This has probably been asked before but I couldn't find anything useful...

So it seems there are only 2 freaking resolutions I can play with. It's either the game's original res (albeit distored but I'm fine with it), which means a good part of my screen's (16:9 full hd) unused, or the whole screen, which of course looks like crap.

Is there any way I could have a 4:3 display scaled to maybe twice the original size ? or better yet something that scales all the way vertically but NOT horizontally ? (see the attached pic)

Thanks

Well, you should take a look at your video card's driver settings on how it does aspect scaling. Don't blame it all on Dosbox

Here's one forum post that shows the various options for nvidia, amd and intel:

http://forums.playpark.net/index.php?/topic/14930-tutorial-adjusting-auditions-display-properties/

If you go into the dosbox config file you can set these parameters:

aspect=true
fullscreen=true

Then when you play in fullscreen, it will scale vertically but not stretch the image out of it's aspect ratio.

I think that should work.

Aspect ratio to true.

and be sure to experiment with the output setting as well. Not all behave the same.

That's not actually what the aspect setting does, but yes it should be switched on in most cases.

I just found this post, maybe it will help you:

http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=18812

This is my conf for Epic Pinball and I got it to go back to 4:3 on my 16:9 monitor:

[sdl]
fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=0x0
windowresolution=original
output=openglnb

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=true
scaler=none

Important parts are in bold. The 0x0 for fullscreen mode tells it to use the scaler from openglnb.

My last comment in that post meant something like, "Setting aspect=true will do aspect ratio correction. Then whatever the aspect ratio is if you play in a window, that will be preserved when you go to fullscreen."

I didn't mean that aspect=true affects fullscreen scaling directly. It's meant for games that were designed for non-square pixels, which appears to be what charbon has (though I don't know what game it is). Whatever the aspect ratio is if you play in a window should be preserved when you go to fullscreen (in my experience at least). But if I am incorrect do clarify! :)

I went to play Secret Agent for the first time a few days ago and found when I started it that it was stretching the picture to the full widescreen width. To fix it, I went to the start menu folder for the GOG.com installation of Secret Agent. There I found a link to "GOG.com DOSBox Configurator". Under Advanced settings, I selected "Keep Aspect Ratio" and Scaling Engine = normal2x. When I next booted it up, everything was fixed. The picture extended to the top of the screen and the aspect was the proper 4:3 ratio.

Close, but wrong.
0x0 will tell dosbox to use your desktop resolution (that you had set when you started dosbox)

Yes, YES, THANK YOU guys!

I just tried with the game scaled all the way on the vertical axe, but it doesn't look as good as I had hoped, at least on Realms of Chaos, so maybe scaling to twice the original res would be best. Any idea how I can do that (or rather if I can do that)? I tried setting a lower res with "fullresolution=0x0 / windowresolution=original" but it didn't work.

I know it is possible to use 2 or 3 times normal resolution in scaling and have black around it, but I don't have the options memorized.

Keep in mind though, these games were meant to be played fullscreen. It looks really pixelated because the games are really pixelated ;)

I know, but so were old console games and emulators allow you to play them at twice (or more) the original size with black borders, so I figured it should work with DOSBox too.

scaler=normal2x forced

It might be that the image you are seeing is already scaled twice! Old games ran at really low resolutions like 320x200
So maybe use normal3x forced.

(and change the output setting!!!!, fullresolution might not be doing anything if you have the wrong output selected!)

Play the game windowed and set the windowed resolution to have height and width of twice the game's original resolution. Ensure you have a scaler enabled renderer selected (opengl, ddraw, etc) and have a x2 scaler such as normal2x.