It's been a long time since the last post here. But I think that a lot of people are still dealing with that problem. Stronghold Crusader is an awsome game and I am proud to present you a solution for that widescreen problem. I'm playing Stronghold in a 1366x768 resolution and before I found the resolution I also had this black bars right and left the game when playing. It all got to do with gpu scaling. It works especially well in case you have a intel hd graphics solution and you may have a ati or nvidia card as well. Now here is how I did it:
1. go to intel control panel
2. go to general settings under display
3. go to scaling (last point) --> and that's where my problem started
1366 x 768 is a crappy resolution and does NOT offer you to choose full screen scaling
then I simply changes my resolution to 1360 x 768 and suddenly the scaling option popped up (you may try any other resolution as well if you dont get it on first try)
4. Select "scale to fullscreen" --> problem solved
what i have encountered is that after you set your resolution back to your monitors native, the scaling option of the intel hd will remain activated. from that point of view intel graphics seams to have more options available than most ati or nvidia control panels. Especially notbook users report to have a very crapy control panel and can not choose the display setting folder. If you own a workstation you could also be able to select the gpu scaling in the nvidia or ati options. intel seams not to have that sort of problem with its panel.
Hope that helped a lot of you guys and you are now playing in widescreen
