Falcosoft wrote on Yesterday, 06:21:

At least on the T430 an external monitor (even through a digital connection) behaves completely differently to the internal LCD. Unlike in case of NVIDIA cards video modes are NOT projected to the native panel size of the external monitor. This is obvious right from the beginning since e.g.normal text modes are projected to 640x480 fixed resolution that makes text modes especially ugly on Intel HD graphics through a digital connection.
Currently ASPECT's logic relies on the inner LCD behavior.

Yes, this I suspected, and of course it did not correct on the Sandy Bridge desktop. (This is connected via HDMI cable to external display). It is irrelevant like you said since the logic of that external monitor "corrects" 720x400 or 320x200 or 320x240 to 640x480. The external monitor does its own upscaling, which is poor, but does respect 4:3 ratio on 16:9 display. by windowboxing 4:3 content.

It is therefore understood that ASPECT.COM is intended only for internal laptop displays.

zyzzle wrote on 2026-08-12, 20:49:

For intel 945GM onboard graphics, you may try the attached INTEL.EXE file. I compiled this over 15 years ago and it works on my Intel Atom netbook (Asus with 1.6 Mhz Intel Atom 230 CPU). This file will change aspect ratio to 4:3 in graphics modes (VESA, VGA), but not in text mode. It consumes a lot of low DOS memory, though. Try it and report if it worked on your system.

Many thanks!

Tested, but it doesn't work in my system.

After running INTEL.EXE the screen powers off, after a couple of seconds powers on, there is a brief flash (maximum brightneess) and the screen goes blank (screen powered on) with no image.
I was able to run MEM and output to a file. Before loading INTEL, conventional memory was 621K after loading was 486K.

According HWiNFO, your GPU is an 82945GME and mine is an 82945GM. My screen resolution is 1366x768. Could be these differences the problem?

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-08-12, 19:48:

... Is there a way to control which scaling algorithm is used? (bilinear, nearest neighbor, etc.)

I was right that there are no multiple usable scaling mode presets but I was wrong about what is the default: It's not bilinear but a medium 3×3 filter (so somewhat better than a regular 2x2 bilinear).
Also in case of Ivy Bridge there are 2 modifier bits: edge-enhancing and edge-softening. Interestingly both results in a softer/more blurry and less pleasant image quality overall 🙁
But it seems there is a 3rd way, namely a custom programmed filter mode with custom coefficients. Maybe it's possible to achieve something sharper that resembles nearest neighbor. Investigation is in progress...

@Edit:
So far it is a dead end. All available sources and driver programs including Linux drivers do not program custom Ivy Bridge coefficient tables but simply force Medium 3x3 instead...
There are no examples how the custom coefficients should be programmed.

@Edit2
Finally an Intel document has been found and it seems we can get a much sharper filter than the default one.

New version of ASPECT/ASPECTD has been made.

/AS parameter added ( as Aspect corrected Sharper). This is also a real-time parameter so can be used when ASPECT/ASPECTD is loaded. Here are some test images:

Normal aspect ratio corrected (/A)

Sharp aspect ratio corrected (/AS)

AFAIK this feature is not available either in the Windows or Linux drives 😀

Thinkpad X201: 1066x768 107,0
Thinkpad T430 (upgraded to 1080p panel): 1440x1080 240,0
Thinkpad X1 Extreme: will not boot from floppy due to lack of legacy BIOS support.

The "sharp" option does not work on the X201.

On the T430 it looks very sharp, but it is clear that it is not a filter at all, but just nearest neighbor scaling, so the pixel sizes are not consistent. It might look better on a 1440p or 4K panel. I wonder if there is a way to get something in between, something more akin to the "sharp" glshader option in DOSBox Staging.

keenmaster486 wrote on Yesterday, 18:04:

I wonder if there is a way to get something in between, something more akin to the "sharp" glshader option in DOSBox Staging.

Unfortunately no. These few registers cannot do what dynamic real-time shaders can do. All the experiments resulted in weird looking artificial characters. I did not like any of them. E.g:

So I decided to keep the nearest neighbor like implementation but in the next version it will be a little bit less harsh.

Nice work, this improves the quality of life when using DOS on newer laptops.

Going through the thread and arranging them based on Intel GPU generation, the working ones are:

• Ironlake, Gen5: ThinkPad X201
• Ivy Bridge, Gen7: ThinkPad T430, IdeaPad Yoga 13, HP EliteBook Folio 9470m
• Broadwell, Gen8: Dell Inspiron E5550

and a non-working one:

• Kaby Lake, Gen9.5: Dell Inspiron 5570

Based on that it would appear that Gen5-8 should work (pre-Skylake iGPU) but there was this report:

zyzzle wrote on 2026-08-10, 00:50:

Now I just need to get similar .COM files for baremetal DOS AR and backlight control for my other Intel core systems. (Broadwell, Haswell, Kaby Lake and Sandy Bridge). I tried and, as expected your ASPECT.com doesn't work on any of those generations. Like you said, I certainly need the DSDT data as a starting point.

