Stoo said:
I do have an Nnvidia driver and it could be a "modern" one because I bought the laptop only 6 months ago.
It's likely factory installed and therefore not the most recent version available, but I'm almost sure it's not too outdated either, especially when playing a game as old as ET.
To force on resolution-dependent aspect ratio, go to "Nvidia Control Panel" by accessing the right-click menu on desktop and look what you can find under tab "Adjust desktop size and position" - it should be pretty self-explainatory from there. That, or do what Tash suggested. One of them or either (or both simultaneously) should do the trick.
Stoo said:
One of the Indy DVD releases has an "Emperor's Tomb" demo. Would it suffer the same stretching issues as the actual game? If the demo will behave the same way and can be tweaked, I could install it and do some fiddling. Yes? No?
If you can make the demo behave in a desirable way and not look like an eyesore (whatever that might be by your standards) then yes, the exact same tweaks will work on the full version.
InexorableTash said:
Your video card is pretty recent. Make sure you have the latest drivers (go to NVIDIA's site).
Not really necessary, if the option is there in whatever version he's got currently installed. As long as they've been released after the release of the game (which is pretty much guaranteed) there shouldn't be any hiccups. Besides, fiddling with drivers on closed-loop OEM laptops can sometimes lead to more trouble than they're worth due to manufacturer restrictions. Not likely in this case, but like I said, if the game's smooth on whatever Stoo's got, then he can safely skip this step.
InexorableTash said:
(While googling about I found instructions from someone trying to do the opposite for a different older game - stretch it to fill their widescreen monitor. Ugh, kids today not caring about aspect ratios! Get off my lawn!)
You sure he wasn't merely looking for a tweak that would somehow enable "true" widescreen resolutions? Many older, popular games have fan-made patches that allow them to run on larger resos (and different aspect ratios) than initially supported.