So I've been playing around with the Windows 3.1 versions of Sierra games, and I've discovered (re-discovered?) something that's really bugging the perfectionist in me.
Basically the "enhanced" CD version of King's Quest 6 has conflicting aspect ratios all throughout.
It's fairly widely recognized today that the 320x200 DOS games were designed to use rectangular pixels on CRT screens, rather than square pixels. These rectangular pixels were taller by 20% (or had a pixel ratio of 5:4 aka 1.2:1) This resulted in the games being displayed at a 4:3 aspect ratio... effectively equivalent to 320x240 in square pixels.
When Sierra first ported their games to Windows, it was clearly a learning experience and they made some compromises. In KQ5 (their first windows game), it would only run if your screen resolution was set to 640x480x256 (no higher, no lower). And when it ran, presumably in order to accommodate the windows title bar, instead of stretching the game to fit 640x480, it was only stretched to fit 640x440. A full 40 pixels shorter (or ~9% shorter), resulting in a slightly squashed game.
Because the game was maximized, the sides of the window were off screen, allowing the full 640 width, but the height has 19 pixels for the title bar, 440 pixels for the game, and an additional 21 black pixels at the bottom. (Interestingly, despite not allowing it to run in higher resolutions (like 800x600), you can still restore the game to a moveable window.)
The rest of the games in the SCI1 and SCI1.1 era made steps to correct the issue, while still staying fully compatible with 640x480 screens. They introduced a Small Window and Large Window mode. That includes SQ4, LSL6-lores, Pepper's Adventures in Time, Freddy Pharkas, EcoQuest1 CD, EcoQuest2, Laura Bow 2, etc.
The Large Window mode worked just like KQ5, stretching the game to only 640x440 (or ~9% shorter height that intended).
Small Window mode shrank the game down to 320x240, displaying it at the proper aspect ratio.
It wasn't until the SCI2/SCI32 era that they started to show their Windows versions of games at the full 640x480 resolution and correct 4:3 aspect ratio. QFG4, Gabriel Knight 1, LSL6-Hires, LSL7, KQ7, Police Quest 4 etc. Often times they even removed the title bar completely.
So this Windows 3.1 compromise wouldn't be a problem, except for the enhanced graphics for the Windows version only of KQ6 CD. As with all the other SCI1/SCI1.1 releases, it has a Large Window and a Small Window mode, and like the others, the Small Window is the correct aspect ratio, and the Large Window is 9% squished.
BUT, they updated the icon bar, the talking portraits, the inventory icons, and a couple of assorted other graphics for the Large Window mode only, and they didn't adjust the aspect ratio to match... in fact, based on the size of the icon bar, it looks like they based the new hi-res icons on the incorrect 320x200 aspect ratio of the original DOS icons. I've created a gif that switches between the windows hires version and the same one with the icon bar from the DOS version applied, without any aspect ratio correction. They're nearly identical.
So yeah, that's disappointing that there's pretty much no definitive version of KQ6... you can either have the correct aspect ratio and low-res graphics, or you can have a squished version with better quality (but also differently squished) graphics.
