UWFix — ultrawide cutscenes without black bars

English · Українська

UWFix finds your installed games (Steam, Epic Games, GOG, Ubisoft Connect) and removes the black bars on the sides of cutscenes on 21:9 and 32:9 monitors — with one button. Works on Windows and Linux (Proton, Wine).

⬇ Download the latest release — an installer or a portable version. Java is bundled, nothing else to install. Windows 10/11 x64 and Linux x64.

How it works

Most games store the cutscene aspect ratio as a floating-point number 16 / 9 = 1.7777778. In the executable it is written in IEEE 754 format (float, 4 bytes, little-endian):

Resolution	Ratio	Bytes in the file
1920×1080 (16:9)	1.778	39 8E E3 3F
2560×1080 (21:9)	2.370	26 B4 17 40
3440×1440 (21:9)	2.389	8E E3 18 40
3840×1600 (24:10)	2.400	9A 99 19 40
5120×1440 (32:9)	3.556	39 8E 63 40

Replace 39 8E E3 3F with your monitor's value and the game believes the cutscenes were made for your screen, so it stops adding bars. The community does this by hand in a hex editor (e.g. UltraAspect for The Witcher 3). UWFix does it automatically and safely. Any resolution works — the value is computed as width ÷ height, not taken from a fixed table.

Features

• Game discovery: Steam (all libraries on all drives), Epic Games, GOG, Ubisoft Connect, plus any folder added manually. On Linux — Steam (also Flatpak and Snap) and Heroic Games Launcher.
• Game icons and cover art: Steam games get their icon, background art and logo from Steam's local cache, other games — an icon straight from the game's .exe (the app parses the Windows PE resource table itself).
• Search, filters and sorting: search ignores case and punctuation; show all / fixed / not fixed / updated games; sort by name (Ukrainian alphabet aware), launcher or fixed first.
• Monitor detection: every connected monitor is detected automatically, taking Windows scaling into account; you can pick another resolution or enter your own.
• Game analysis: finds .exe and .dll files containing 16:9, skips third-party libraries (Steam API, DirectX, PhysX…), detects the engine (15 engines — see the table below) and suggests which files to patch.
• Safe patching:
  • a backup *.uwfix-backup is created before any change;
  • only the 4 (or 8) bytes found are changed, the rest of the file is not rewritten;
  • before each write the expected bytes are verified;
  • SHA-256 checksums of the original and the result are stored.
• Resolution unlock: for games that don't offer 3440×1440 in their menu, UWFix writes it straight into the game settings — GameUserSettings.ini (Unreal Engine 4/5, including per-account Saved_Steam_<id> folders), *Engine.ini (Unreal Engine 3, e.g. Life is Strange), the registry (Unity), video.txt (Source) or *Prefs.ini (Skyrim, Fallout).
• Play button: launches the game via Steam / Epic / Ubisoft Connect (achievements and cloud saves keep working) or directly via its .exe.
• One-click restore — even without the backup, because UWFix knows every changed location.
• Update tracking: when a game updates (Steam replaces the file), UWFix notices the fix is gone and offers to re-apply it. Optionally it can re-apply automatically at sign-in (Windows or Linux).
• Anti-cheat warning (Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, VAC…): modifying online games is risky for your account.
• Languages: English and Ukrainian, switchable on the fly.
• Self-update: at startup UWFix checks GitHub for a new version; one click downloads it, verifies the SHA-256 checksum and restarts into the new version — no need to download it manually again.

Supported engines

Engine	Examples	Detected by	Resolution in game settings
Unreal Engine 4/5	Silent Hill 2, Stellar Blade, Palworld	*-Win64-Shipping.exe, Content\Paks	GameUserSettings.ini
Unreal Engine 3	Life is Strange, BioShock Infinite	CookedPC*	*Engine.ini → [SystemSettings]
Unity	Valheim, Content Warning	UnityPlayer.dll	registry (PlayerPrefs)
Source	Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2	bin\engine.dll	cfg\video.txt or registry
Creation Engine / Gamebryo	Skyrim, Fallout 3/4/New Vegas	Data\*.esm	*Prefs.ini → iSize W/H
REDengine	The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077	bin\x64 + content	—
RE Engine	Resident Evil 2/3/4/7/Village, Monster Hunter	re_chunk_000.pak	— (hint: REFramework)
MT Framework	Resident Evil 5/6, Revelations	nativePC*	—
Source 2	Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2	game\bin\win64\engine2.dll	— (native 21:9, VAC)
RAGE	GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2	*.rpf	— (native 21:9)
CryEngine, Frostbite, GameMaker, Godot		CrySystem.dll, initfs_Win32, data.win, *.pck	—

