Widescreen Gaming Forum

Yea, if I use centered output I get black bars on all sides. But if I use fixed aspect ratio scaling I get black bars only on the top and bottom and none on the sides. It looks like it is trying to make it 16:9 and not 4:3.

Hi to all , I'm new here ... and from Italy , so excuse my bad Eng.Lang. :D , got the same problems of all that come in this thread (play with the right aspect-ratio on wide monitors) ... I've got a GeForce-7300LE and a PackardBell Maestro 19"Lcd (native res. 1440x900 at 75Hz) all gone well while playing wide games, but with Zylom's ones (gamehouse is the same) and the trylogy of Power of Chaos and others It's a really matter to play with all the game screen stretched :( :( I'll tried to find the mentioned options in the factory nvidia settings menu ... no luck for this :( So I'm here to ask you if I could try to use the omega ones , the answer is just for the time-to-date of this ones (2005) ... thanx in advance for any type of suggestions :D

So ... no one of the senior could help me a little bit ? :(

So ... no one of the senior could help me a little bit ? :(

Take a look at this if you are using a DVI connection:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nvidia:_Finding_the_Digital_Flat_Panel_Settings_Tab

That tab won't be availible if you are using a VGA connection. Maybe Powerstrip can get black bars when using vga, I haven't tried it.

Good Afternoon All,

(I posted something similar to this elsewhere on this forum, but probably in the wrong place ... so I have re-posted here, and apolgize if this offends.)

I have tried all the usual fixes described on this bulletin board, but to no avail. I play Red Baron (but not at present), Fighter Squadron, and Battle of Britain - all of which are 4:3 games with no game-based widescreen option.

I have an nVidia based Albatron PC6600GT video card and a Viewsonic VA1912w (widescreen) LCD monitor.

I have downloaded last month's drivers from nVidia (version 9.1.3.1), and Viewsonic's most modern drivers. I have clicked the Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling option on the nVidia's software and also chosen the timing option for Fixed Aspect Ratio scaling in the Advanced Timing Options.

BUT ... everything is still stretched!! What else can I do? What have I NOT done?

OR does the 6600GT series not ACTUALLY support Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling, despite the fact that it appears to do so in the drivers?? Or, does the Viewsonic have a process which re-stretches everything. I do not believe that I have a 1:1 option on the OSD.


Regards,
George (and getting a bit desperate)

P.S. I have not tried the PowerStrip option, because I have spent SO much time on fiddling with this, and it would APPEAR that the nVidia control panel SHOULD be able to fix the problem. (Another contributor has had trouble with his VA1912w too. Extra frustration comes when Viewsonic phone support say their monitor "doesn't have a driver or software", but on their website they have THREE drivers, and without a driver installed, the screen runs in about 16 colours.)

PPS: I had no trouble getting my Dell laptop with ati X300 Mobility Radeon to work ... just unclicked the "monitor scaling" option and all is perfect 4*3 with black bars at the edge. I thought that it might be the same with nVidia :(

GeorgeBoles...

Sometimes a monitor automatically scales the image being output from your PC, no matter what you set your control panel to. It can be very frustrating.

For example I just purchased a LG L204WT (hi everyone, first post!!) and it'll automatically scale any image size 1280 X 1024 or under up to the panel's resolution. It's a pain in the butt as I would perfer black bars to a stretched image.

Hello all, second post here. I posted first about this problem lower down in the forum, but this seems like a place is should go, either instead of or aswell as. :)

I recently bought myself a new setup with a 19" Widescreen Chimei CMV 938D. Now, my video card (Nvidea) has the option to fix the aspect ratio, but unfortunately it does not seem to be working and I think it may be down to the monitor itself.

Does anyone have any suggestion as to what I could do to force my monitor to show 4:3 things with black bars instead of streching everything to buggery?

I too can not get this to work.
Benq fp92w + xfx 7600gs agp. Latest Forceware drivers ( 93.71 ).

Yes its connected via DVI ...

I am wondering if I should plug it in with d-sub and start playing with custom timings.

I have a Toshiba with a Radeon Mobility 9000 IGP that has the Fixed Aspect Ratio scaling if I install the original older driver that comes from Toshiba, but I lose it if I upgrade to a more recent version of the Catalyst driver series. I would like to get this functionality back.

