I was able to get Freespace 1 running at 1600x1200 (on a 1920x1200 monitor) by using a Glide wrapper:
- Get nGlide from the following link and install it: http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide
- In the Windows Start Menu, launch nGlide->Configurator.
- In the nGlide configurator, select the desired screen resolution. You should pick a 4:3 resolution, or choose "4 : 3" for "Aspect ratio", as the game will look stretched in a non-4:3 rendering mode. I've successfully run at 1600x1200, and also at 1920x1200 with 4:3 aspect ratio set.
- Click "Apply".
- Click "Exit".
- Browse to your Freespace 1 install folder and run FreeSpace.exe, which is the launcher.
- In the launcher, click Setup.
- In the Video tab of the Setup window, click "Detect Available Cards".
- In the "3D Video Card" dropdown, pick "3DFX Glide".
- Click "OK"
- In the Launcher, click "Quit".

Now start Freespace however you normally do, and you should see a 3dfx logo. Once you enter a mission, you should see that the game is running at your desired resolution.

Thanks.

This is pretty good find actually. :')

Thanks a LOT! I had trouble starting the game.
Though it seemed to be running fine in the background (sound on intro was ok), the monitor would go to standby-mode everytime I started the game.

Running it with the 3dfx-wrapper you linked @1920x1080 fixed it!

Thanks again! :)

YOU my new friend are a genius.
Just bought the game, it ran fine and had that nostalgic feel we do love, but with a sharpening up provided by your method it has reached a new level of awesome.
First time Freespacer here and couldn't be happier thanks to you and the quality game of course too!! Cheers!!

Thanks so much for posting this. This worked perfect!

(I'm wondering now if there any other other old games, I should try this with...)

For some reason i don't get this to work. I have nGlide 2.1 and GOG version of Freespace 1. Did exactly as instructed.
Any ideas?

NB: I didn't have option of 4:3 aspect ratio.
I got options:

1) entire screen
2) Aspect correction
3) Integer rendering
4) Integer scaling

This is an old thread before FS1 was shipped with nGlide as standard and the info is probably outdated.
Use the nGlide shipped with the game instead.

Nowadays the preferred method for playing FS1 is with the FSO mod (though you need FS2 for that).
On the other hand you could also try it with dgVoodoo 2 and run the D3D version of FS1.

[url=https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Descent:_FreeSpace_-_The_Great_War]https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Descent:_FreeSpace_-_The_Great_War[/url]

Thank you! :)