For every engine UWFix shows an honest hint: where the 16:9 replacement helps, where the game supports 21:9 by itself and where files are better left alone (online games with anti-cheat).

Limitations

• The method works only if the game stores 16:9 as a ready-made number. If the ratio is computed differently, UWFix will say “The 16:9 value was not found”.
• Pre-rendered 16:9 video cutscenes cannot be fixed: there is no picture on the sides in the video itself.
• In some games the UI may stretch after patching — just press “Restore original”.
• Game settings appear after the first launch — run the game once before setting the resolution in UWFix.
• Microsoft Store / Xbox Game Pass games are write-protected.
• Do not use it for online games with anti-cheat.

Usage

1. Run UWFix.exe (portable) or install it with the installer.
2. Check the target resolution at the top (your monitor by default).
3. Pick a game on the left and wait for the file analysis.
4. Press Fix cutscenes.
5. If the game is installed in Program Files, UWFix will offer to restart with administrator rights.

App data: %APPDATA%\UWFix\state.json (state and settings), %APPDATA%\UWFix\reapply.log (automatic check log).

Linux

UWFix also works on Linux — both for Windows games that run through Proton (Steam) or Wine (Heroic Games Launcher) and for native Linux versions of games:

• Install: unpack UWFix-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz and run UWFix/bin/UWFix, or install the package on Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install ./uwfix_*_amd64.deb.
• Games: Steam (native, Flatpak and Snap), Epic Games and GOG installed through Heroic (from its installed.json lists).
• Patching works exactly as on Windows: under Proton the game is the same Windows .exe. Native games are Linux ELF files (programs without an extension and .so libraries) — UWFix recognises them by their first bytes 7F 45 4C 46, and 16:9 is stored there with the same bytes.
• Resolution unlock looks inside the game's Wine prefix: Steam keeps one per game in steamapps/compatdata/<AppID>/pfx, Heroic stores the path in the game's settings. The .ini files are in drive_c/users/steamuser/…, and the registry is the text file user.reg, which UWFix edits directly. Close the game first — Wine rewrites this file when it exits. Native games keep settings in the home folder: Unity — the XML file ~/.config/unity3d/<company>/<game>/prefs, Unreal Engine — ~/.config/Epic/<project>/Saved/Config/Linux/GameUserSettings.ini, Source — the same cfg/video.txt.
• Play starts Steam games via steam://; native games from GOG or added manually are started directly (start.sh, the game's .sh script or its ELF program); Windows games from Heroic are started from Heroic.
• Autostart: ~/.config/autostart/uwfix-reapply.desktop; app data: ~/.config/uwfix/.
• Self-update works for the tar.gz version in a folder you can write to; the .deb version opens the release page instead.
• Native ports by porting studios (Feral, Aspyr) often store the aspect ratio differently — then UWFix honestly reports that 16:9 was not found.

More screenshots

Game analysis	Anti-cheat warning

Building from source

Only JDK 17 or newer is required. Maven is downloaded automatically (Maven Wrapper).

mvnw javafx:run

mvnw test

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build-installer.ps1

./build-linux.sh --deb

Command	What it does
mvnw javafx:run	run during development
mvnw test	unit tests (JUnit 5)
mvnw test -Pbenchmark	search algorithm benchmark; result in target\benchmark-results.txt; add -Dbench.file=path\to\game.exe to use a real file
build-installer.ps1	portable dist\UWFix\UWFix.exe, a .zip and the installer dist\UWFix-<version>.exe (needs WiX Toolset 3 in tools\wix)
build-linux.sh	Linux: dist/UWFix/bin/UWFix, the archive UWFix-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz and, with --deb, a .deb package
make-screenshots.ps1	documentation screenshots on demo games (real games are not touched)

GitHub Actions runs the tests on Ubuntu and Windows for every commit and attaches the Linux build to each release.

