing about tablets and the size restriction for the apple store in a pc release.

    Even if i respect the developers and their vision, coming from one pro to another, this is a wrong way to do business. Cross platform is nice, but if done in a way that it doesnt violate each platforms strengths. For instance you cant just port a pc game over to a touch platform, you need to redo the interface otherwise it wont be useable. In a similar fashion the tablet port is not made for pc usage, it may work but its crippled badly.

    The obvious "truth" here is that Overhaul focused mainly on making the game work for tablets as its the best market to target nowadays for a small scale company. They released the pc version to make profit over the longtime fans of the genre that wont care to bother about the glaring issues it is having and will wholeheartedly become lab rats to optimize the tablet version.

    I just could not believe the ammount of bugs the release version had at November 28. I was wondering for hours what was the beta crew doing all these months.

    Major selling points of BG :EE

    1)Enhanced User Interface - At the moment this is nonexistant for the pc version, at best its just a dynamic scaling of the old widescreen mod.

    2)Fixed over 400 issues with the original game - Now this is the fun part, fixed 400 and introduced 500 new ones which are even more critical than the original game.
    I never had a single crash in vanilla BG, yesterday my game crashed when i killed Sarevok and the End video should play. My immersion totaly gone down the toilet.

    3)Multiplayer support - Non existant at the moment or really primitive.

    4)New npc's, areas and quests - At best 2 hours of extra gamepley which was also mediocre.

    5)The black pits - After playing once through it (2 hours) i find it more fun to play diablo 3 act 1 for the 500th time than do that again. No connection with the main campaign means noone gives a crap about it. I want new cool loot i will use to kill new uber hard monsters on the main campaign. Simple stuff, just make it interesting.

    On a positive sidenote i see alot of post release work happening, patches to fix the mess that was created, communication from the team is good. I hope all this turns out for the best and Overhaul learns from this mistake and we have a smooth BG2:EE launch next year.
    IkonNavrosSpaceInvaderTroika
  • I'm enjoying the big screen mode, although there was a moment of panic when I accidentally closed the right side of the UI and couldn't find the button to bring it back.
  • GilgalahadGilgalahad Member Posts: 237
    edited December 2012
    It would be preferable(to me at least) since i've not been able to play the game yet to post before and after pics of this change please. I'm curious to see the change before i try to alter the ini file. I ask this since i see very little blurring on my 1080 monitor(or at least very little blurring unless i zoom in to max) but then i've also not gone far into the game at this point as i only just did 1 or 2 of the candlekeep quests.
  • NathanNathan Member Posts: 1,007
    @Zeckul there's a few reasons why the existing asset size was chosen, and as I said, it's something we can look at changing later for PC users and also as proper support for the high-res tablet screens goes in.

    You may not be able to believe why we chose that particular asset size, but I assure you the reasons are numerous. =P Yes, most people on desktop computers are looking at 1080p screens. But most people on laptops, by comparison are looking at 1366x768. If you want to talk tablets, most android tablets are around 1280x800. The iPad 2, and the iPad Mini are both at 1024x768. And this isn't even discussing the amount of work necessary to gut the portion of the infinity engine's mess of a GUI system in order to get it to work reasonably with different sized assets.

    Screen resolution is headed upwards which is a good thing, but at the end of the day we had to make a call so we could get the game out the door in a reasonable amount of time and this is what we went with, figuring it was the best compromise for all platforms with the limited time and resources we had to put work into it prior to shipping the game.

    I've said many times before, and I'll say it again now: we're not opposed to looking at options for making it better going forward, just for now what we have was the best solution for all platforms and screen sizes involved.

    In addition, I dispute that it's solely the scaling that people take issue with regarding the GUI. Some of the problems expressed to me have actually been the aspect, in terms of the screen real estate the bars take up.

    If/when we're able to do an HD GUI, it's not solely a matter of sharpness people are looking for. We might be best served by looking into some sort of adjustable scaling ratio, possibly like League of Legends handles it, or at least maybe one regular scaling mode and one "big screen" scaling mode ratio or something of the like.
    TroikaZeckulElectricMonk
  • NathanNathan Member Posts: 1,007
    Also, seriously people - the pc version is no "tablet port". There's just one version of the game. If you wanna get technical about it, then the primary development system has been the PC version - that's what we've got the most of in the office, that's what we've been testing primarily on, and the iPad version is the port since it's had a few concessions made expressly for Apple's iOS approval (like tap/touch vernacular instead of space bar mouse click, removing the "quit" button =P).
  • DukeGrDukeGr Member Posts: 43
    Nathan said:

    Also, seriously people - the pc version is no "tablet port". There's just one version of the game. If you wanna get technical about it, then the primary development system has been the PC version - that's what we've got the most of in the office, that's what we've been testing primarily on, and the iPad version is the port since it's had a few concessions made expressly for Apple's iOS approval (like tap/touch vernacular instead of space bar mouse click, removing the "quit" button =P).

