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Baldur's Gate Widescreen Improvements


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#1 Luke Bioware

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Posted 18 July 2009 - 09:08 AM

Hello there, I'm new and hopefully my English isn't too bad.

Anyhoo, I (currently) like my games as 'unmodded' as possible and that's why I have a dream. I dream of a Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast with the Widescreen Mod which looks awesome. Currently it - sadly - does not.

Ghostdog did some amazing work for Planescape: Torment and I installed it, loved it and want to have children with it. Isn't something like this possible for BG1 too? Just make the dialogue bar stretch out properly and all other things on the user interface. Centering the menus would be good enough for me by the way. I don't need any artwork surrounding them, but it really looks lame if they are sitting in your upper right corner.

If someone is willing to create this, I'll glady help. Would something like this be a lot of work?

Edit: damn it, love my idea!

Edited by Luke Bioware, 18 July 2009 - 03:52 PM.

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#2 Nugrud

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Posted 19 July 2009 - 01:06 AM

Try this:
http://forum.cob.net...opic.php?t=3257
It's for bg1 with widescreen mod and supports 1024x600, 1024x768 and 1280x800 resolution. It's considered BETA so it would be good if you gave some feedback to Zed Nocear on it.

Edited by Nugrud, 20 July 2009 - 10:21 PM.


#3 Jarno Mikkola

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Posted 19 July 2009 - 01:36 AM

...

That need to be installed after the Widescreen mod, right? Cause I don't have any Polish language skills...
Actually now that I am looking it, it seems that the package needs to have the Widescreen mod installed in the BG1, at one of the 3 resolutions.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 19 July 2009 - 06:18 AM.

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#4 Nugrud

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Posted 19 July 2009 - 02:20 AM

Yes, it should be installed after widescreen mod, but maybe it does some additional exe-hacking like widescreen too. It was tested on v2 version and I think it even depends on it, so it is 'compatible'. Installing on different resolution will brake the GUI, though. The mod contains also 3 new backgrounds, e.g. night sky for world map, and what is interesting about it, is that this window is not a '640x480 + background' but takes some advantage of the height resolution(!):

Posted Image

The loading game window is not centered yet, and Zed Nocear is still looking for help to find the offsets in exe to change that.

Edited by Nugrud, 19 July 2009 - 02:35 AM.


#5 taplonaplo

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Posted 19 July 2009 - 05:36 AM

The loading game window is not centered yet, and Zed Nocear is still looking for help to find the offsets in exe to change that.

If it's the same way as with PS:T (which i assume it is) that will need more than some offsets, as he will have to optimize some assembly code to make room for the horizontal position of certain parts (originally they are written into one byte, which limits how far he can move it). The way that i located the loading screen for PS:T was by following references to the loading screen images in the exe using OllyDbg - a debugger (this doesn't require any assembly knowledge) and then Scient helped out with the assembly part, also assuming the engine hasn't changed much, using ghostdog's exe patching tp2 files would give good directions too to it's whereabouts.

#6 Luke Bioware

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Posted 19 July 2009 - 05:51 AM

Awesome, I didn't know about that mod. Is that guy active here? With some assistance from the people here that mod would become awesome.

Edit: That's why giving him feedback over there is difficult. The Dutch language doesn't look like Polish, at all.

Edit2: I left a message at his site. :)

Edited by Luke Bioware, 19 July 2009 - 07:50 AM.

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#7 Luke Bioware

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Posted 20 July 2009 - 08:38 AM

Meh, is Baldur's Gate-modding dying out? I have an idea:

What if someone creates something like that Polish mod and just makes the GUI stretch out properly and make the other menus center. I don't need any fancy artwork. I just want to play. :P

P.S. I'll help if you need any help of course.
Kenny van Hummel rocks!

#8 Nugrud

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Posted 20 July 2009 - 10:32 PM

I will translate you why Zed's does not plan to make it work for other resolutions:
1)characters and interface elements would be far too small on the screen in very high resolutions, it even looks bad in bg2 for >1024x768
2)editing chu with dltcep and its basic abilities is a tough work for another tens of hours
3)for other resolution he would have to find yet another offsets to make it work, but is not really sure if he is really able to do that

Besides if you read taplonaplo post here you'll get a clue what he meant saying it's beyond his programming skills... But there are plans to rearange a few other windows.

#9 Jaesun

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Posted 21 July 2009 - 07:22 AM

I will translate you why Zed's does not plan to make it work for other resolutions:
1)characters and interface elements would be far too small on the screen in very high resolutions, it even looks bad in bg2 for >1024x768
2)editing chu with dltcep and its basic abilities is a tough work for another tens of hours
3)for other resolution he would have to find yet another offsets to make it work, but is not really sure if he is really able to do that

Besides if you read taplonaplo post here you'll get a clue what he meant saying it's beyond his programming skills... But there are plans to rearange a few other windows.


I personally would love it if someone could just re-do the interface, center the movies etc.... (in as much as the PST widescreen mod) in a 800x600 resolution. I still prefer the original BG1, as I just dislike the wacky spawns and other annoyances in TUTU/BGT (which is a problem they really cant fix sadly).