Can you make a fixed resoltion program run at full screen?

[skarydrunkguy]

Does anyone out there know if there is a way to make a program that was written for a fixed resolution, in this case 640x480, fun full screen on today's newer monitors? My desktop is at 1440x900 and I don't want to lose that space, but its hard to see the program when it runs so small.

I'm thinking that there may be a shareware/freeware program that I can use to 'magnify' the window. None of my computers even allow setting the resolution back to 640x480 anymore!

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[corkyg]

Don't you have a magnifier tool in your OS?

Zoom

 

[Brazen]

Does is run in a DOS window? If you right-click on the title bar, I believe you can choose "options" and there is an option to make it full screen.

 

[skarydrunkguy]

Yes, I have the Microsoft Zoom Tool, but thats not exactly what I'm looking for, I want to make a single program basically be full screen. Thanks for the suggestion tho.

Its not a DOS program, it was originally written for Windows 95 when screens mostly ran at 640x480 or 800x600. There is a maximize button in the title bar, but it doesn't do anything (was programmed with static positions and sizes instead of percentages, poor foresight for whoever made it originally).

I was hoping that someone knew of a magical program that would basically leave windows alone and act as a 'pass-thru' or a conduit or something to run the program in a virtual window that will scale it independantly of the original program itself... or something. If I knew anything about programming, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do, but I don't, so who knows... just hoping that someone already thought that would be useful and already made it.

 

[Hacka]

alt enter ?

 

[Nothinman]

I was hoping that someone knew of a magical program that would basically leave windows alone and act as a 'pass-thru' or a conduit or something to run the program in a virtual window that will scale it independantly of the original program itself... or something. If I knew anything about programming, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do, but I don't, so who knows... just hoping that someone already thought that would be useful and already made it.

Nope and even if you could force the window to be full screen it likely wouldn't help since the controls are statically positioned too so you'd end up with 90% of the maximized window space empty. This happens to me on Linux occasionally since the WM can be forced to change attributes like window sizes behind the app's back and it never gets you the result that you want.

 

[skarydrunkguy]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I was hoping that someone knew of a magical program that would basically leave windows alone and act as a 'pass-thru' or a conduit or something to run the program in a virtual window that will scale it independantly of the original program itself... or something. If I knew anything about programming, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do, but I don't, so who knows... just hoping that someone already thought that would be useful and already made it.

Nope and even if you could force the window to be full screen it likely wouldn't help since the controls are statically positioned too so you'd end up with 90% of the maximized window space empty. This happens to me on Linux occasionally since the WM can be forced to change attributes like window sizes behind the app's back and it never gets you the result that you want.

Good point. I hadn't thought about the actual clicking control buttons and whatnot. I almost always use keyboard shortcuts, but there are a few things that require a mouse. Thanks for the input. I guess I've lived with it at 6x4, 8x6, 1024x768, now I have to live with it at 1440x900. Maybe its time to upgrade the program anyway, thats only $12,000....

Alt+Enter doesn't work either since the ability to run at any res. other than 640x480 is not built into the program. It would have to (at least I think) come from some other interface... maybe theres something that can interlace the screen... wow would that be a bad idea. Thanks guys.