1. Does this game run well in a window?
2. Does this game require DoSBox to run on Win7?

Thx

No
No

Thx for the quick reply

Bummer about windowed mode.

You can read through this thread http://www.gog.com/forum/wizardry_series/windowed_mode

What's the reason of playing in windowed mode if I may ask?

I play most games in windows mode. Ive got a 27 inch screen, and often find older games dont look that great when full screen at that size. (especially when they dont support widescreen modes. Stretched is ugly, and black bars arent much better). Windowed mode lets me run the game at the size and ratio intented for the game, while also keeping it small enough to maintain a more detailed visual look.

Plus, I enjoy being able to multitask, which is easier when dealing with applications running in seperate windows, rather than having to alt tab in and out of fullscreen modes.

I don't know whether there'd be any appreciable difference with a 27-inch screen, but on my 21-inch wide screen using the (default) Glide wrapper there aren't any bars and isn't any noticeable stretching.

It's a Windows-native game, which is why it doesn't require DOSbox; this also means that it was designed to run through Glide or Direct3D, so it's less prone to scaling problems than DOS games are.

I just dont think you are noticing it then. Widescreens werent the standard back when this game came out, and if there are no black bars, the image is being stretched.

http://www.wsgf.org/dr/wizardry-8
According to this site, you can select wide screen resolutions to run the game at, from within the game, however it will stretch the game, the UI, and the full motion video to fit the screen, causing distortion.

You can see screenshots further down on this page showing the games default aspect ratio (4:3), and then what it looks like on wider screens. Its stretching the image.

With older games, the textures and quality of graphics were often designed for lower screen resolutions. Running a game designed like this, full screen on a larger monitor, often makes the graphics looks worse than they did when it was released. The solution is to run the game at a smaller size. IE: Many older games were designed to run at max at resolutions like 1280x1024. Running it in a window this size, can maintain the games original quality level of graphics, without excess stretching, pixelation, or blurriness. A great example of this is the latest release of Final Fantasy 7 for the PC. While the 3d graphics int he game upscale decently, all of the games 2d backgrounds were rendered at resolutions below 800x600, and look absolutely awful if you try to run the game at a resolution much higher than that.

Either way... its a personal preference thing. I often dont play modern day games full screen, 1600x900 windowed (or similar) allows me to still see my desktop and use other programs easily while playing a game.

You can set a 4:3 display without adding any extra load on your system... the other option would be to add a second display (assumes your card can haddle) which most of todays computers can manage without stress.