Hi, I have an HP 6930 laptop c. 2008 with Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processer and Mobile Intel 4 Series Graphics chipset, and 16:9 aspect ratio monitor. I'm new to gaming and would like to be able to "Preserve Aspect Ratio" as I've done for my desktop using AMD Control Centre. There is no "Control Centre" for the Intel chipset I can find, and I have the latest available graphics driver. There is no usable scaling facility using the Windows Setup app that I can find.

The hope is to be able to use the laptop with old 4:3 games; the graphics VRAM is only 64Mb and won't run much later stuff. I discovered things called Command Line Arguments yesterday (such as Path\Game.exe -setup) and wonder if one could be used with each game to cause the laptop screen to produce the right aspect ratio of 4:3 for the game. If so, can you give me an example to work from? Or is there another way to do it, if at all?

Hmm, the first laptop I owned that had the option to preserve the AR was from about 2009. There is the possibility that it just doesn't support it. There should be some kind of control centre type application for your Intel chipset though so keep looking. Make sure you've got the latest drivers installed.

If you still can't find it you could try Display Changer. It's mainly meant for changing resolution, but it also has flags for specifying the scaling mode. It's possible your chipset supports the option even if it's not exposed through control software.

Thank you; my laptop is too old to support the available Intel Control Panel. The latest available driver is installed. I'll look into Display Changer, but many of these apps seem to be more video related and support specific formats such as MP4.

There should be a graphics driver control panel somewhere: try pressing Ctrl+Alt+F12 keys to open it as suggested in this article.

I assure you, display changer has nothing to do with video codecs, it's for switching videocard display modes. I know because I use it all the time.
If your graphics chipset has the capability for aspect ratio scaling this will let you specify it without the Intel control software.

Yes it's as you say; I've been looking at it and have downloaded the program. It will be challenging for me to use as I'm inexperienced,but it looks good for a cautious try. I tried your suggested key combination, but no luck. What I suspect is that onupgrading the laptop to Windows 10, W10 installed the latest driver but without the control panel. I did a similar OS upgrade to another laptop with AMD graphics, an AMD driver was installed by W10, but I had to download the AMD control centre from their website.

You mentioned how you recently learned about command line arguments. Well this is how you use display changer. Try the following and see what happens:

dc.exe -width=640 -height=480 -fixedoutput=default

If this doesn't work then it tells us your graphics card is probably incapable of scaling to maintain aspect ratio.

There is a backup plan though, my last laptop before the one that supported aspect ratio scaling did have the option to centre the image without any scaling. Yours might support the same thing, so try:

dc.exe -width=640 -height=480 -fixedoutput=center

I hope you have at least 4GB or RAM. I am typing this on a Windows 10 laptop with a mere 4GB of RAM and it is woefully inadequate. Those old Intel graphics solutions were infamous for being useless for gaming. You had better look for 2D games to play.

I'm not sure which Windows version you are currently using on the laptop. I thought you had XP or Vista, not 7 or newer.
If you have Windows 10, you could try installing the Intel Graphics Control Panel app from Microsoft Store.

Thank you for all your help. I should have been clearer; I've recently discovered command line arguments and not learned about them!. I'd like to try those you have given, but where do I put the command line. Do I put it in a particular editable file? I have 4Gb RAM, and considering, the laptop is not too slow. I agree, the old Intel 4 series chipset is not much good; I'm only looking o play old games on the laptop. I've done a lot of searching, and the only version of Control Panel I can find is for gen 6 processers (after 2016 or thereabouts); my processer is too old to support it although I'm using Windows 10 v. 2004.

There is not a universal set of command-line arguments which apply to every program. Quite the opposite -- every program has its own unique set of arguments, and many programs don't support any arguments at all. I don't think that "using command-line arguments" is going to be the universal solution that you're looking for.

The problem you're facing is that your very old graphics chip and driver don't support aspect ratio scaling -- at least, not without some kind of graphics control panel to enable that feature. So, even if you forced a game to render in a 4:3 aspect ratio (640x480), the graphics driver will still stretch it to fill your 16:9 ratio screen. There is nothing you can do to an individual game to change this -- you need to tell the graphics driver to preserve the aspect ratio. You can force the game to render at whatever resolution you want, but your graphics driver is going to stretch it out to fill the entire screen unless you find some way to force aspect ratio scaling at a driver level (or at the hardware level through the monitor, which typically isn't an option with laptops).

After doing a little research, it looks like the Intel 4 series graphics chipset is not supported under Windows 10. Win10 may have installed some generic graphics driver that provides basic functionality, but you're not going to get any kind of advanced control panel functionality on that OS.

Makes sense. Most graphics chipsets are able to function on a basic level with generic drivers so you can start Windows and install something better. It also makes sense that Intel wouldn't have bothered developing a Windows 10 driver for a chipset that was obsolete before Windows 8 came out. When the OP said they'd installed the drivers I took their word for it but I did think it was pretty strange.
Due to what Ryan333 pointed out, what I suggested simply will not work. If you're running generic drivers this program won't help you get scaling options.

You need to return to an OS that is properly supported by that chipset, there's no other way if you want scaling.

Personally i wouldn't touch Windows 8 or 10. Pointless overhead, compatibility and the various pushes for the Microsoft store alone. Though some drivers you can get away with even with old ones. I have a 2005 webcam that worked on XP, Windows 7 says doesn't work on it. But if i extract the individual drivers and install it manually it accepts it and works fine. Though more than likely just a basic SVGA driver would get you the basics, just no 3D acceleration.

I don't see a specific game listed, makes me wonder if we are discussing a possible a DOSBOX game. If it is, there are some config options that might help, either going window, resolution multiplier, 16:9 resolutions that actually are 4:3 and leave black boxes on the sides (for monitors/chipsets that don't support those) etc.

The laptop was ugraded from W7 to W10. For general purpose use it runs quite well, and it is said that Microsoft tried to make W10 only slightly more resource-hungry than W10.
What you say is spot on and happening in practice!
Dosbox games are amongst the games I'm considering because of my poor graphics. If possible, a sample command would be most helpful, presumably to be placed in the config file? Moto Racer is an example. EDIT : No, my mistake, MotoRacer is not Dosbox. Epic Pinball and Tyrian 2000 are dosbox.

Windows 10 does have its downside for sure; mostly the awful features updates.

I'm happy with black areas either side of the game-this is unavoidable if I want 4:3.