depends on the graphics card you use but both nvidia and ati have an option to maintain aspect ratio in their drivers

google it or at least give us enough information about your graphics card

Or just check the osd of your monitor.

what's the name of this setting ?

keep aspect ratio or whatever.

black duct tape. the 4:3 ratio was an illusion

enable custom aspect ratio in your grafics card settings.

you have to use a 4:3 resolution that corresponds to your native monitor resolution tho.

for example, if your monitor is 1680x1050
the custom resolution you need to set in quakelive is 1400x1050

if you just set it to 800x600, quakelive will still stretch everything out.

this is my experience with an ati grafics card, i think it's been discussed here befor and several other people have come to the same conclusion.

it is however a quakelive issue, cnq3 behaves differently.

I got a 1680x1050 monitor with an ATI card and have no problem using 640x480 and 800x600 at 4:3.

No idea how I did it. Something in the drivers. Checked now and couldn't find it though :|

never been able to use a 4/3 custom res without seeing the game on the left part of the screen and windows leaking out on the right.
Only standard 4/3 res worked for me.

ati x850 xt. derp.

Same for me. Any help? I want to use 1400x1050 on my 2233rz

I stopped being a snob and got used to 16/9.

I wonder why, is it something to do with FOV? since non-native res looks quite a bit worse on LCDs.

habit + some people just can't get used to how widescreen feels.

on nvidia card it dont work

It does work.