… I now get the screen in ”widescreen” / fullscreen mode.
- I do want it to be in original 4:3 aspect ratio, with the game screen centered in a square in the middle with two black bara/fields (going verically along each side).

I have tried changing the values in ”Graphics Mode Setup”… some changes do apply but nothing to change the screen to this square scaled screen in the middle.

Look, i had one version of the game installed on another harddrive… and THEN it was 4:3 scaled… and when That HD broke down yesterday, i installed HoMM2 on a nother old HD, and now it’s all in widescreen!
I tried installing it on another PC, but it came out in widescreen there too.

I have read some of the posts about people here wanting it to be played in widescreen, I want the opposite! Unfortunatly they don’t say what settings they have (but then again, they have tried many different, like I have).

Is this a windows issiue, different versions (32/64 bit)? VGA driver issiue? Dosbox issiue?

If anyone have the 4:3 screen in the middle, what specs do you have?

I have:
Acer aspire laptop s3-931. Win 7 32 bit. Windows driver for VgA (couln’t find a vga driver for 32-bit). But my desktop is fully speced and driver optimized… same problem.

All thoughts and help is welcome, thanks…

< Windows driver for VgA >
sound like you dont have proper video driver. Looks like it "default" one from microsoft.

Download (frist) and reinstall video driver. In driver control panel (or panels if you have two differ gfx cards) set Keep Aspect ratio.
If there is no such option - reduce resolution on Desktop to a lower one. Any lower.

For average proper widescreen use 3rd party mods - HeroesGL or heroes3HD+ (only for H3).

If it's the DOSBox version of HoMM2, you can also have DOSBox take care of it.

In the dosbox.conf file, under [sdl] find this line and put the exact resolution you want the game to run e.g.

fullresolution=1600x1200

This does not fix the aspect ratio, just defines output frame-buffer dimensions.
Moreover, for LCD monitors it's better to leave fullresolution=desktop

And to fix the aspect ration problems one should navigate to section [render] and set there aspect=true
You might need to add this config string if it does not present.
BTW, in the "Graphics mode setup"->Advanced there is a check-box "Keep aspect ratio", which controls exactly this setting. Should be always ticked on.

No. All this option does is convert non-square pixels, e.g. 640x400 or 320x200 resolutions into square ones (640x480 and 320x240 respectively).

As per the documentation
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf

"aspect = true | false
Do aspect correction. It only affects non-square pixel modes like VGA Mode 13h, which has a resolution of 320x200 pixels and is used by many DOS games (DOOM, etc). Recommended as such games were designed for 4:3 displays, and without aspect correction will look distorted and not as the developer intended."

HoMM 2 uses square pixels already (At least my CD version, part of the Millenium Edition, running in MS DOS), so it won't be affected by this option.

Thank you so much guys for helping me think this through! <3 i will try to find the propper driver for my graphics card (that works in 32-bit win 7).

I’ll be back with update…

YES! Updating the drivers did it :D

But some notes:
1. My acer aspire s3 laptop, the drivers on Acer.com didn’t work (not the win7 x86 - Aka 32-bit or the 64-bit). Just said ”my computer didn’t meet the system requrements?)
- so after some digging i downloaded drivers from and checked them for virus (Ok) so i installed, rebooted and all worked fine! (Driver: intel(r) HD Graphics 3000 (55 mb) from deiverpack.io. Yes I checked them on trust pilot, not too good reviews, but it was just the free driver nothing else installed. Intel.FORCED.78.x86-HD3000_9-17.10.4229-drp.
When I started the Heroes 2 dos box game, the sceeen changed size emedietly (and made the aspect ration 4:3) then went in to dosbox full sceeen. In here the green HoMM2 launcher window was slightly scuffed to the right with a black bar going along its left side. This never happend with the old windows generic drivers - which ever setting I made in the dos box graphics setup!

Here are my dos box graphics setup now:
Overlay, fullscreen: Yes, keep aspect ratio: yes. Double buffering: no. Scaling none, mouse sensitivity 100, windows resolution: original.
Windows resolution on desktop mode is 1366x768, but (like I said) it changes as son as I open HoMM2 gog dosbox launcher.

yes!!! Finally!
Now… we play!

Enjoy the game.