Hello!

Today in the afternoon i played HOMM 3 with the same settings like always in the last years.
Just a few minutes ago i want to play again and the resolution has changed. I can toggle to window mode per F4
but not to full screen as before.
I saw there was an update today- is this resonsible for this change? And if it is, will this get a fix?
Actually it looked too compressed...
Best regards

You was played non clear but modded verions. Either by HeroesGL (Heroes3GL) or by Heroes 3 HD+ (which based on HeroesGL). Both work as wrappers.
Update introduce built-in wrapper. So it is disable your previous one. Reinstall+Validate the installation (just reinstall for offline version), start, set up. And then close the game, go to game folder, rename presented _ddraw.dll. Reinstall desired mod again.

Or stay on build in one. Should be good as is. If tiny - that first of is of your system and display settings. Then included wrapper ini file settings. Set everywhere Keep Aspect ratio +integer scaling.
Or another optional step - disable Aspect ratio in ini file only, always keep Keep for system settings. But widescreen on 4:3 game never be looking good without further modding (HeroesGL introduce better widescreen but only as possible for top-down camera - zooming POV).

I have the exact same problem, it all started with the recent update. The changelog did mention they fixed something about windowed mode and I'm guessing whatever it is that they tinkered caused this problem (I personally never used windowed mode and I couldn't care less about it). I'm hoping too that it will get fixed, but I'm not holding much hope. Only solution for now is to get a hold of a copy of the old pre-patch installer.
This also made me wonder if the recent patch affected mod compatibility in any way (WOG, ERA, HOTA , H3SW etc.), I literally didn't understand a single word of what you typed there. If this is a workaround some much needed clarification would be appreciated.

Do a bit more than one click. Never use PC as console. Look to the game folder. Answer already in OP post.

Yeah.... Sorry I still don't understand a single word of what you're saying, thanks for trying though.

On a personal note, I have 7 or 8 different copies of Heroes 3 on my PC, one for each major mod, most of which have a working Heroes 3 Complete vanilla launcher that obviously still work as they used to in their unmodified resolution. For me this means that I have to stomach that clipped, displeasing resolution whenever I want to play through Galaxy, so it isn't much of a loss for me. Still would be nice if they fixed in another patch though...

Hey! Thanks for your replies.
Only HOMM3 Complete Vanilla is installed, no mods.
I´ve found no configuration settings for the resolution in
the folders.
Looks bad! ;-)
Just now i installed the HD Mod, trying all options- only a little window...

Wow that sucks; it means even mods installed on the new patched version get affected. Hopefully though that should at least get the community going on trying to come up with a fan solution; most people these days can't stomach playing Heroes 3 without HD mod and/or HOTA (for various reasons I'm not a fan of either of them), so if those two get affected I'm sure things will start moving towards a fix.
It's pretty frustrating how every patch nowadays is 1 step forward, 1 step backwards; finally being able to skip the intro movie is great; the weird compressed window display is not.

Later Edit: After a couple of minutes of tinkering I got it to look the way it used adding VCMI and changing some settings. 1. Get VCMI from https://vcmi.eu/download/
2. Install VCMI
3. Set the Settings to 1. Full Screen: Exclusive fullscreen and 2. Interface Scaling: 100%

Everything I tried in HD mod got me nowhere, it either can't be done with it, or I'm too stupid to figure out how to do it. So for now VCMI is the only solution I came up with instead of getting an older installer and ignoring Galaxy completely.

Later later edit: If you can get a hold of the old installer, the last version before this latest one (4.0 I believe, I found it among all the offline GOG installers I backed up on an old external hard drive, something I recommend for everyone to do) and you install it on top of the current version, it will fix the problem (I'm not sure if it downgrades the version entirely as the intro skip that so far had only worked on the newer version still works on this supposedly downgraded one), and you will be able to play it through Galaxy as long as you don't allow it to update again.

I have this same problem and I've never used any mods. The game used to stretch to my whole screen, but now it uses a black border to maintain 4:3. I much prefer it taking up the whole screen.

Why?
The stretched image looks terrible. I made custom mods out of the Heroes Chronicles, so I could run them through the HD-Mod and get a nice, crisp image instead of the stretched, blurry one.

Edit the DDrawCompat.ini file in the install directory and add this line to it:
DisplayAspectRatio=display

More info here: https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/wiki/Configuration

You can also change the DisplayFilter setting if you don't like the default one, but that's easier through the config overlay in-game (Shift + F11). Don't forget to click the Export button to save the changes, otherwise they're lost when exiting the game.

Is it possible to bypass DDraw Compat entirely?

