Icewind Dale II - Widescreen Multiplayer

[elysianhero]

Icewind Dale II has become the new multiplayer game for some friends and I. As with the Infinity Engine games, the widescreen mods presented here at The Gibberlings III really help to increase playability on newer systems and monitors. I have used these mods before with Baldur's Gate I&II and Planescape: Torment to extraordinary effect, and for this I want to the the creators here! Of course, nothing's perfect, and there is an issue I've had playing multiplayer in Icewind Dale II with the widescreen mod installed. I have search for about a week now over various posts, and it seems as though no one has conclusively answered whether or not there is a fix. Here is my issue:

 

Icewind Dale II's multiplayer must be initiated in windowed mode for all players. Otherwise, the game crashes. After it's started, the game can be put back into fullscreen mode using the either the options menu or the Alt+Enter shortcut. But it seems as though the widescreen mod forces the game to be in fullscreen at all times. After installing the mod, changing the settings in the INI file, in-game options, or by using Alt+Enter have no effect. Once the mod is installed, as far as I've been able to find out, it seems impossible to put the game in windowed mode. Because of the aforementioned multiplayer bug, this renders widescreen multiplayer impossible. How such a small bug could give me such a headache!

 

I am hoping that someone can help answer whether or not there is a work-around. If there's not, then I will play the game as-is, but will be happy knowing that there's not something I could do to fix it. If there is, please! Let me know! Thanks a lot for the help, and for being such a great community. I have been here often, and have always been able to find what I was looking for (this issue not included).

 

Edit:

In case more information is needed, I am running IWD2 v2.01, Widescreen Mod v3.5, and Windows 7 64-bit. Another player is using Windows 7 32-bit to the same effect. I have also attempted to run the game in Windows Compatibility Mode and have also tried using shortcut parameters, such as "-window" and "-w".

 

Edit 2:

I have found that the mod only forces fullscreen if you choose a resolution equal to or higher than your monitor's native resolution. The monitor I am trying to use is designed for 1920x1080, and this is what I set the mod to. If I choose a smaller resolution, such as 1680x1050, the game will run in windowed mode. It will also work if I choose a non-standard resolution such as 1900x1060, but if will crash when put in full screen (as noted in the mod description). My second monitor's resolution is 1680x1050, and if I set the mod to run in this resolution and run the game on this display only, it will also force fullscreen.

 

A strange thing that I discovered is that if I set the mod to run in 1680x1050 on my primary monitor (native res 1920x1080), load it up in windowed mode, and then switch my display to my 1680x1050 monitor, it will stay in windowed mode. This is the only way that I have gotten the mod to work in fullscreen, but only will work for someone with 2 monitors, 1 of which has a smaller resolution.