Purchased Riven from GOG yesterday and I have an issue that seems like it ought to be solvable but I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

So my screen resolution is 1920x1200, which is obviously not the same aspect ratio as the 640x480 monitors Riven was originally programmed to run on. Running it in 640x480 mode, then, understandably stretches the image out horizontally. For instance, the opening logo looks like an egg rather than a circle. You all know the effect I'm referring to.

So there's a menu option for "run in native resolution"; basically, you uncheck the 640x480 box. Granted, this will shrink the image down, but it should at least fix the problems I'm having, because no matter what size my screen is, I should be getting a 640x480 box with Riven inside of it, right?

Wrong. See, that's what I thought. But, while unchecking this option DOES considerably shrink the Riven display, it keeps the EXACT SAME elongated aspect ratio. After minimizing and reopening the window several times, and getting the start bar to pop up while Riven is still open, I've discovered what I believe to be the issue: Riven doesn't understand my screen resolution. The start bar, too, is elongated, but it's stretched to stay within the screen, as if I had manually changed my computer's aspect ratio. So even though Riven SAYS it's running "inside" my native resolution, it's actually just upscaling from 640x480 to some aribtrary other, larger resolution that still has the 1.3 Aspect ratio.

It's as if Riven doesn't understand that a screen can be larger than 1600x1200 so it just resizes my screen to that when it sees my screen has a height of 1200 pixels. This is, understandably, problematic.

But I see people on this forum using the 1920x1200 resolution and nobody seems to have this complaint, so there must be SOMETHING I'm missing. Can I letterbox Riven's zoomed-up 640x480? Or, failing that, can I at LEAST get it to *ACTUALLY* run inside my native resolution like it claims? I'm at a loss here, but this game is unplayable as-is; we all know looking pretty is about half of what Riven does well anyway.

Thanks in advance if you can help,

_jp

EDIT: System is Win7 x64, not running in any kind of compatibility mode. I would if I thought it would help, but as-is the opening video sequences and animations all seem to function just fine, the game itself just looks like a funhouse mirror.

Went to the NVidia panel and there was a "keep aspect ratio while scaling" option. I checked it, and now it's working exactly as I'd have predicted. I feel extremely stupid.

You sir have been an enormous help! Thank you so very freaking much! I am now off to play Riven.

_jp

You're welcome, enjoy your game ;)

So basically this is what I need to have the nvidia options set as? I was having the same problem as the OP. Also I want my GPU to do the scaling not my display right?

http://i.imgur.com/K26BB.png


So basically its going to run riven in as big of a 4:3 ratio as it can? The images wont look as good as they did originally because theyll be blown up correct? So like if I wanted to keep the original fidelity of the images Id be playing inside like a tiny little box on my monitor right?

I'm having this problem as well. Took me a while to figure out how to set my scaling in the Catalyst Control center.
When I have the game set to 640x480 it's stretched on my monitor (Dell 23" widescreen, 2048x1152 resolution).
Weird thing is when I did a screenshot it shows in the proper ratio.
Any thoughts how I can fix this? My other option is to have a tiny window in the center of the screen.