Hey everyone,
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to run this game in 4:3 aspect ration on a widescreen monitor. I have my monitor set to automatically put things in 4:3 whenever the resolution is below the monitor's native resolution of 1920 x 1080. For some reason this game seems to override that and launches in widescreen aspect ratio. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for getting this into 4:3 or maybe windowed mode?
Also, I cannot see the movies when the game starts up. I can hear them but the screen is black and I had to click or hit a key to skip through them. I noticed that DivX is running in the system tray when I launch this game...does it use DivX to play the movie files?
I am running Windows XP with an Nvidia Geoforce 8800 GT card.

I would like to know that as well. I even tried to fiddle with dosbox.conf included with the game, but the aspect ratio correction setting, that normally fixes this does nothing for this game. Playing it windowed is not really an option as the window is so freaking small.

You can increase the size of the window by finding the line in the dosbox.conf file labeled "windowresolution". Usually this says "windowresolution=original". Set it to something like "windowresolution=1280x1024" or "windowresolution=1024x768" and you'll get a much bigger window.

As for getting full-screen working in 4:3, the OP mentioned that the aspect ratio is supposedly locked via monitor settings.... one can also do this through video card settings, so maybe that will help? You need to enter the video card settings and look for an option called "flat panel scaling" or similar. Often this is set to off, but if you turn it on there's usually an option to preserve aspect ratio. That should scale the image to fit the screen vertically but put black bars on the sides so the game is still in 4:3. If you have trouble finding the option, let me know if you have an Nvidia card or an ATI card and I can help you find it.

It turned out, that there is a longstanding bug with ATI drivers, that renders gpu scaling options in Catalyst Control Center sometimes unselectable under Windows 7. I didn't know that. I have been using a Nvidia card the last few years and never had any problems applying gpu scaling on anything. My card broke a week or two ago and i've been using a borrowed replacement card, that is an AMD Radeon 4670 HD. Anyway, with a bit of googling i found a workaround.

The bug and workaround are described on the following page:
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=68072

You know what? I actually encountered that same problem, but I had totally forgotten about it. Probably because the workaround is so simple. Thanks for reminding me though, I will include this when giving advice on the subject in the future.

I didn't check my version of Catalyst, but, the settings were in different places than the instructions on that forum stated. Still, I was able to figure it out, after reading the messages there, as I knew what I was looking for. Now Jimmy doesn't look short and fat at the beginning of Return to Krondor.

Thanks!

actually with ati you should first choose a lower resolution than capable and the gpu scaling will be selectable you choose what you like from them then switch back to your desktop resolution. now its greyed out in catalyst but the setting you choosed will stick

Yeah, thanks anyways, creatures of the forum. Unfortunately, GOG's RTK does not use dosbox (look at the OP's title to see what game he's asking about). If you don't believe me (perhaps because you haven't even tried running the game?), see the entry here: http://www.gog.com/en/mix/games_using_dosbox

If anyone does know how to run it in windowed mode, or at least lock the mouse so it doesn't stray to my other monitor, it'd be appreciated. Thanks

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let anyone know that its not just ATI that has a problem with the scaling of 4:3 to widescreen in retro games.

The link posted by tolknaz should help you figure out your problems with both ATI and Nvidia cards.

The main problem here is that by default, these graphics cards have scaling set to monitor by default. You need to change this to GPU scaling in your settings. From there you can edit your Sierra.ini file in your RtK folder if required by increasing the resolution.

GPU scaling fixed my problems in 2016.

Well on my Nvidia card i switched the scaling from monitor to gpu, and that fixed the aspect ratio. As for not seeing anything, you might try compatibility settings. WIndows 95 or 98

For the next person struggling with Return to Krondor's resolution or aspect ratio: Layarion's advice fixes the aspect ratio to 4:3. Repeating for posterity:

Open your Nvidia Control Panel (should be in the right-click menu for desktop).
Select: Display > Adjust desktop size and position.
On the Scaling tab, there's a dropdown for which device should perform scaling. Set it to "GPU".

Windows 10, GTX 970. I assume that there's an equivalent setting for ATI cards, but I don't know what it's called.