I have tried to follow some gfx guides here, but they didn't really give me the result I wanted. Sometimes I ended up with weird pixelated graphics, sometimes with an annoying screen ratio, etc. None of the guides really worked for me, so I figured out what works for me myself and want to share this with you now.
Please note that the aspect ratio of the end result for this guide is actually stretched to 16:9 instead of the 4:3 that's standard for Diablo 2. This is my personal preference, because I simply don't like black filler bars on my screen. I'd rather have it stretched a bit.With my settings I think 16:9 with full screen width actually looks great.
But if you really want a non stretched result, you can switch on the "Keep aspect ratio" setting.
Here's some examples of the end result with this guide. You can set your prefered contrast and gamma in-game. I prefer the old school dark D2 look.
As you can see the text remains quite sharp too. And you don't need any third party programs for this!
Demo Screenshot 1 (enlarge to get better idea):
Demo Screenshot 2 (enlarge to get better idea):
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Now for the settings guide.
Step1:
Step2:
Step3:
Step4:
After this last step, just start the game and press Alt+Enter anywhere to make the window borderless covering the whole screen. This is also great for fast alt-tabbing since desktop composition is kept.
Hope someone gets a benefit from this guide!