It's an interesting wrapper under Windows, but it doesn't work for me under Linux Wine, and just removing ddraw.dll doesn't help with the current version of HoMM3.
In fact, heroes3.exe seems to load xdd.dll first now.

If you want to use another wrapper or maybe a mod:
backup xdd.dll and rename another wrapper's ddraw.dll to xdd.dll.


Playing without any wrapper seems harder now because of that.

No, there is no way to bypass DDrawCompat currently from configuration, but I might add it in a future version.

I don't understand why they changed it to xdd.dll either. I suppose you could use a hex editor to replace xdd.dll with ddraw.dll in the executable file. It's two more characters, but you should be fine with overwriting the next two 00 bytes.

In other words, replace this:
78 64 64 2E 64 6C 6C 00 00
with this:
64 64 72 61 77 2E 64 6C 6C

Alternatively, just replace xdd.dll in the game directory with the system version of ddraw.dll.

I can confirm both of your solutions work fine, thanks!

I'll contact support about that, it really would be best if they just dropped this xdd.dll and to just rely on ddraw.dll.

Narzoul, hi! Tank you for wrapper. It is still related on OS version, i mean, no Win7 support? Not like a big deal, but if GOGs Heroes3 strickly for Win10+ now i would know what to say to someone who still on Win7 and faced issues.

xdd.dll - this is second time i see custom name. First was GOGs own DX Wrapper with xdraw.dll in Warcraft 2 (unlike usual ddraw and dixi dll). I doubt that name can solve issue of Windows sometimes prevent dll to be executed. If Defender or DEP decide to brake game they would do no matter which file name. It is issue from WinXP, no wrappers related. DEP should be entirely permanently disabled. Initially not intended to work properly in WinXP with messed settings, and literally zero changes made to it since then (as Ms care about fixing real issues).
And afterall most - before and after - releses use standard ddraw name on GOG.
By the way, on ZOOM-Platform too, but they dont have own wrapper and use your Narzoul one and maybe someone else (there so many with similar names).

So indeed, what possible point to rename it? In Warcraft 2 case at least there was Launcher and two ways to launch the game (for Diablo they use subfolders to avoid issues with BattleNet functionality). Maybe at some point they want add own Launcher to the game? No games do that. Game is 4:3 and only 4:3, only 800x600. By proper video driver settings you can achieve 12:9 correct scale stretching. Video driver and display.
Set where possible from system to game/wrappers settings to set Keep Aspect ratio +integer scaling and if there is such box Enforce by driver [√] box.

Otherwise, if you still want BLURED and DIS-PROPORTIONed stretching - since game include graphical wrapper best way is disable Keep ratio in its settings. Narzoul already point you to ini file.
If you want better way to play widescreen - use Heroes3GL. It is more than just a wrapper and yet not much as HD+ mod. It is NEVER possible to keep good image quality without using such 3rd party widescreen mods.
(If you dont want widescreen DDrawCompat would be more authentic way to play Heroes 3 than even Heroes3GL).

HeroesGL make game work borderless fullscreen windowed (so Desktop resolution/etc in use) and through OpenGL driver, with emula... Simulating resolutions inside window (whatever you want, no technical restrictions there).
That way make sure to stay Keep Aspect ratio [√] on. You get properly scaled but zoomed screen. Perfect solution not possible whatever 3rd party solution. 4:3 games never be perfectly look at 16:9. Here is POV disadvantage.

If you dont want to use any widescreen mods - gameplay affecting or not - there is no need to bypass DdrawCompat.
And tweaks are REQUIRED to make game WORK PROPERLY. Since Win Vista and some Nvidia (only) drivers legafy DirectX support goes worse and worse. Incl DirectX10 on Nvidia. Win8+ did fix what broken in WinVista7 but in a lame way - fullscreen modes work noticable slower and delayed, for most games without FPS drops.

To change some output settings just configure included ini file. There is some old gmae(s) on ZOOM-Platform set to windowed by default by Narzoul's wrapper. I did alter ini file and thats it. Same game on GOG come without wrappers. I didnt decide to erase it from ZOOM, just cause it didnt included on GOG. Let it stay. That make game work a bit better on modern Windows.

GOG pre-set Disable Fullscreen optimization (highdpiaware) compatibility. Last time i check it it didnt do anything. But im almost never use Win10 and outdated builds only. Maybe it did start to do something.

There is advanced compat flags set by game.dtb file inside (made by Ms AppCompatToolkit and setup during install by DISMM service). They do nothing either.
BUT! Most of that flags should be disabled to use 3rd party wrappers, including DdrawCompat. Any really needed flags would be applied by DdrawCompat.

(It seems forum dont recognize quotes anymore, manually set ones, and goes into loop)