this isn't the end of the world of course, but just wondering if anyone knows of a way to make it full screen? Currently have black bars down left and right side only.

Again, not life threatening, but would be nice to make it full screen.

Sounds like your graphics card isn't scaling the resolution to fit the screen.

I can't speak for AMD, but if you're using Nvidia, open the Nvidia Control Panel from the Windows Control Panel, find the "Adjust Desktop Size and Position" option, and make sure that the scaling mode is set to "Full screen".

As Gamerkought said, sounds like your graphics card settings. But being an old game it was designed for 4:3 resolutions, so using the graphics card to scale it to fullscreen on a widescreen monitor will stretch it so it won't be the correct proportions. If there is no true widescreen mod for a game (one where you can change the FOV so that proportions are maintained correctly) then I prefer to keep the pillarboxing as at least it is then displaying as it was meant to.

all good, forgot to mention I'v got an ATI card. No worries!

Unfortunately there's mod to run the game in aspect correct widescreen. Only thing you can do is stretch it or run pillar-boxed.