How can I stop a game from being windowboxed?

[thunderingprose]

Hello, everybody,

I'm trying to play Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers using ScummVM (2.5.1) at the correct aspect ration, and even though I've done research and attempted a large variation of settings, nothing works. Windowboxing is forced. I even tried DOSBox (0.74) but the same problem occurs there. My current ScummVM settings are these:

Graphics mode: OpenGL
Render mode: default
Stretch mode: Fit to window (4:3)
Scaler: Normal / 5x (this amount doesn't seem to make a difference whatsoever)
Aspect ratio correction: checked
Fullscreen mode: checked

The main menu looks to be with the correct aspect ratio and looks to be displayed as it should (as far as I'm aware), but the actual game screens are all windowboxed, regardless of settings. Windowed mode seems to run the game with the correct aspect ratio, but it's on a small window on a 1920x1080 native desktop resolution, so it's too small for me to play it like that. The "Stretch to window" setting works, but it's stretched and just doesn't look at it should, so I don't want to play it that way, either. Is there any way to have this game run properly, with the correct aspect ratio fullscreen?

Thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it.

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[Praetorian]

Most of Gabriel Knight's in-gameplay screens have a black margin on top and below the main gameplay screen. Top is reserved for the game menu -- which appears when you move the mouse cursor at that area, and below is for subtitle text (which is used when subtitles are enabled) or other useful in-game text.

There are screens that make use of the full height of the window, like some of the starting credits, or when Garbiel is talking to another character and you get their close-up faces in a new screen.

And there are other screens when you'll get an even smaller window, like the small window during the intro for Gabriel's dream sequence.

Left and right black margins, are of course due to the game's 4:3 aspect ratio.

The screenshots you've attached look to me how the game is supposed to look.

[thunderingprose]

Most of Gabriel Knight's in-gameplay screens have a black margin on top and below the main gameplay screen. Top is reserved for the game menu -- which appears when you move the mouse cursor at that area, and below is for subtitle text (which is used when subtitles are enabled) or other useful in-game text.

There are screens that make use of the full height of the window, like some of the starting credits, or when Garbiel is talking to another character and you get their close-up faces in a new screen.

And there are other screens when you'll get an even smaller window, like the small window during the intro for Gabriel's dream sequence.

Left and right black margins, are of course due to the game's 4:3 aspect ratio.

The screenshots you've attached look to me how the game is supposed to look.

Thank you for the explanation. I'm glad that I've got things working with ScummVM as they should be in the original release. I never played this game back in the day, so I'm not familiar with these characteristics. Would you say that the settings I posted above are correct? Should I change anything? Such as the scaler at normal and 5x, for example. I'm not sure that's doing anything at all. Any other specific settings you recommend for this particular game? Thanks again for helping me out with this. I'm very grateful.

[Praetorian]

Most of Gabriel Knight's in-gameplay screens have a black margin on top and below the main gameplay screen. Top is reserved for the game menu -- which appears when you move the mouse cursor at that area, and below is for subtitle text (which is used when subtitles are enabled) or other useful in-game text.

There are screens that make use of the full height of the window, like some of the starting credits, or when Garbiel is talking to another character and you get their close-up faces in a new screen.

And there are other screens when you'll get an even smaller window, like the small window during the intro for Gabriel's dream sequence.

Left and right black margins, are of course due to the game's 4:3 aspect ratio.

The screenshots you've attached look to me how the game is supposed to look.

Thank you for the explanation. I'm glad that I've got things working with ScummVM as they should be in the original release. I never played this game back in the day, so I'm not familiar with these characteristics. Would you say that the settings I posted above are correct? Should I change anything? Such as the scaler at normal and 5x, for example. I'm not sure that's doing anything at all. Any other specific settings you recommend for this particular game? Thanks again for helping me out with this. I'm very grateful.

As far as I know stuff like the the scaler multiplier may or may not come into play depending on the combined stretch mode. As a scaler I usually prefer normal, as the rest of them may smudge the graphics or create a blurred image. The scaler multiplier may come into effect if you use "pixel-perfect scaling" as stretch mode --up to a multiplier which results to dimensions that can be displayed within your screen's resolution, but understandably that particular stretch mode is more likely to result to black bars around your game picture depending on your screen's resolution. With a "Fit to window" stretch mode, the game image will be scaled to the dimensions of the window or screen anyway so I don't think the multiplier affects anything there.

I also usually disable the "Filter graphics" checkbox (I think it is disabled by default anyway) because the result is crispier, and enable "Aspect ratio correction".

So your settings look correct for my tastes. But you could experiment more to get the best results for you.

There are also some game-specific options (checkboxes) through the "Game Options..." button, namely "Enable high resolution graphis", "Use high-quality video scaling" and "Use original save/load screens". I am unsure how much of a difference these make, but I have the first two enabled (I think that's the default state for them too).

[criezy]

We have a page in our documentation that tries to explain how those settings work: https://docs.scummvm.org/en/v2.5.1/adva ... phics.html

[thunderingprose]

We have a page in our documentation that tries to explain how those settings work: https://docs.scummvm.org/en/v2.5.1/adva ... phics.html

Yeah, I studied that page prior to asking for help. What confused me is that I expected that the game to look different on screen. I didn't know that it was supposed to look exactly the way it looks by design, as Praetorian explained to me.

[thunderingprose]

Most of Gabriel Knight's in-gameplay screens have a black margin on top and below the main gameplay screen. Top is reserved for the game menu -- which appears when you move the mouse cursor at that area, and below is for subtitle text (which is used when subtitles are enabled) or other useful in-game text.

There are screens that make use of the full height of the window, like some of the starting credits, or when Garbiel is talking to another character and you get their close-up faces in a new screen.

And there are other screens when you'll get an even smaller window, like the small window during the intro for Gabriel's dream sequence.

Left and right black margins, are of course due to the game's 4:3 aspect ratio.

The screenshots you've attached look to me how the game is supposed to look.

Thank you for the explanation. I'm glad that I've got things working with ScummVM as they should be in the original release. I never played this game back in the day, so I'm not familiar with these characteristics. Would you say that the settings I posted above are correct? Should I change anything? Such as the scaler at normal and 5x, for example. I'm not sure that's doing anything at all. Any other specific settings you recommend for this particular game? Thanks again for helping me out with this. I'm very grateful.

As far as I know stuff like the the scaler multiplier may or may not come into play depending on the combined stretch mode. As a scaler I usually prefer normal, as the rest of them may smudge the graphics or create a blurred image. The scaler multiplier may come into effect if you use "pixel-perfect scaling" as stretch mode --up to a multiplier which results to dimensions that can be displayed within your screen's resolution, but understandably that particular stretch mode is more likely to result to black bars around your game picture depending on your screen's resolution. With a "Fit to window" stretch mode, the game image will be scaled to the dimensions of the window or screen anyway so I don't think the multiplier affects anything there.

I also usually disable the "Filter graphics" checkbox (I think it is disabled by default anyway) because the result is crispier, and enable "Aspect ratio correction".

So your settings look correct for my tastes. But you could experiment more to get the best results for you.

There are also some game-specific options (checkboxes) through the "Game Options..." button, namely "Enable high resolution graphis", "Use high-quality video scaling" and "Use original save/load screens". I am unsure how much of a difference these make, but I have the first two enabled (I think that's the default state for them too).

Thank you so much for your continued help, attention, and configuration tips. Many thanks.