I bought Baldur's Gate 2 from GOG so I could have a digital copy of it (I already have it on CD). However, the digital copy seems to be hardly worthwhile. I'm unable to scale the GUI so it fits the screen. My native resolution is 1920x1080. If I choose 1280x960 resolution in Config (the highest possible) the graphics get sort of torn and the interface turns into some kind of fruit salad. (i have a screenshot of it, but I am unable to share it)

I remember I could play the CD copy in 1400x900 without any problem. Now I try with 1024x768 (the second best option in Config), but the game is not scaled up to fit my screen and is framed by a damn thick letterbox. It is possible to play this way, but hardly any good. It also ruins my eyes.

Mods should not be necessary, atleast since it hasn't been necessary for me to have it before. I did try the popular Widescreen mod, but then the screen for some reason just fixed itself on my bottom left taskbar on my dashboard, probably due to some conflict with other configurations.

For the record I am using the troublesome Windows 8.1 and have a GT 750M. Compatibility mode does not help. Screen scaling is not deactivated as far as I am aware. Planescape Torment works fine.

I would love to play this game again, and I hoped the GOG version had some tweaks to offer (bugs, resolution, compatibility etc, but so far I am irritated that I bought it (except the bonus music!). My question therefore is if anyone of you have run into similar problems and have been able to find a solution. Thanks in advance.

The 1280x960 resolution does not work on my 1920x1080 machine either. I don't know if it's a Windows thing, an nVidia thing or what. But you should be able to get 1024x768 to scale in your nVidia control panel. Go to Adjust Desktop and Position, and set it to 'Aspect Ratio' and 'Perform Scaling on Display' -- if you set scaling to GPU on a 16:9 monitor for a 4:3 game like Baldur's Gate you will get the letterbox effect. This works on Windows 7. I don't know about Windows 8.

Thanks for answering! I considered this option and I will try it later. Right now however my nVidia Control Panel does not show any functions beside "3D settings". I think this is a bug with the current driver, but I'm not sure. I'll get back to you when I'm able to try your suggestion.

One option I know that will work is to change my monitor resolution to 1024x768, the same as Baldur's Gate, and then launch the game. But this is rather tiresome unless I plan to do some kind of gaming marathon. I would have to switch back and forth and screw up all my desktop icons and waste a lot of time. Edit: No, haha, this does not work either, oddly enough. I got the same kind of "black box" around the game, the exact same size, when playing in 1024x768 as I did in 1920x1080.

Edit: The problem might actually be with my integrated Intel graphics.

Yeah, changing your monitor resolution in Windows will have no effect in-game if your integrated chip is not capable of scaling, and that is what it sounds like. Although, I've heard of people having a similar issue in Windows 8 but not in Windows 7 -- I can't speak for Windows 8 personally, but I haven't heard very many good things about it.

Could be a Nvdia problem, I finished the BG series with 1024x768 using the basic Intel HD 3000 with a 1080p monitor as main screen. Currently with Windows 8 (And years before with Windows 7)

Yeah possibly. It could also be a specific chipset problem, though that's less likely.

With regard to this problem the odd thing is though that it is only Baldur's Gate 2 that screws up. Planescape, Fallout, Baldur's Gate 1, hell, even things like Magic Carpet runs fine. I have not had this problem earlier. I can try to install it by CD and see if that still works.
Edit: The CD version does not work anymore either. It might be a compatibility issue with Windows 8.1 then, atleast that would be my guess. Googling it brings up a lot of results, maybe I'll find a solution there. It might be a hint to something that when I run the game exe-file I am forced to run it as administrator.

Windows 8 isn't all that bad, but Windows 8.1 messed up quite a lot for me.

About my integrated Intel Graphics, I see - by giving it some exercise - that it actually is capable of scaling, but only if I change my resolution down from my native (down from 1920x1080 to something like for instance 1400x900). It does not help any though. Drivers are of course up to date.

You could always try using the widescreen mod. No guarantees that it won't mess something else up, but you may decide it's worth a try.

As I stated in my first post, I have tried the widescreen mod, but it does not work as intended (to put it lightly). If I for instance specify a resolution of 1400x900 for the mod to use, then the screen just fix itself on the bottom left side of my taskbar and is more like 200 x something.

[!] I actually managed to solve it, though I am not happy with the way I did. The game runs scaled / fullscreen / without black borders if I disable 3D acceleration in Config. Does this enlighten the issue? Atleast I can start playing now, even though the animation have seen better days.

It seems to be working quite well, no hiccups as of yet and as you pointed out I am not able to see much difference in graphics quality by turning the 3D acceleration on and off. Right now I am busting up the Copper Coronet and freeing slaves! This will be a good day. Cheers for your patience!

Have fun! :)

Hi,

first of all thank you for the post that helped me to go a bit further in solving this widescreen problem that I have with Baldur's Gate Trilogy. Deactivating 3D acceleration worked to finally have widescreen. Now I have just the problem that the screen and, most of all, the hand cursor are flickering during the game (cursor sometime disappears too) and pieces of my desktop (underlying the game image) appears sometimes.

Do you have some idea on how to solve this additional problem?

Thank you.

Install DDrawFix.