    Technically speaking tho all the interface upgrades made into EE are made for touch screens, no enhancement has been made for desktop systems "yet".

    I can dig the why's in all of this, limited budget and deadlines come to mind. Keep in mind tho that people bought an enhanced edition of Baldur's Gate for their desktop system and dont really care whats going on with the tablet version. I do not see this as an excuse for things not done, business is business.

    Obviously a couple more months would do the trick but money talks and shes a bitch.

    I sincerely hope for the best and that you manage to deliver a true PC version by future updates.
  • TroikaTroika Member Posts: 36
    edited December 2012
    too lengthy offtopic response by me, made a new topic
    Post edited by Troika on
  • ZeckulZeckul Member Posts: 1,036
    edited December 2012
    Nathan said:

    (...)

    And this isn't even discussing the amount of work necessary to gut the portion of the infinity engine's mess of a GUI system in order to get it to work reasonably with different sized assets.

    Thanks for the detailed answer! Yes now that you mention it, screens with about 768 pixels of vertical resolution are still quite common, even though that's long gone on desktops.

    About the IE's mess of a GUI system: how about tearing it down completely? I know it'll be a considerable amount of work, but considering the overhead the current system has - hundreds of screens, messy code not adapted to today's requirements - I'd evaluate, for what it's worth, that it'd make more sense to start from scratch. Actually, that's what I was expecting for BG:EE, and hearing Trent complain about IE's GUI code all the time made me curious, I thought "didn't they say they were making a new GUI system?" And we ended up with basically a re-skinned, scaling version of the BG2 UI.
    DukeGr said:

    Technically speaking tho all the interface upgrades made into EE are made for touch screens, no enhancement has been made for desktop systems "yet".

    That's pretty much the opposite of what happened. Almost all the interface upgrades mainly benefit the PC version, a few concessions were made here and there for touch screens.

  • ThomasMinkThomasMink Member Posts: 25
    Sorry, but no. I'll accept any slight blurriness to the icons over needing a magnifying glass to see the buttons and portraits. God help you if you want to see how many arrows are left in the stack being used.. or charges on a wand.
  • MasonguitarMasonguitar Member Posts: 35
    Blurry Icons/Graphics and Magnifying Glass Portraits/Buttons are both bad for a person who wears glasses :) I am just glad they are working on it
    ThomasMink
  • diggerbdiggerb Member Posts: 132
    Nathan said:


    If this is something people are interested in, we can look at making something like this work better going forward.

    Yes please! This is the one alteration that, for me at any rate, took the EE from "meh" to "now you're talking!"
  • GrifGrif Member Posts: 48
    Nathan said:


    If this is something people are interested in, we can look at making something like this work better going forward.

    Just tried this out and very interested in it myself. Love the crispness of the game play area zoomed all the way out (it's tiny, but I like it). Nice to have that view of nearly an entire area all on 1 screen (using 2560x1440 res). Now if only the UI would scale a bit larger without the blurriness.
  • SowingSadnessSowingSadness Member Posts: 85
    It's awesome! I love it!
  • IkonNavrosIkonNavros Member Posts: 227
    Any news already if that one is at any poin included perhaps into the graphic options in the game?

    Would be nice to have finally a good reason to buy the game :)
  • Excalibur_2102Excalibur_2102 Member Posts: 351
    Perhaps @Aosaw could shed some light on this..
  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    I think it is more than just a matter of putting a checkbox in the UI - once it is in the UI, it is de-facto a supported feature. While the feature works really well, it doesn't take much to see that it is an unpolished feature, and there are still some issues with it. Given the other big-ticket items they are working on, I wouldn't expect to see anything in the short term.
  • IkonNavrosIkonNavros Member Posts: 227
    too bad... because that feature would have been a real buying reason for me. Fine, no problem with waiting. I give things again a look next year then :)
  • UnknownQuantityUnknownQuantity Member Posts: 242
    I prefer it without the scaling. It looks very sharp at 1920x1200 and I can read the text fine. It still looks pixelated when zoomed in though lol. I would rather have it set to zoom all the way out all the time. It actually looks like HD artwork with the scaling turned off because the pixels are so small.
  • agrisagris Member Posts: 581
    Still waiting for unscaled 'live game window', scaled everything else (journal, spellbook, item descriptions, game menu, etc) aka 'hybrid mode' that @Nathan talked about back in Nov.
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