Which systems are those? I do have a Haswell-based laptop but unfortunately it's a Mac so UEFI-only.

I can add my own non-working systems:

• Cantiga, Gen4: GMA 4500MHD, ThinkPad T400, 1440x900
• Skylake, Gen9: Core i7-6560U, Dell XPS 13 9350 (2015), 3200x1800

On both systems, ASPECT returns:

1Unable to detect or program a valid active fitter destination.

while ASPECTD returns:

1ERROR: invalid fitter geometry.

I did not try the backlight tools. I'm not too bothered about the Skylake as I think its VBE implementation has other issues anyway. As for the T400, perhaps the north bridge iGPUs are just sufficiently different from the CPU iGPUs.

Here is a new version of ASPECT/ASPECTD with a little bit softened nearest/sharp mode:

It does not get any better than this...

Maybe we can get the AI to make us a volume control tool as well lol. Only the mute hotkey works in DOS on my X201.

ntalaec wrote on Yesterday, 11:33:

After running INTEL.EXE the screen powers off, after a couple of seconds powers on, there is a brief flash (maximum brightneess) and the screen goes blank (screen powered on) with no image.
I was able to run MEM and output to a file. Before loading INTEL, conventional memory was 621K after loading was 486K.

According HWiNFO, your GPU is an 82945GME and mine is an 82945GM. My screen resolution is 1366x768. Could be these differences the problem?

That could be. The netbook (Acer Aspire One) I run this on is only 1024x600 for its display. The memory consumption you report is also similar for my case. It could be vendor specfic or resolution specific. The 945GME is probably just different enough from the GM to cause the strange symptoms you describe, but I suspect it has more to do with my netbook only being 1024x600 and that (native) resolution being incompatible in your system since your native resolution is 1366x768. It has been so long since I compiled that source I forget where I found it and could no longer find a copy on any of my drives.

zyzzle wrote on Today, 00:41:

That could be. The netbook (Acer Aspire One) I run this on is only 1024x600 for its display. The memory consumption you report is also similar for my case. It could be vendor specfic or resolution specific. The 945GME is probably just different enough from the GM to cause the strange symptoms you describe, but I suspect it has more to do with my netbook only being 1024x600 and that (native) resolution being incompatible in your system since your native resolution is 1366x768. It has been so long since I compiled that source I forget where I found it and could no longer find a copy on any of my drives.

What a pity. Thanks anyway for the file. However it uses a lot of RAM, most games don't work with only 486K of conventional memory.

I got ASPECTD and SBEMU running together on my Thinkpad X201. I don’t think it’s ever been possible before to run DOS games natively on a modern (widescreen, Intel HDA, etc.) laptop with correct aspect ratio and sound, so this is a breakthrough moment.

keenmaster486 wrote on Today, 15:01:

I got ASPECTD and SBEMU running together on my Thinkpad X201. I don’t think it’s ever been possible before to run DOS games natively on a modern (widescreen, Intel HDA, etc.) laptop with correct aspect ratio and sound, so this is a breakthrough moment.

I'm glad it works for you!
Yeah, I felt the same way on my T430 😀

I also use the following tools on my Thinkpad T430 to get a more 'perfect' DOS experience:

1. Sstep (or CPUSPD ) to set multiplier to 10x. This way the fan noise is zero even in 'heavy' DOS sessions.
https://falcosoft.hu/sstep.zip

2. MSKVBEF7. Although I wrote this for buggy NVIDIA cards later it proved to be a rather universal tool for modern GPUs and Build engine games, Quake etc. Without this my T430 cannot run e.g. Duke Nukem 3D in Hi-res VESA modes. But with this tool loaded it's super smooth.
https://falcosoft.hu/mskvbef7.zip

3. RESETDAC. If a VESA game or program leaves the DAC at 8-bit wide at program exit then Intel GPUs produce a faint/dark image when the app returns to text mode. My app can cure this bug without a reboot.
download/file.php?id=242646

4. VSYNCFIX. Intel HD graphics does not support the integrated VSYNC feature of VESA 2.0 page flipping functions. This little app adds VSYNC support for VESA 2.0 video modes.
As a side feature it also provides an emulated 100h - 640x400 8-bit VESA mode that some app require but Intel HD graphics does not support. It is a fake mode so it's not perfect. Actually it uses mode 101h - 640x480 8-bit instead so the last 80 lines will be missing from the picture. But at least programs that require mode 100h at least can start.

Both features provided by VSYNCFIX can be tested e.g. with X-VESA:
[Release] X-VESA 2.0 Public Beta – Deep VESA diagnostics for real DOS hardware