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First post, by Radio

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I'd like some help to make some games work on full screen mode.
I know that those old Dos games were designed for 4:3 aspect ratio and that forcing them to a 16:9 aspect ratio will skew the picture and ruin the overall gaming experience. Even though I managed to make Rebel Assault II, Hardline, Creature Shock and a couple more games to work perfectly to a 16:9 screen without ruining the original experience, that's not what I'm asking right now.

Have a look at this:

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In Star Trek: A Final Unity we have a perfect 4:3 aspect ratio. It's not in complete full screen, but it can be played nevertheless.

Now look at this:

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In Prisoner of Ice the game is set to a 4:3 aspect ratio, but it's actually a small window on the center of the screen. Nothing like Final Unity.

The same thing happens with Orion Burger and Mission Critical, except the windows there are not centered.

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And I got the same thing with Bad Mojo, Lighthouse: The Dark Being, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time...

Is there a way to zoom those windows and make them work like in Final Unity? Although the way I see those windows they could easily fit to a 16:9 screen.

Reply 1 of 2, by Osprey

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That's just how the games were designed. They're running in fullscreen; they're just not using all of it, at least not all of the time. By using only a portion of the screen, games could use less memory, artists didn't have to draw as much and it gave a widescreen cinematic look. That was especially the case for adventure games.

In the case of Orion Burger, the game does appear to use the area at the bottom at certain points of the game:

264353-orion-burger-screenshot.png

In earlier adventure games, that area would've displayed game controls and/or inventory all of the time. I'm guessing that the developers, like many other developers in the early CD-ROM era, decided to just hide such controls and inventory when not needed to improve the cinematic look.

Reply 2 of 2, by Radio

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Osprey wrote:
That's just how the games were designed. They're running in fullscreen; they're just not using all of it, at least not all of th […]
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That's just how the games were designed. They're running in fullscreen; they're just not using all of it, at least not all of the time. By using only a portion of the screen, games could use less memory, artists didn't have to draw as much and it gave a widescreen cinematic look. That was especially the case for adventure games.

In the case of Orion Burger, the game does appear to use the area at the bottom at certain points of the game:

264353-orion-burger-screenshot.png

In earlier adventure games, that area would've displayed game controls and/or inventory all of the time. I'm guessing that the developers, like many other developers in the early CD-ROM era, decided to just hide such controls and inventory when not needed to improve the cinematic look.

True, Orion Burger does have a small space underneath the window to be used as an inventory (or information). The same thing happens in Mission Critical (as shown in the picture) and Bad Mojo as well. (there is a small part on the top about how many lives are left).
But still, there's plenty of empty space that could be omitted. Is there some sort of command I could add to the dosbox.conf to zoom the picture and fill the screen?

By the way, if I switch the output to Direct3D all games run on an even smaller window than this. How can I have them set to Direct3D and have the same ratio as Final Unity's?