To set a resolution on start up, simply go to your steam games window, right click the game and click properties and then; launch options Now in that start up line, just add the following:

-w 1360 -h 768

Now press ok.

That should force that res upon boot up, but no promises; chances are if it doesnt support it, it wont run regardless of what you do, hope that helps.

EDIT: By the way, is there always a black gap with your monitor?

The startup commands that Diggz mentioned should work fine, you can just hope that the resolution is supported.

On a side note I have a similar problem with having a high resolution (1680x1050, 16:10) as it drains a lot of speed from the game play and if I switch to "normal" 4:3 ration resolutions everything will appear stretched and my mouse movement will act strange one the y-axis.

I would really appreciate if someone knows a way to center the resolution with 2 black spaces on each side of the screen (the only alternative right now is playing in Windowed Mode which I despise). I know that Sony Vaio Laptops do that on default, but is there any way to make the above work on a common wide screen?

I take it your playing on a widescreen with that aspect ratio mate? I imagine 4:3 wont look particularly good on widescreen, dont know about the mouse movement though.. that sounds a little odd. But anyway try lowering your res, 1680x1050 is pretty intensive for a Laptop GPU, you dont really need to fiddle with aspect ratio.

EDIT: I imagine if you switch to 4:3 you will have to manually adjust the screen positioning on the LCD, I wouldnt know how to do it on a vaio though, good luck

I know and that's why I want to play on lower resolutions, but as I (and now also you) said, the screen is distorted. The problem is 1680x1050 is the lowest resolution supported by Steam games in 16:10 ratio...

Any other suggestions?

Edit following your edit: I don't have a Vaio, I've got a Toshiba Satellite M60 and that's the problem, as the Vaio has the function I'm trying to get with my laptop built in by default... So I'm looking for a way to get a similar effect on mine. I'll try and fiddle around with screen positioning and see how it turns out...

The same should work for you as well, Shifty, because if some parts of the screen are cut off just try another resolution and try changing the positioning a bit.

Well, heres a daft stab in the dark (But what the hell eh?), but change your aspect ratio first, and then your res, that way aspects are resized first and then translated into a different res

EDIT: and then perhaps have a fiddle with the screen positioning

Try a different res mate, 1024 by 768 is a commonly supported one

I found a way to get around my problem, maybe it will work for you as well (or at least in a similar way).

I changed my desktop resolution to 1280x1024 and unticked "Scale Image" in my advanced ATI control panel. In case you don't have a ATI card, I'm sure you'll find a similar option on your PC.

Good luck.