How to play Audiosurf in 4:3 window in correct aspect ratio

I think some of you already realized that playing Audiosurf on new 16:9 monitors, that the game is very badly adapted to 16:9 by just stretching everything so it all ends looking disgusting as the result, and if you tried play in windowed mode you also found out, that the game still thinks it's in widescreen mode, so it looks even worse. Unfortunately, only way to play Audiosurf as intended is to play in fullscreen in 4:3 aspect ratio, which makes Windows throw all your windows and icons around and making it pain to do so... until today, because I found a way to play Audiosurf windowed with correct aspec ratio

Comparison Screenshots

Default behavior - game in 1280x1024 space with 16:9 aspect ratio scaling:

Proper behavior - game in 1280x1024 space with 4:3 aspect ratio scaling:\

Tools needed

• Notepad (use one built into your system)
  
• DxWnd[sourceforge.net]

Set Up

1. Download DxWnd and unpack it somewhere where it won't get in your way (like into C:\DxWnd\)
2. Run it, you'll see window like this:

3. From the menu choose Edit -> Add
4. Set up everything as shown:
Main tab

• Name: can be whatever you want
  
• Path: click [...] and find directory where Audiosurf is installed (you can check it from Steam, going to game properties, local files and choosing show game files on disk), go to engine directory and choose QuestViewer.exe. It should look like this:
  E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Audiosurf\engine\QuestViewer.exe
  
• Launch: copy and paste everything from Path, add " Q3DStart.q3d" without quotation marks (remember about space tho!). It'll look like this:
  E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Audiosurf\engine\QuestViewer.exe Q3DStart.q3d
  
• Generic: Left "Run in Window" checked
  
• Position: Change Window initial position & size W and H values to what dimensions window you want to use, in this case I use 1280x1024. You can also play with X and Y to move window around, which can be helpful if your game window is too high or too low and overlaps with taskbar

Video tab

• Screen resolution: check Max resolution and Limit resolution: change them both to the same size you used for Window initial position & size on previous screen

Input tab:

• Cursor Visibility: Either Automatic or Hide, explained in Quirks section
  
• Cursor Clipper: ON

Leave all other options unchanged
5. You can click [Try...] to see if it works, if DxWnd logo shows up, and game don't crash during loading you should be good to go. It might still look wonky at that point, we will fix that real soon.
If it won't launch or crash, go to Troubleshooting portion...
6. Click [OK] and then close the window. It'll ask:
Task list has changed.
Do you want to save it?
Answer [Yes]
7. Open Steam, go to Audiosurf properties, local files and choose show game files on disk. From there, open config.ini in any text editor, change it as follows:
resolutionwidth and resolutionheight: set it to what you set in DxWnd
runfullscreen: true

Now you can sort of play the game by opening DxWnd, clicking RMB on the newly added position and choosing Run, but probably you want to run it using desktop shortcut, so now we will do just that

Creating a shortcut

1. Drag the DxWnd.exe from the directory you unpacked it to to desktop with RMB, choose [Create shortcut here...]
2. Click RMB on new shortcut, choose properties
3. Asumming that there is only one position in DxWnd window, add this line to the shortcut Target field: " /R:0 /A" (again, remember about space), so it looks like this:
"C:\DxWnd\dxwnd.exe" /R:0 /A
(with or without quotation marks, depending if you system added them there or not)
If your created set up isn't in first position, change number after R: so it'll be position in DxWnd window - 1
4. Now click [Change Icon...], in new window click [Browse...], navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam\games\ and find Audiosurf logo.
5. Click [OK] until you'll close all windows. Now, finally, change that shortcut name to something more appropriate

Now check if it runs. If DxWnd logo shows up, game don't crash and it looks ok, then you did everything right, congratz!
If something's wrong, then read along

Troubleshooting

• Game won't start from DxWnd window, it's accompanied by white dot
  Right click on it, choose [Modify], make sure that Path and Launch fields are correct. Only Launch field should contain additional " Q3DStart.q3d" at the end
  
• When launching, it shows "Open..." window
  Check if "Q3DStart.q3d" is not misspelled or missing
  
• When launching, it shows "There was an error loading the q3d file" warning
  Check if "Q3DStart.q3d" is not misspelled
  
• When it launches, it looks pixelated/it's in wrong resolution
  Check if W and H values in DxWnd modify window and resolutionwidth and resolutionheight are the same. If it happens when launching from desktop shortcut and not DxWnd window, check if Path and Launch fields are correct
  
• Game won't start from shortcut, when it starts from DxWnd window
  Pay close attention if Path and Launch values in DxWnd modify window are correct
  
• Game will start but crash during loading
  Make sure the Path value in DxWnd modify window is correct
  
• Game is still in wrong aspect ratio
  In DxWnd modify window, in Video tab, check if Max resolution and Limit resolution are set properly
  
• My cursor escapes the window
  In DxWnd modify window, in Input tab, make sure that Input Clipper is set to ON
  
• My cursor shows during gameplay
  Read Quirks section

Quirks

So far, I observed three things that you should be aware of while using this method:

• If you alt+tab during gameplay, it might happen that the system cursor will appear over the game cursor. It sometimes disappears after some time, sometimes not. Only sure way to don;t have this happening is to set Cursor Visibility to Hide, but then you lost the cursor during loading the game and photosensitive seizures warning, making it a bit harder to navigate to actual game, where in-game cursor will appear
  
• If you use minimise button, after restoring the window, it'll always appear in top-left corner of the monitor, ignoring the X and Y values in DxWnd
  
• If you try to close the game during playing a song, game will crash

Afterwords

This setup works for me. It also works with 800x600 resolution set all abroad. I haven't checked it with other 4:3 resolutions. I've tried to force the game into correct aspect ratio at 16:9 but it failed, maybe it just needs some more tinkering around. It won't VAC ban your account since Audiosurf don't use VAC, I would not try to use it with other games though... And that's all, I think. Game on!

[Tepiloxtl]

Yeah, I guess this is kind of baggage you get with 13+ years old game

[HentaiSlayer bobama]

wait the game is stretched in fullscreen 16:9 mode