Hello, I'm wondering if there is any way to downscale internal res but leave the window res untouched as some modern games can. I'm playing on Linux and the game runs fine, the only problem is that if the game isn't set to my laptop's res, every time I close the game, my screen has a black square covering a third of my desktop, so I need to log out and log in again to fix the issue. My laptop is as potato as they can come from like 2013, it has 1920x1080 res but a terrible CPU, and the integrated GPU won't even run ASCII games (I'm joking, I can run Borderlands 2, but you get the gist of my situation like this), only System Shock 2 stutters and modifies my screen's image at full res. I'm able to run most games at 1270x720 without my screen getting messed up except with SS2.

So, is there a way to run SS2's internal res downscaled while keeping the Window size the same as my laptop's native resolution, maybe a setting in cam_ext.cfg or cam.cfg? I've looked all over the internet but I can't find anything.

Tl;dr
Is it possible to run SS2 at a downscaled 1270x720 res, while maintaining the game window at 1920x1080 native res?

Instead of wishing for some bizarre scaling mode that doesn't exist, you'd have better luck playing with the various rendering options in cam_ext to improve your performance at native resolution.

I know this might only be relevant to those using Linux and integrated graphics cards, but I found a workaround. If I set my native resolution to 1280x720, then I set the game to the same and close it, my desktop won't be deconfigured and show the black bar, and then reverting the native res back to 1920x1080 will keep things as they should, as the game is running at "native" resolution.

Anyway, thanks for the replies, made me realize that downscaling wasn't a thing in 1999, and even with the new engine, there shouldn't be a need for it.

By running at a lower res I'm even able to increase the multisampling value to mitigate the blurriness, and by writing a simple shell script that changes the native res of my screen whenever I launch the SS2.exe process through wine, then reverts it back to normal once said process is closed, will automate the extra steps.

Black bar begone!

Writing a script to change your desktop resolution every time you launch a particular game is the most Linux thing ever.