Just bought Populous 3 in the winter sale. There are a surprising number of screen resolutions available, all the way up to 1280x1024, but I've got a problem with the aspect ratio. When I choose a widescreen resolution like 1280x720, the picture doesn't fit the screen properly: it has black bars at the top and bottom, like it's just letterboxing the standard 4:3 image.

Is there a solution to this, or is this just what to expect on a game this old? So far I haven't had any other technical issues.

I'm running Windows 7 64 if it's relevant.

That happens if you pick the wrong resolution (eg, your monitor has a 5:4 aspect ratio, but you select a 16:9 resolution). The game is simply letterboxing the content so it fits in the width. You can fix it by simply selecting a more appropriate resolution that matches your aspect ratio.

That doesn't seem to be the issue here. My monitor is 16:9 and 16:9 resolutions have the bars. In fact, everything except 4:3 resolutions has bars, so the game seems to be assuming that's what I'm using.

Another problem... all my graphics settings are being reset every time I start the game. Resolution and detail aren't being saved (but it looks like my sound settings are preserved). Any ideas?

Seems that launching it in software mode preserves the graphics settings, but then I get terrible mouse lag. Not a good solution...

I've been troubleshooting online and a lot of posts from a year or so ago reference a "Setup" executable that was installed in the GOG Populous folder. My installation doesn't have that exe. Did GOG remove it from the game at some point? Is there a way to get it back?

I figured changing the resolution that way might stick.

Thanks, ZFR.

Setting my desktop resolution to 1280x720 didn't fix it, but it produced the same black bars, which made me realize the problem was with my monitor, not the game. Seems it was scaling content improperly.

In NVIDIA Control Panel, I changed the option to "Perform scaling on GPU," and now it works. I'll mark this solved.

I'm still having the problem with my graphics settings not being saved, but I should probably make a separate topic for that.