Thank you!!!!

Oh sweet mercy, thank you. I have been trying in vain for days attempting to get these different modification packs to function. There are tons of them (some with malware, some that are just terrible wastes of time). To read this is like soothing balm on my soul.

Thank you. Oh thank you.

If I could, I would kiss you. And I would shave first. Thumbs up!

Then it must be a funky notebook driver thing. I have no idea how you are going to get the game to display to your monitor aspect, if you can't even change resolutions via your display drivers. Windows 8 just does not like games at all.

Windows 8 is a bizarre and sadistic beast. Thanks for the help anyway

I would like to warn you about the Widescreen mod. It is great, and you can get a better display of the game on your panoramic screens, however, it ruined my game on Baldur's Gate I. It made the game crash randomly whenever I attempted to enter into a house, inn, dungeon. It even screwed up the game up to such a point, that I couldn't return to kandlekeep (near the end) as the game crashed. It was so frustrating that I had to end up the game by taking savegames from someone else's.

There's just two things from BGII that I would like to see in BG:

The ability to highlight containers, and not having the inventory screen unpause the game.

Can anybody point me to mods which will make these changes in BG?

Personally, while BGII is fun, I found that a lot of the additional tweaks just overcomplicated the game from the simplicity of BG. The grouping of weapon proficiencies was ideal for allowing lower-level characters a good variety of weapons to choose from, and give a sense of being able to "upgrade" mundane weaponry - like going from a Longsword to a Bastard Sword.

Thus, I would like to keep vanilla BG, but with a few important gameplay enhancements.

Highlighting containers saves having to scrabble around the screen looking for all the lootable containers. Sure, it means that the hidden items are easily visible (but then, who really doesn't know the location of such items by now?) but it sure beats having to move the mouse over everything that might look like a container to see if it actually IS a container or not.

Having the inventory screen pause the game means that encounters can be more tactical, as players are more likely to use those odd potions, wands, and scrolls that don't fit in their quick slots. I know that you probably don't need to use them, but it would make combat more interesting than the usual sword/arrow/spell beatdown that it currently is. I think the random scrolls you find are more likely to be used than sold if BG had the same inventory mechanics has BG II.

There's only one way to have the ability to highlight interactive objects and have the game stay paused in the inventory, and that's to play the game in the BG2 engine via one of the two available mods that do this: or [url=http://usoutpost31.com/easytutu/]EasyTuTu.

Both convert BG1 into the BG2 engine. The difference between the two is that BGT's purpose is to seamlessly take the game, your character, and all relevant NPCs, all the way from Candlekeep in BG1, through Shadows of Amn, and to the Throne of Bhaal. All characters keep their status and XP right from the start, including NPCs, so no need for importing.

EasyTuTu is different, in that it is ONLY BG1 in the BG2 engine, but it does have the advantage of being completely separate from BG2, so you can play the original BG2 if you wish -- with BGT you can't do this. However, TuTu has more bugs and a few graphical issues that BGT does not.

If you want a seamless trilogy all the way through, go for BGT. If you want a standalone installation, go for TuTu.

NB: To get the weapon proficiencies as per BG1 (well, a variation of that system), you will need the tweak pack.

I've been playing through the game with BG FixPack (plainab/LazyA), some BG Tweaks, and the Unfinished Business mods and it's been playing fine for the most part. I encountered a few bugs and odd things though, which I'll list below to see if others have encountered the same things and as info for new users (beware of spoilers though!):

Early on I could sometimes not initiate dialogue with some shopkeepers, having to save and reload or re-enter the location to make them 'activate' again. This seemed to go away by chapter 4 or so though.

Kagain's caravan quest - With UB I still got nothing from searching the caravans, and if I kept him in the party he'd eventually give up the quest.

Shar'Teel once got stuck on flat ground in an ambush map near the Gnoll fortress (needed to move party members around next to her to free her)

Similarly, the hit detection in the middle room of Durlag's labyrinth level 3 (with the skeleton archers and stinking cloud traps) was off, making it hard to move behind the pillars sticking up here and there around to the southernmost round platform.

There was a crash when picking up the bottle of wine and drinking it after killing the Warders in Durlag's labyrinth. Solved by not drinking it, obviously. It seems the game shouldn't have spawned the wine at all here, because when put in quick item slots it doesn't show up and isn't clickable outside the inventory screen.

Not sure if these last two were in the original game, but I think they were IIRC. They're very minor problems though:
-Bragging merchant at Nashkel Carnival keeps bragging frequently (need to re-initiate dialogue a couple of times to be able to shop). Thalantyr at High Hedge repeats introductory dialogue causing a similar annoyance.

