I'm currently using a laptop while i wait for my new system but all the gog games I have won't stretch to full screen. They are in the center with black bars down either side, I've selected Overlay or Surface with a 16:9 of 1280x720 no luck.

There is no stretch options in display properties either

It's a Toshiba L750D

For DOSBox games, check out the *.conf file in the games directories. The line You're looking for is "aspect=", change that, and the game should stretch. Though, since i'm using a standard 4:3/5:4 monitor, i can't check if that's the only thing You need to do.

Note that this dress will make the games look fat. And that's not nice.;)

I thought the aspect thing is for aspect ratio correction of games that ran in 320x200 but were intended to be shown at 4:3 (with non-square pixels).
This article on the Doom wiki explains it better than I can: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Aspect_ratio

AFAIK the only options for aspect in DOSBox are true and false (correction or no). Neither of those will get the OP the horrible stretched picture that they want for some reason. :P

If your graphics card driver doesn't allow you to select fullscreen scaling then AFAIK you're out of luck.

Sometimes a laptop will let you do scaling on an external monitor but not on the built-in display. If hooking up to an external monitor is an option, you could try that.

Obligatory "why the fuck would you want to stretch it" comment.

Already taken care of man, already taken care of. :P

This is probably a really stupid question, but I will ask it anyway.

If I hook up my laptop to my LCD TV and use it as an external monitor when I play games will it tax the hardware much more then if I used the standard screen? I know that higher resolution is a factor, but except that will i have an impact on performance?

AFAIK, the output resolution from your graphics card is what can tax your hardware, not the resolution of your screen.

For example, running a 320x240 DOS game on your 60" 1080p monitor will demand the same from your cpu and graphics card as when you're running it on a 14" CRT.

In the same way, if your computer is lagging on some game with your resolution set really high, you won't get any less lag by routing your output to your 14" CRT.


edit: typo

Thanks, I will try a few games and see what happens. The good thing is that I almost only play old games anyway