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How to play Warcraft III without picture stretching (fullscreen 4:3 on widescreens)

Level 7
Joined
Aug 23, 2014
Messages
208
It's not a secret that the majority of monitors nowadays are widescreen.
However, Warcraft III was created when most of the monitors used CRT and 4:3 aspect ratio. So we can say his native resolutions are 4:3, all others will just stretch your view horizontally.

1920x1080 (16:9)
|
1728x1080 (16:10)
|
1440x1080 (4:3)
Example_1920_1080.jpg
|
Example_1728_1080.jpg
|
Example_1440_1080.jpg
If you are tired of seeing flattened faces of characters, here is a way to change the aspect ratio without any additional software.

Warning! Modern monitors often able to work with non-standard resolutions, but old monitors can just turn black.


Part I. Monitor settings


First you need to check: Your monitor has the desired mode or not. How to do it?
1. Change your resolution to lower with aspect ratio 4:3 (for example 800x600).
2. Open your monitor options with buttons on the monitor.
Further steps will depend on your monitor, try to find the closest in meaning:
3. Open "Picture Advanced" menu tab.
4. Select "Display Mode" option.

Display Mode in BENQ options
MonitorDisplayMode.jpg
5. Change "Display Mode". It will be "Full" by default (stretch video signal to all available space), change it to "Aspect" (strecth video signal keeping aspect ratio) you will notice that now your image have 4:3 aspect ratio, but blurred.

Full mode
|
Aspect mode
MonitorDisplayModeFull.jpg
|
MonitorDisplayModeAspect.jpg
6. Also find "Overscan" option, turn it off if it's enabled. (this option stretches the image off the screen)

With overscan
|
Without overscan
MonitorOverscanOn.jpg
|
MonitorOverscanOff.jpg
7. Now you can go to the part II.


Part II. System settings


Now you know what your monitor can handle 4:3 aspect ratio without problems. You want to set awesome resolution in Warcraft III and play without stretches. However, the system may not have the ideal resolution.
For example my system only offers 1280x960, and this leads to: 12,5% hardware strech and blur or 60px black stripes at the top and the bottom of the screen.

Well you think now: "Hey, why not set proper resolution via regedit?". Problem with this way here - Warcraft III will reduce your resolution to the closest system resolution. I think it's protection against errors.

So you need to add new resolution to the system.
I can tell you that it is very easy with Nvidia cards (don't know about Radeon cards).

Instruction
Yep, it's in Russian, so all names translated
and can be different in reality
NvidiaSystemSettings.jpg

1. Open Nvidia taskbar menu with right click on the Nvidia icon.
2. Open Nvidia control panel with corresponding button.
3. Now open tab "Monitor->Change Resolution".
4. Choose your display at the top.
5. Click "Configure" at the bottom.
6. Check "Allow non-standard modes".
7. Click "Create user resolution".
8. Input proper settings for your monitor, i.e. "Horizontal pixels: 1440, Vertical pixels: 1080, Refresh rate: 60, Color depth: 32, Scan type: Progressive, Sync: Auto".
9. Press "Test" -> "YES" -> "OK".
10. Check that your new resolution is now in resolutions list.
11. Close Nvidia control panel and run Warcraft III.
12. Select new resolution in options and enjoy :)

Result
MonitorResult.jpg

What are the advantages?

  • No blurring and stretching.
  • Black stripes do not distract from the game.
  • Cursor can not leave game window, so you can easily scroll view with mouse at the edges.
  • Fullscreen applications work faster.
  • You just run the game and everything is already set, without additional programs and other.

Bonus


This solution works with all games.
Now you can set new resolution in old games if they fill resolutions list from system settings.
If game doesn't fill resolution settings from OS, you can configure it with ".ini"/".cfg" files or registry entries (depends on the game).
 
Level 5
Joined
Jan 25, 2012
Messages
109
Sorry to necropost this but how can I fix this in Radeon card? I just hate the widescreen stretching and for some reason the game is running in widescreen now, I think the radeon thing was updated.
 
Level 7
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
95
I have issues with aspect being greyed out in my asus monitor settings.. sucks really =( i can play some games with 4:3 ratio like condition zero.. i wish wc3 could be also set the same but it will automaticially scretch
 
Level 28
Joined
May 14, 2021
Messages
1,092
I have issues with aspect being greyed out in my asus monitor settings.. sucks really =( i can play some games with 4:3 ratio like condition zero.. i wish wc3 could be also set the same but it will automaticially scretch
What version are you playing on?
This thread is criminally obsolete nowadays due to the fact the game now supports the Widescreen Resolution (without stretching), so it's meaningless to use this trick when the Reforged came out.
 
Level 7
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
95
What version are you playing on?
This thread is criminally obsolete nowadays due to the fact the game now supports the Widescreen Resolution (without stretching), so it's meaningless to use this trick when the Reforged came out.
i play randomily 1.26a version. i use window mode and scretch it but its slower for some reason..

however i think reforged has different camera distance and view angle than 1.26a, its not exactly what a nostalgia wc3 purist would look for
 
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