How to maintain correct aspect ratio in Windows STGs?

[Bonus!]

I recently installed Windows 8.1 so that I could play a few doujins. What I noticed is that when I run those games in fullscreen the image is stretched to fill the entire are of my widescreen monitor. This problem even persists when I change the settings of my display to output a 4:3 image (like 1280 x 1024). For whatever reason, DirectX completely ignores those settings.

Is there any way to solve this problem? Playing Touhou or Gundemonium in a stretched widescreen looks gross, and running them in a 640x480 or 800x600 window is not an attractive option either because the image is just too small.

Thanks!

[RaidenViper]

Check the settings of the monitor you are using.

If you are using Nvidia card, you can also change the scaling in Nvidia control panel to keep the correct aspect ratio. By default it is set to fill the screen.

[Bonus!]

It seems I'm out of luck, since the Intel HD chip I'm using won't give me that possibility:

The Intel video driver does not allow disabling "maintain aspect ratio" feature.

https://communities.intel.com/thread/47592

I might have to get a cheap Nvidia card to resolve that issue.

[RaidenViper]

That sucks

Have you tried to change the aspect ratio settings of the actual monitor you are using?

[Fudoh]

Should be no problem with the Intel drivers. Somewhere on your driver panel you should have an aspect ratio button where you can tell the graphics chip to upscale while keeping the original AR. I only have the Intel 5200 Iris running on Windows 7 though, so maybe Win 8 behaves differently ?

On the current drivers it should look like this:

[Bonus!]

Does this work on your computer? On mine, there is the very same setting, but any game I launch ignores these settings and starts in stretched fullscreen anyway. There is also, a possibly related, issue with Crimzon Clover World Ignition, which has black borders all around when run in fullscreen.

[ZellSF]

You definitely want this in your graphic card drivers or monitor settings.

I would recommend Nvidia if you want a cheap card, in my opinion they have better scaling options (though I see why some would prefer AMD: they have a sharper image, artificially sharpened though).

[Lord of Pirates]

You definitely want this in your graphic card drivers or monitor settings.

I would recommend Nvidia if you want a cheap card, in my opinion they have better scaling options (though I see why some would prefer AMD: they have a sharper image, artificially sharpened though).

I'd go with them because I like their driver panel better, nVidia's is a bit of a pain for some things.

[ZellSF]

You definitely want this in your graphic card drivers or monitor settings.

I would recommend Nvidia if you want a cheap card, in my opinion they have better scaling options (though I see why some would prefer AMD: they have a sharper image, artificially sharpened though).

I'd go with them because I like their driver panel better, nVidia's is a bit of a pain for some things.

As in the software? Because I really disagree. AMD doesn't allow you to set scaling mode if you're running native resolution, doesn't allow you to set custom resolutions and makes overscan a per-resolution setting (despite most modern displays having equal overscan across all their resolutions).

I still have nightmares about last time I used a AMD card

I'd more cite their advantages as price/performance ratio and better open source Linux drivers (Nvidia has the best proprietary drivers though). Also less compatibility issues with home theater equipment, but most people don't seem to care.

[Xyga]

AMD doesn't allow you to set scaling mode if you're running native resolution, doesn't allow you to set custom resolutions and makes overscan a per-resolution setting (despite most modern displays having equal overscan across all their resolutions).

Really ? That's strange because mine (X1700) does all this, it's very flexible.
It's an old ATI model though, and I had to hunt down the most up-to-date drivers to get access to all the controls.
Those weren't available directly from ATI/AMD, found them on a website dedicated to Asus hardware.

I've owned an nVidia with crappy stock drivers as well, same story: found much better ones on third party website too.

[Bonus!]

I don't want to mess around with unofficial drivers. I've been having problems enough getting my Wifi antenna to work (it doesn't).

I did some research regarding cheap, as in value-for-money, cards, and came up with those two options:

ATI R7 260X
Nvidia GTX 750 Ti

On paper they seem quite comparable. I don't care about 3D game performance that much, but given that my Intel HD can't handle Ikaruga on highest settings or Astebreed on normal settings, I want to have a reasonable buffer for the next 5 years or so.

So, based on stock-drivers, you guys think that the Nvidia card is preferable?

[blizzz]

The 750 Ti is (a bit) faster than the 260X, uses nearly 50% less power and only costs ~20€ more. Even as someone who has used AMD graphics card for as long as I can remember I would go for the 750 Ti.

[Xyga]

I don't want to mess around with unofficial drivers.

Just to be precise in both cases for me those weren't unofficial but genuine/signed, only those were available for later produced series, only about 6-8 months apart, and sold in different countries.
Found the nVidia one on a German website, and the ATI/AMD one on a Czech website.

My point is we shouldn't assume the stock or downloadable drivers we have from English websites where the products are first available on the market (at least in our eyes) are the only ones available.
Of course it doesn't always apply, but some research (using the card's/chipset full manufacturer number) can bring pleasing results.
The updated drivers I've found brought several improvements over the early/stock ones.

Anyway, just my 2c.