How to change the aspect ratio of 3.9?

Ok so long story short, I had to do a fresh install of Stepmania 3.9 and now my aspect ratio is all messed up. It's widescreen, totally stretched out and it's kind of annoying, since I'm used to the black bars on the side. How do I fix it? Thank you for your time.

ADMIN I JUST NOW NOTICED I POSTED THIS IN THE WRONG FORUM.....

First off, I moved the thread to the correct forum. You're all good. 👍

Secondly, you need to understand, StepMania 3.9 is legacy software coming from the time when computer (and cabinet) monitors were almost exclusively 4:3. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to change the aspect ratio. Consider downloading StepMania 5, or forks like Project OutFox, ITGMania, or Etterna, depending on what simfiles you're playing. Not only are these far more advanced and stable than 3.9, they support multiple aspect ratios.

Hopefully, if you decide to make the transition, it will go smoothly for you.

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I've noticed that some computers will run 4:3 applications with black bars, while others will stretch them. I'm guessing it depends on the graphics card.

Logged on just to post this.

There actually is a way to run 3.9 in ~4:3 (or similar) Aspect Ratio, but it's not found in the games' Settings at all.

This can be done by Downloading and Installing ReShade. During RS Setup, you'll need to find "Stepmania.exe" (not the shortcut on your Desktop but the ACTUAL .exe file found in the Program folder of your Stepmania installation.) using the "Browse" button, since it'll default to your Steam Games' folder. After that, choose OpenGL as your Rendering API, not DirectX or anything else.

In the "Select effects to Install" screen, find and select Fubax-shaders and check "AspectRatio.fx" (or all of them), click Next. Install the Plugins, then finish the installation.

Upon first loading Stepmania with Reshade, it may not respond for a while as it's loading all of the necessary plugins. This usually happens only the first time. After loading is complete, press "HOME" on your keyboard, Skip the Tutorial, then click on the "Home" Tab, and AspectRatio.fx should be listed. The Window's Aspect Ratio can be adjusted on a Per Pixel basis, meaning it isn't specifically locked to 4:3. Depending on your Monitor, it may require some tweaking to find the "right" Aspect Ratio.

It literally stretches and/or compresses the Screen Size, and will likely take a hit on the games' "sharp/crispness" and make the screen become fuzzy (especially while zooming). Take note that the more plugins you run concurrently, the bigger hit it takes on performance, and will likely lower your FPS.

Take note that RS runs on a per game basis, so it'll ONLY run on Stepmania, in this case. Every other game is unaffected.

This is how I did it on mine, because I was also sick of the Stretched Fullscreen nonsense.
And yes I do have 5.x (ITGMania) installed, but that's besides the point.

FUN FACT: Unrelated, but 3.9(+) can be ran in native 4k by adjusting the parameters "DisplayWidth=3840" and "DisplayHeight=2160" in "Stepmania.ini"; as I also have done, not that anybody cares.


The alternative is to Download some variant of 5.x if this doesn't work out for you.

TLDR: Download Reshade, install "AspectRatio.fx".

THANK YOU lol.



I have an Nvidia graphics card and this was the case for me. it was working just fine until I had to reinstall Stepmania. And now, no matter what I do, I can't get it to work properly.

I don't want to move to another version of Stepmania because I can't find the proper themes I want. I just prefer 3.9 over 5.

Can’t you just go into nvidia control panel or whatever it’s called and change the aspect ratio and upscaling settings to preserve or whatever term it uses?

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Yea and that's where I'm stuck because I did change the settings in Nvidia and it still doesn't work. And like I told my son just a few moments ago, that I can still play it, but because of the lagginess of the arrows and background movies, I can't play properly. The stretched out image makes everything lag.

If Stepmania is running in fullscreen, then the scaling options would be handled by the GPU or your monitor (depending on your scaling settings).

I recommend having a second look at the Nvidia Control Panel and double check that:
- Scaling mode is set to "Aspect ration"
- Perform scaling on is set to GPU -- this should also help a little with display latency

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Hey guys, just coming back with an update. So, I guess the problem was the version of Stepmania I had installed? Because I had remembered I had the .exe saved on my external so all I did was just back up my data and my songs folders. And once I did that, I simply copied the entire stepmania folder back to my hard drive and it works normally now.

So, I'm not sure I was clear in my original post, but stepmania was loading in widescreen, whereas I had full fullscreen. It's was 4:3 and that's what I was trying to get back to.

Thanks for everyone for their suggestions!