Project structure

src/main/java/ua/uwfix/
├── Main.java, App.java       entry point and JavaFX startup
├── model/                    AspectRatio, ValueFormat (IEEE 754), Game, GameSource
├── search/                   search algorithms: NaiveSearch, KmpSearch, HorspoolSearch;
│                             FileScanner — streaming chunked file scan + SHA-256
├── scan/                     game discovery: SteamScanner (VDF parser), EpicScanner (JSON),
│                             GogScanner, UbisoftScanner (registry via reg export),
│                             HeroicScanner (Linux), GameLibrary
├── analysis/                 GameAnalyzer (file selection), EngineDetector, AntiCheatDetector
├── settings/                 ResolutionUnlocker, IniEditor, UnityPrefs — resolution in game settings;
│                             WinePrefix, WineRegistry (user.reg) — the same inside Proton/Wine
├── icon/                     PeIconExtractor (icons from .exe: PE resources, PNG/BMP), GameIconLocator (Steam cache)
├── patch/                    Patcher (patch, restore, re-apply), PatchStore (state in JSON)
├── cli/                      ReapplyCommand — silent --reapply mode
├── i18n/                     I18n, Language — translations (messages_en/uk.properties)
├── update/                   UpdateChecker (GitHub Releases API), UpdateInstaller (download, SHA-256, replace),
│                             TarArchive (.tar.gz for Linux)
├── system/                   Os, SystemShell (Windows/Linux differences), monitors, administrator rights, autostart
└── ui/                       MainController + main.fxml + style.css (MVC), dialogs, cells

flowchart LR
    UI["ui: MainController<br/>main.fxml, style.css"] --> LIB["scan: GameLibrary"]
    UI --> AN["analysis: GameAnalyzer"]
    UI --> PA["patch: Patcher"]
    UI --> I18N["i18n: I18n"]
    UI --> UPD["update: UpdateChecker<br/>UpdateInstaller"]
    LIB --> ST["SteamScanner<br/>VdfParser"]
    LIB --> EP["EpicScanner"]
    LIB --> GOG["GogScanner / UbisoftScanner<br/>WindowsRegistry"]
    AN --> FS["search: FileScanner<br/>HorspoolSearch"]
    PA --> FS
    PA --> STORE["patch: PatchStore<br/>state.json (Gson)"]
    CLI["cli: ReapplyCommand"] --> PA

Loading

Testing

228 unit tests (JUnit 5), run on Windows and Linux: ratio-to-bytes conversion, three search algorithms (checked against a reference on random data), streaming scan with various chunk sizes, VDF / .reg / JSON parsers, file selection for different engines, the full “patch → game update → re-apply → restore” cycle, a corrupted state file, translation completeness (same keys and parameters in both languages), version comparison and safe unpacking of updates (including archives with paths escaping the folder), icon extraction from a synthetic PE file (PNG and BMP icons with a transparency mask), Linux game discovery (Steam roots, Heroic), reading and editing the Wine registry user.reg, finding a game's Proton prefix, unpacking .tar.gz, ELF recognition and native Linux game layouts (Unity, Unreal, Source, Godot, GameMaker), Unity prefs XML.

Search algorithms on 128 MB of machine-code-like data (mvnw test -Pbenchmark):

Algorithm	4-byte pattern	8 bytes	16 bytes
Naive search	1786 MB/s	1905 MB/s	736 MB/s
Knuth–Morris–Pratt	1443 MB/s	1439 MB/s	1455 MB/s
Boyer–Moore–Horspool	1546 MB/s	2868 MB/s	4628 MB/s

For the short 16:9 pattern (4 bytes) all algorithms are limited by memory bandwidth. With longer patterns Horspool skips most of the data and becomes the fastest — that is why UWFix uses it.

Tech stack

Java 17 · JavaFX 21 (FXML + CSS) · Gson · JUnit 5 · Maven · jpackage/jlink · WiX Toolset 3 · GitHub Actions

License

MIT. The software is provided “as is”: you modify game files at your own risk.