New players, or those who didn't know about all of them/forgot they existed. I would prefer to have clues to the items' locations given by NPCs, books or whatever because I do enjoy moving the mouse around and seeing what I can interact with. Only at a few points was I annoyed by not having that feature but that was mainly because of inconsistency - Sometimes a chest will be interactive but have nothing in it, sometimes it (or several in the same area) won't be interactive at all. Only other issue was with loot ending up behind walls and stuff but you can toggle a yellow line around loot with a code.

Regarding inventory screen pausing, I think having a belt equipped should've let you put more stuff in the quick item slots for that character instead. The game is still tactical, you just have to get used to probably dying on the first try, then re-equipping your party for success when in difficult encounters. If it was a one shot game (no save/reload) I probably would've wanted to keep the game paused though.

I can see where you are coming from here - but most of these items are simply hidden in obscure places and if you didn't already know about them and go looking, you would be hardly likely to find them.

It is not like they were a bonus for exploring the maps or anything. The classic examples being the +1 Ring of Protection, the Ring of Wizardry, and the Ankheg Plate Mail - these were just hidden in pointless spots, and the only way to spot them would be if you moved your mouse across them and found a container is highlighted.

It would have been better if there were clues to the locations of such items - at the very least, it would give you some sense of why such precious items are just lying around waiting to be picked up by your party if they stumble on them. They are just there though - and most people would only have known about them from a walkthrough.

The inconsistencies are also a minor niggle, but then if the game had something in all the containers, there is a risk that the game might become unbalanced. Sure, there are loads of boxes and crates in a warehouse, for example, but you can only open and explore a few of them. This is fine with me, but having to find which boxes you can loot by moving your mouse over everything is just annoying.

While I am not adverse to this method of gaming, I would hardly call it tactical. This is more trial and error, and is a very crude method for playing the game. This is particularly important when, in most cases, you won't actually have any idea of the creatures you will be facing until you face them. Of course, being low level, this is rarely important because the creatures generally don't have that much variety, so you can brute force your way through things, but pausing the game for inventory swap outs would have reflected tabletop play better.

Having played through the entire game now and having started on BG2 I think I agree with you a bit, though it only became a real issue for me after reaching Baldur's Gate itself. I'm still not too keen on having Tab show every interactive thing on screen though because it doesn't feel like I'm exploring a medieval/fantasy world when I'm just hitting the "scan" button. I would rather have more subtle visual clues on interactive items/containers (sparkles, different colours, asymmetric placement etc.). Either that or they could be highlighted when your party moves closer, like with secret doors but without the chance of failure. BG2 seems better about examinable objects though, in that there are more of them and they tend to stand out well. BG1 sometimes had signposts out of sight, beneath roofs.

We're on the same page about stuff like the ring of wizardry. I actually found the Ankheg plate on my own back then but yeah, it was pure luck.

@Tactics/pause during inventory screen: The trial & error is still there with a paused inventory screen, it just reduces the number of times you'll have to reload your save when you can more easily react properly to whatever they're doing. I think to make battles more tactical (or is it strategic?) there would have to be some sort of scan ability/spell that lets you see enemy gear and spells, but at least you can scout ahead and get a general idea of what you're facing, which also becomes easier to predict as the game goes on. I still used potions and scrolls a lot despite the pause function (or the belt function) not being there though.

In case you didn't know (and I discovered this after my post), playing BG1 in multiplayer will keep the game paused when at the inventory screen.

No, I didn't know this. I have played the multiplayer game maybe once with a friend, but we didn't get very far, and it was such a hassle to set up that we never managed again... (Irony for you - connecting computers is easy, but organising life schedules can be a lot trickier!)

I think that I may have to try that next time so I can try and get some more fun out of the game by using all the odd ball scrolls, potions, and wands you find. It seems to me that it can go the way of the tabletop game, that players very quickly learn to depend on "old faithful" when it comes to combat, without really exploring too much for other spells and abilities.

Still, many of the good potions are mainly effective only after a test fight - You'll want to know if that strength potion is worth it considering enemy HP or if they have some really destructive attack that you need to not let them use much, or if there'll be a confuse/hold/charm spell to use a potion of clarity (or similar) preventively against. At least until you have the money to quickly replenish your supply later on. Anyway, glad to hear that info was of use :)

Does the Unfinished Business mod contain the DudleyFixes and/or Baldurdash fixpack? I've read somewhere that one should install Baldurdash - DudleyFixes - Unfinished Business but the latter seems to have many of the previous fixes...

No. Unfinished Business is restored cut content only. If you have the GOG version of Baldur's Gate, you do not need Dudley Fixes or Baldurdash.