I know people have talked about this in the forums before but they were all on old computers. I just bought a new computer today with an AMD A12 Radeon 7 processor and running Windows 10. I am playing the old old games - Pharaoh, Caesar 3, and Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Whenever I play them though, they have black bars on the sides which is really annoying and I have know idea how to get rid of them. I have checked the other threads about this but they aren't really clear or helpful. Please help me so I can get my game on!

Are the games you're playing compatible in widescreen/HD, or are they just old? Because they're very likely just old and without an HD patch by someone won't be able to run on 1920x1080 or 1280x780 without them.

Presumably those games only support 4:3 aspect ratio, in which case having black bars on the sides is definitely the best way to play them on a widescreen monitor. The alternative is to have the 4:3 image stretched to fill the entire 16:9 screen, making everything distorted.

See these reports on the Widescreen Gaming Forums for fixes by jackfuste:
http://www.wsgf.org/dr/pharaoh/en]
http://www.wsgf.org/dr/emperor-rise-middle-kingdom/en

And this post for Caesar 3:
http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=144950#p144950

This.

The whole series has screen resolution support coded in the executable. Thus there was quite soon a community effort to produce modified executables that will accormodate for higher resolutions. Research the latest fix, in the archive files you will usually find a series of files - one by resolution - , download the executable you need based on the desired resolution (pharaoh.exe , c3.exe for instance), locate the game folder on your drive and replace the executable by the one you have downloaded.

Zeus was missing: http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=14149&start=40

Thank you all for responding. The WSGF solutions do not work. I have tried messing with my AMD Radeon settings, going full panel, turning GPU scaling on and off, going full panel in the gaming section and nothing seems to work. Adjusting resolution won't help either.

I took a screen cap of the game and when I opened it up in Paint, it looked totally fine - full screen, but when I play it, it's narrow and has the black bars on the sides.

I just want to enjoy this awesome game in full screen. Please help. :(

Relax! Just avoid their dens. They are only going to attack if they feel you are putting their cubs in danger.


Or is that Black Bears?

You called?

Buy a CRT monitor and enjoy the games in true full screen without the offensive black bars.

Can't speak about win 10 but in Win 7 wsgf solution works flawlessly.
After replacing .exe file select 1024 resolution.

That might not be enough by itself. You have to also go to Scaling Mode, and instead of "Maintain Aspect Ratio", select "Full Panel Size" or something similar. Did you notice that when you opened it in Paint it was actually not full screen? It did not take the full width of the monitor. That's what others have been trying to tell you, the game was made for old monitors, and having it full screen on a wider one (unless you find a mod that actually increases the viewing area), would mean it will be stretched out of propotion.
But to each their own, if you actually do prefer a stretched image to those black bars, try what I've written above.

Your monitor is too wide for those games. Your monitor is with a 16:9 aspect ratio, while those games are with a 4:3 aspect ratio. If I were you, I'd contact the vendor who sold you the monitor and demand for a refund, or replacing it with a 4:3 monitor.

Of course then all your newer 16:9 aspect ratio games will have black bars on the top and bottom on your 4:3 monitor, but maybe you find a way to stretch the image for them vertically.

Let's hope they never come up with round or triangle monitors, then we'd really be phucked, trying to play our square games on them!

A trick I used to do for some old games was to set the desktop to a 4:3 resolution and then open the game. I haven't tested this with those games but it may work.

People complaining about old games in their original aspect ratio, just sad.

I don't get it. What do yall mean "the monitor is too wide"? The games always worked fine on older computers that had the same size monitor.

Anyways I managed to get it working finally however, now the game is stretched. Also, Pharaoh won't play in 1024 x 768 I just want the games to take up the entire screen WITHOUT being distorted. Isn't there a driver or something for old games?

And it was full screen in Paint but not when playing the actual game.