Am trying this game, on a 4x3 (1600x1200) monitor. Full screen. For some reason, the imaged is stretched uupwards (or squished horizontally). I have no way to correct this. I've tried several configurations, the "best" I got is a widescreen resolution in windowed mode, which means a visible desktop below a playing rectangle. But at least the image is correct.

Two things noticeable in fullscreen : The reticule is an ellipse instead of being a circle, and the logo's dot in the upper left corner is oval insteal of being round. And of course, the horizontal movements (ships, mouse) are faster vertically than horizontally.

Has anyone encountered this problem ?

Has anyone encountered its solution ?

Do you let your graphics card or monitor scale to full screen?

Check your graphic card's control panel and set scaling so that it keeps the aspect ratio (see screenshots).

It's also possible that your monitor applies scaling. Search in its on-screen-display for this option and turn it off (let your graphics card scale unless you have a really good monitor).

For some reason, while I can toggle GPU scaling, I cannot ask it to maintain aspect ratios. The option is greyed out.

Okay, this is an issue, I've seen on some laptops before. The Catalyst Control Center (CCC) greys out this options, while your desktop resolution is maxed out, thus equaling your native screen resolution.

Try this:
- reduce the desktop resolution
- apply the settings and make sure the CCC isn't opened
- re-start the CCC and check if the scaling mode option is available now
- change and apply the setting to "Maintain aspect ration" and close the CCC
- now, go back to your native desktop resolution
- the scaling options will be greyed out again, but the scaling mode should still be set

You may have to try this several times (e.g. with different resolutions) to work or even restart the system in between to unlock the settings in the CCC. Also don't connect any other display while trying this.
I really don't know, what the devs thought while implementing this!?

When the resolution is lower than 1600x1200, the CCC options for GPU scaling are indeed available. But even if I change them to "maintain aspect ratio", and then switch back to maxed resolution, and reopen CCC, the re-greyed out options are re-set to "scale image to full panel size".

So, this doesn't seem to work at all.

Am still wondering why the in-game resolutions can't be changed, that is, why the 4:3 choice gives the exact same (stretched) result as the 9:5 one. I guess I will wait for an improbable patch to correct this...

Just because the greyed out setting shows "Scale image to full panel size" doesn't necessarily mean, this is the actual setting. Your changes could still be active, as the whole CCC isn't working correctly on this. Strike Suite Zero appears to work only in widescreen. At any resolution with a smaller width ratio as 16:9 the user interface seems to be horizontally squished. In your case, the picture is squished to 9:5 or 4:3 in-game and than again squished/streched to 4:3 by your graphics card due to the settings in the CCC (if "Scale image to full panel size" is active). Hence 9:5 and 4:3 in-game resolutions look identical on your screen (probably except of the sharpness).

To get an undeformed user interface on a 4:3 desktop, you have to run the game in a letterbox, with black bars on the top and bottom. At least it looks to be that way at the moment :-/ Maybe a future patch will offer more flexibility.

I'd completely deactivate scaling in the CCC (uncheck "Enable GPU scaling") and use an in-game resolution of 1600x900.

If it doesn't work, repeat the former trick to activate scaling and go back to 1600x1200.
Try an in-game 16:9 resolution of 1600x900, 1365x768 or 1280x720. Maybe now the scaling maintains the aspect ratio, despite what the greyed out setting shows.

If that doesn't work, you can try using the next smaller 4:3 desktop resolution to your native 1600:1200 (e.g. 1400x1050 or 1280x960) and activate "Maintain aspect ratio" scaling.
In-game, use a smaller 16:9 format like 1365x768 or 1280x720.
The result should be the game running letterboxed.

If that works and you want to max out the game's resolution, you can now try 1600x900 in-game, but as you've shrunk your desktop to activate scaling, I'm not sure about the results. Still, why not trying.

Ok. Well, this is a rare and bad thing for a videogame.

Anyway, I can achieve this by playing in windowed mode, then, and have a letterboxed window. Not ideal, but letterbox gaming isn't ever, whether on original black screen or on whatever one puts behind.

Will probably give up on that game. Solid backlog of compatible games awaits anyway.

Thanks a lot for the efforts and the attempted help, though.

You're very welcome Telika!