This is pretty ridiculous. In order to make the game run in 16:9 resolutions, the FOV has been decreased vertically instead of being increased horizontally. You can literally see more of the game in the original 4:3 version. I had to make the ingame screen size smaller to make the FOV appropriate for playing on a desktop display. Is there any way to return the original 4:3 display configuration and play the game with black bars on the sides? Or better yet, is there any way to increase the FOV to something that is actually correct for a widescreen desktop display?

If GOG was able to make the vertical field of view smaller without affecting the position of the HUD elements, they must have a way to make the horizontal field of view bigger.

Change to a 4:3 aspect resolution:

Main Menu -> Setup -> Display -> Available Video Modes

Try 1024x768, 1280x960 or 1440x1080 - note: some resolutions are only available with 3D acceleration enabled.
If you get a stretched image after switching to one of these resolutions, you'll probably need to adjust the scaling settings in your graphics driver control panel (set to aspect ratio scaling instead of fullscreen).

The game has always had Vert- behaviour for widescreen resolutions, as far as I know - the GOG version handles widescreen the same as my CD version does ( 16:9 | 4:3 ), with or without 3D acceleration enabled.

Unfortunately there isn't any way to increase the horizontal field of view for widescreen that I know of (if one is found or made at some point, someone will probably post it on the Jedi Knight page on WSGF, here on the GOG.com forum and/or on the Steam Community forum).

EDIT: if you select a resolution with an aspect ratio narrower than 4:3, the vertical FOV will actually increase... playing on a 16:9 monitor rotated to portrait mode would look a bit like this O_o

Well whaddya know, the aspect ratio scaling in NVidia Control Panel actually works now. For years the option was there but didn't actually work at all, and the only way to play 4:3 games was to have them unscaled in the monitor's native resolution, which meant that you had to play in a small rectangle in the middle of a black screen.

Anyway, now the game plays much better. It seems like back in the day when old PC games were being made, the developers actually knew what the connection between screen size, aspect ratio and field of view is. It's just too narrow for widescreen and looks all zoomed in, but it is pretty much right for 4:3.

Most old games were Vert- until widescreen was common. Games like Quake and Unreal have the same problem.

GoG does not have access to the source code of Jedi Knight so this pretty much can't be changed.

Yeah, source code for JK was lost years ago. I don't expect the widescreen issue to ever get fixed. The GOG team already did a splendid job fixing up the game to work properly on modern systems as it is, compared to the utterly broken Steam version, that is. And for that, I am grateful.

Even until as recently as 2007, there were games still using vert- in widescreen, e.g. Unreal Tournament 3.

I already had a 1440x1080 resolution in Nvidia Control Panel and Windows, so I simply selected that in JK and got a perfect non-interpolated 4:3 image with pillarboxing. Selecting 'aspect ratio' or 'no scaling' scaling modes in Nvidia Control Panel made no difference for me. It was only the 'full-screen' scaling mode that resulted in a stretched and blurred interpolated image.

DF2 allowed you to go up to 1080p in it's vanilla disk version. GoG didn't touch the resolution options. The lack of proper fov scaling was something that was in vanilla DF2 and to my knowledge is unfixable. The same problem occurs in Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. But there it's easier to fix because the source codes to both games have been released.

I made a very interesting discovery yesterday, and thought I should share with you guys, since I don't think many people know about this.

This part is old news, but there actually is a way to play the game in a 16:9 resolution with corrected vertical/horizontal view and FOV by using the 2013 patch available in jkhub.net

Problem is, the 2013 patch is meant to be used exclusively with the Jedi Knight Enhanced mod, so if you try to play the game without this mod, the game's original lightsaber for the player and the dark jedi enemies will look very strange, as in very fat and with a black border around it.
I prefer to play the game with vanilla assets, so this is no good for me.

The visual differences in the 2013 patch's lightsaber is because of a hack made to the jk.exe file, and not to the included jk.dll and ddraw.dll. The code for FOV correction is stored in the jk.dll

However, the jk.exe generated by the 2008 patch, also avaiable in jkhub.net, is compatible with both the ddraw.dll and the jk.dll of the 2013 patch, provided that you rename the jk.dll to jk-extension.dll

Since the 2008 patch does not have a hacked lightsaber, by using a combo of:

2008's patch jk.exe file (generated by patching the retail 1.0 jk.exe)
2013's patch jk.dll file (renamed to jk-extension.dll)
2013's patch ddraw.dll file

You can play Jedi Knight, with original assets, with corrected 16:9 vertical display and 32bit color mode! =D

Sorry if the post was too long, but I thought a little explanation would be nice, and english is not my main language.

I'm glad it worked for you! My biggest hope is that Gorc, the open source project that recreates the Sith engine, gets completed.

Nice find, oddworldlover!

Very nice, oddworldlover!
Post +rated

Could someone explain to me what oddworldlover is doing and if it will work for MotS? Can you upload all the files in a zip that I can extract in the game folder?

Thanks in advance.

He's combined files taken from various patches and the original game EXE's taken off the CD.

This doesn't appear to work for me - using the GoG release - I get an instant crash using any of the modified EXE's

You'll need some files from here:
Jedi Knight 2013 Patch (JK13)

Specifically:

ddraw.dll
jk.dll --> rename to jk-extension.dll

And finally these two patches applied to original EXE's found on this page:
2008 patches

Here:
http://jkhub.net/project/get.php?id=1525

Here:
http://jkhub.net/project/get.php?id=1499


Here's a link where I've done it all already!

It should work - but I can't test it as it crashes immediately for me. (Win 7 x64, GoG release)

Many thanks for the hasty reply. It crashes for me too I'm afraid, just like you said. This is with software rendering, 3D rendering complains about there not being enough VRAM on the GPU (reminds me of trying 800x600 on my Voodoo 1 hehe).

Not sure if this will help at all, but here's the way I've got it set up:

Shortcut directly to JK.EXE (not GOGLauncher.exe)
Using -windowgui command line parameter in the shortcut target field (otherwise the menu graphics are messed up, same as running the CD version)
No Windows compatibility settings applied

Hmm, I only get that error if I try to set a resolution wider than 2048 pixels (might be the maximum supported by the game. Not sure what the vertical resolution limit is - 2048x1536 works, haven't tried higher).