Aspect ratio troubles - GK3

[Spikey]

Just a quick question - it is giving me headaches.

Today I noticed that one of my screens (and only that one) has the habit of stretching my applications, even though my NVIDIA settings are clearly on "Aspect Ratio".
The exact same instance of Gabriel Knight 3 functions fine on another monitor and the built in lap-top monitor, just not on that one. I'm stumped as to what else I can try to make it work, anybody any suggestions?

[adeyke]

With GK3 in particular, you can edit the registry to have it use your native resolution (even if it's widescreen) to avoid that problem. Speaking more generally, you try checking the settings on the monitor itself.

[Spikey]

Well now, I got it; I simply changed the resolution for the screen to 1280x960, which is a 4:3 resolution, and bam! The satisfying black borders appeared.

[adeyke]

GK3 is horizontal+, which means that if you set a widescreen resolution, the part in the center stays the same (i.e. without stretching), while the sides just show more of the scene. If you actually prefer the black borders, that's up to you, of course.

[Spikey]

I have three resolutions to select from in the options menu, but due to a bug relating to dual monitor view in the drivers for my outdated NVidia card, the "Aspect ratio" settings are ignored and the image is stretched out horribly to fit the screen (1920x1080).

[adeyke]

Like I said, it requires editing the registry. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sierra On-Line\Gabriel Knight 3\Engine and set:
(default) to 1080
Screen Height to 1080
Screen Width to 1920

(Source)

[Spikey]

*blinks eyes in disbelief*

oh my lorde, Adeyke I love you! At first I thought I had misunderstood what you were saying, but after the regedit I suddenly have a full-cinematic experience of Gabriel Knight 3 I never even knew existed! My dear old room 25 looks so large! The lobby is enormous! My favorite game - like ever - just got even better by miles. Will the fingerprint animations shizzle work correctly, even?

Is it worth documenting this perhaps in the help-section for this site? Is is so significant (I think).

Baseline (Widescreen) Solution & Issues
The game, by default, only lets you select 3 resolutions: 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768.

From your source;

"To play at any other resolution you must :

1- Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sierra On-Line\Gabriel Knight 3\Engine .

2- Edit the decimal value of these keys :
(default) = yyyy
Screen Height = yyyy
Screen Widht = xxxx

Where xxxx is desired width & yyyy is desired height.

(default) and "Screen Height" MUST have the same value."

[adeyke]

Apparently the installer already includes a utility for changing the resolution.

[Spikey]

Been using the installer for ages, but must have overlooked it / not fully understood what was meant.