Is it possible to pillarbox using powerstrip?

noblepaladin · Post by **noblepaladin** » 11 Dec 2006, 22:19

I am tring to get pillarboxing to work (black bars on left and right of my widescreen monitor so I get 4:3 aspect ratio) so I can play games like WarCraft III, but I "use centered timing" on my ATI Catalyst Control Center didn't work.

My Hardware: Samsung 225BW and ATI Radeon X850Pro

I spent a few hours searching and a lot of people on this forum said to "try powerstrip", but gave no information on how to do pillarboxing. I am experimenting with powerstrip and I was able to create a custom 1400:1050 resolution (which would be a perfect pillarbox for my 1680:1050 monitor), but the game still stretches. The monitor's OSD says it is displaying 1400:1050, and there are no options for scaling. Does this mean I am out of luck because my monitor will auto-scale no matter what I do?

There is a review of the 225BW on this site, and the reviewer was able to pillarbox using a X1800 I believe, so I am hoping there is a way to get it to work. Anybody have any ideas?

Dem Pyros · Post by **Dem Pyros** » 11 Dec 2006, 23:28

setting it lower then the monitors resolution will probably make your monitor, in this case, auto-scale the image to fit.

I think what you need is to have the native resolution set, and configure your graphics card to output frames with the pillar boxes on the sides.

noblepaladin · Post by **noblepaladin** » 12 Dec 2006, 00:10

Hmm... that's what I though too. Unfortunately using Catalyst Control Center doesn't work and Omega drivers doesn't work either in generating the pillarboxes.

Post by **skipclarke** » 12 Dec 2006, 01:21

I have the same issue with a 2007WFP and a 6800GT, with all the options to create custom res's and the display adapter scaling/monitor scaling/centred output and nothing makes a damn of difference. I'm cross.
Can anyone help either of us? :x

noblepaladin · Post by **noblepaladin** » 29 Dec 2006, 02:36

I just downloaded the new ATI 6.12 drivers for my X850pro, installed them, then turned on "Use Centered Timing" and amazingly pillarboxing works. However, I tried to change the resolution (WarCraft 3 says it is 640x480, but it is actually higher, more like 1280x1024 or something), but then pillarboxing does not work any more regardless of what I do. I have to uninstall and reinstall the drivers to get it to work again (once again, WC3 reports 640x480, but it clearly isn't, so I am happy with it).

My OSD on my Samsung SyncMaster 225BW says the monitor is displaying 1680x1050, so the video card is generating the pillarbox, not the monitor. When I change the resolution of WC3, the OSD reports the new resolution (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, ... etc) and it is stretched with no pillarboxing.

So my problem is somewhat fixed, because WC3 is working as I would like it to work, but I am unsure of how to get it to work on other 4:3 games (good thing I don't play any other). If anybody knows how to get the ATI drivers to display a 4:3 display (but send 1680x1050 with built in pillarboxes to the monitor), I'd like to know (use centered timings suppose to do this, but apparently it fails to work correctly for many people).

Post by **skipclarke** » 29 Dec 2006, 16:18

oh I was just being thick - sorry :oops:

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