Well, I just got a new notebook and, surprise! It doesn't support aspect ratio scaling! o.o

I'm not sure if it's AMD's or HP's fault, but anyway, this means I can't play games with black bars on the sides or top and bottom on the laptop's monitor (and I can't always use an external monitor). Unless they have at least 1024x768, because the native resolution is 1366x768, and it centers nicely.

According to brazillian law, today is the last day I can choose to return the notebook to the store. However, it might be a little troublesome, as it's formatted, the box was damaged when opening, etc. The store might bitch about that. I even bought a new ram module, which hasn't arrived yet, so I'm not yet sure if I want to give it back.

So, do you guys know how many of my GOG's won't go up to 1024x768? Here is the list of those I'm not sure:

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars
Disciples Sacred Lands Gold
Disciples 2 Gold
Divine Divinity
Enemy Engaged: Apache vs Havoc
Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs Hokum
Freespace + Expansion
Gothic
Gothic II Gold Edition
Red Baron 3D
Independence War Deluxe
Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos
Total Annihilation: Commander Pack

Lower res games:
Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator
POD

Why not just return it for a model that has the feature you need? A notebook is an expensive purchase and you have to live with it for awhile, I presume. If it doesn't do what you need it to do it's the wrong one for you.

Well, this is the only notebook I could afford that is reasonable for gaming. It has no competition on it's price (which is about the lowest it gets around here), and I don't think I will be able to buy a more expensive one so soon. Also, I don't know if I might go into a lot of trouble trying to return it.

I'd never imagine a computer could miss such a basic feature. But still, I think it might be easier to decide if I know better how much I'm losing with it.

I remember that Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator is 800*600.

EDIT: Oh wait, it might be even stuck at 640*480. I am sure it does not go up to 1024*768 though.

Sigh, I guess older 2D games should suffer most.

I'll make a quick dosbox test, see if the program can do some scaling.

DosBox does have good scaling, it will fit to 4:3 and such rather well.

ScummVM is the one that (last I tried) sucked at that.

Ended up trying it first, on Lure of the Temptress. For some reason it didn't occupy the whole screen, but it was definitely a high resolution.

Now, grabbing something quick for a dosbox test.

ScummVM fills the screen for me no matter I do, unless I run it windowed. I googled around and everything I read said you can't run it in fixed aspect ration yet. Of course, this was a year or two ago.

I know that one, I have it on my older laptop. But in this new laptop, the option is not there at all in HP's drivers. On the newest catalyst, it's there, but it doesn't work. I change the resolution to a non-native one, but when I try to set the scaling, the driver instantly changes it to full screen instead.

I looked around and found some other instances of this problem, but no solution. I suppose it's the monitor, though.

And I don't really need widescreen. Most widescreen solutions I found to older games weren't very good anyway. 1024x768 is enough because then the game occupies the whole height of the screen.

Oddly enough I set all my games 1024 X 768 with exception of my GOGs which i just leave at default.

Well, DosBox works nicely too, so I took the games that use it out of the list, as well as a few others I remember. I'll see if I can check some more. If the list of games that don't reach 1024x768 is small enough, I might just wait to play them later, or whenever I can use another monitor.

add POD to the list. It fixed at 640x480.

Maybe i can be wrong, but Psychonauts support my native widescreen 16:10.

Both Fallouts are lower than 1024x768 but they can be improved by using HI-RES patch.

GOG's Arx Fatalis lists 1024x768 & 1366x768 as options in the resolution selection menu.