Hi guys,
I'm the author of the Mechwarrior 2 Widescreen mod, it's a derivative of the previous work done by Mech2 forum users in altering the resolution settings in all 3 Mechwarrior 2 games:
viewtopic.php?t=213
The purpose of my work was to really stress test the game and see how far the engine could go under various MS-DOS VESA settings. 1280x768 was the absolute highest resolution I could take it before but it came with a degree of screen distortion from having the image stretch outward beyond it's default 4:3 aspect ratio.
Mod listing is found at the Moddb website, along with the installation tutorial video too. The link is at the end of this post. You need a copy of D-fend Reloaded for it to work properly as the game will only render in "widescreen" under software mode. D-fend's customization options with DosBox allows for a unique way of cropping out the top and bottom parts of the screen with the Surface renderer. As mentioned in the earlier Mech2 post, MW2 only renders at a maximum height of 768 pixels. It has no trouble rendering at 1280 pixels wide. The highest VESA mode for MW2 is mode 263 (0107h) which is 1280x1024 @ 256 colors. 1024 minus 256 is 768 pixels high. Ergo, the 1280x768 "widescreen" mode in MW2 is the highest it can go. (it can theoretically go higher as 1600x1200 was the highest MS-DOS VESA resolution)
To get the full effect of the mod, you must run it in fullscreen only. Also, the settings in D-fend must be at around 1366x768 for fullscreen output so there is no further stretch distortion to the image. 1280x768 is really 15:9 aspect ratio. 1366x768 is a true 16:9 aspect ratio. In the screenshot links below, notice the black bars at the side to retain the aspect ratio of the 1280x768 image. The image blur is due to DosBox rendering 1366x768 and expanding it on a 1920x1080 monitor. I notice with my monitor too that it switches to 1440x900 mode.
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/4 ... D23Bpj.jpg
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/4 ... bWgV.1.jpg
Running the game in windowed mode will only show the 1280x256 black bar at the bottom while displaying the top area at 1280x768. This is only cropped out in fullscreen once set to the 'Surface' renderer. DirectX and OpenGL will not work.
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/4 ... 7sgc21.jpg
Please note that this mod will only work with the DOS version of the game and as per prior tests in the past, has never worked with MechVM... that is unless Skyfaller finds a way to implement it sometime in the future and use the same tricks D-fend/DosBox does for it.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/widescreen-mod
Enjoy!