I was looking through the older drivers INF file for any potential clues to what might be going on and I came across this entry:

[ati2mtag_RS300M_SoftwareDeviceSettings]

HKR,, DALRULE_GETLCDFAKEEDID, %REG_DWORD%, 1

In the Toshiba INF it has a value of "1" (on) but in the INF from the more recent revision of the driver it has a value of "0" (off). However, I don't know enough about INF/Registry entries to really do anything useful with it. I know EDID has been mentioned before as having something to do with this situation so I thought this might be helpful.

The link below is to the full INF:

http://members.aol.com/miscfilestorage/CX_15460.inf

If the entry I mentioned isn't anything important I figure the answer must be somewhere within the older drivers INF file since the entries in it are much different than the modern drivers INF. Hopefully someone that knows more about how these drivers work and the structure of the INF's can do something with it.

Is this helpful to anyone working on the ATI "Fixed Aspect Ratio" problem:

http://ati.amd.com/developer/sdk/ccc/ATI.ACE.CLI.Aspect.DeviceLCD.Graphics.Shared.LCDImageScaleProperties.html

http://ati.amd.com/developer/sdk/ccc/ATI.ACE.CLI.Aspect.DeviceLCD.Graphics.Shared.LCDImageScale.html

The second link says that UseCenteredTiming=0, ScaleFullPanelsize=1, and ScaleMaintainAspectRatio=2.

This setting must be stored somewhere, otherwise it wouldn't remember what is selected. We just need to find out where it it stored and change the 0 or 1 to a 2, so it uses that setting instead.

I could be wrong since I really don't understand exactly how this works, but hopefully someone around here will know how to use it or knows someone that can make it work.

Does anyone know if we can access this using the CLI or the DeveloperConsole directly?

This is something else I found when I switched between "Use Centered Timings" and "Scale Image - Full Panel Size" in the Catalyst Control Panel, The only thing that changed in my registry was the same value in two different keys. The two keys were:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlVideo{4F48FFD8-64BC-11DB-8B57-806D6172696F}000]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlVideo{4F48FFD8-64BC-11DB-8B57-806D6172696F}000]

The value that changed was:

"DALATI RS300_Index0"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
For "Use Centered Timings"

and

"DALATI RS300_Index0"=hex:00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
For "Scale Image - Full Panel Size"

Everytime I switched back and forth between the two the only thing that changed was this value in both keys. Hopefully someone will be able to use this information to come up with a solution to the Fixed Aspect Ratio scaling problem since I believe it's just another value (i think it's 2).

Sorry for all the posts, I've just been putting stuff up as I've been finding it while investigating this problem.

I have been playing around with my 7900gt trying to get the fixed aspect ratio scaling to work. I came up with this.

I am using TweaksRUs driver version 93.71, and the classic control panel. I am not sure if any of that matters though.

Select the resolution you want. Then go to advanced timing. First under the timing standard select CVT standard and apply it. Go to flat panel scaling and select fixed aspect ratio scaling. Select the horizontal back-end active. The difference between it and the front-end active has to be the same as the difference between the aspect ratio of the resolution and aspect ratio of your monitor.

Example: .625(16/10) / .75(4/3) = .83333
.625(16/10) / .8(5/4) = .78125

So, for 1024x768 it would be 1024 / .83333 = 1228

Put the 1228 in to the back-end active and hit apply. If all goes well it should have black bars on the sides. If the screen goes blank or you get some kind of error back it off a little bit to say 1225. If I went to high the monitor would say no signal in put, and I would have to restart the computer.

This has worked in the few games I have tried if you select the resolution you want in the desktop before you start the game.

This worked for me anyway. I would be interested to know if this works for anyone else.

Some people have had trouble finding the 'Fixed Aspect Scaling Ratio' setting within recent Nvidia drivers. It could be because the driver installation has configured your widescreen monitor to act as an HDTV.

I've provided a full description of how to access the setting (using the 93.71 driver) in this post.

Is this helpful to anyone working on the ATI "Fixed Aspect Ratio" problem:

http://ati.amd.com/developer/sdk/ccc/ATI.ACE.CLI.Aspect.DeviceLCD.Graphics.Shared.LCDImageScaleProperties.html

http://ati.amd.com/developer/sdk/ccc/ATI.ACE.CLI.Aspect.DeviceLCD.Graphics.Shared.LCDImageScale.html

The second link says that UseCenteredTiming=0, ScaleFullPanelsize=1, and ScaleMaintainAspectRatio=2.

This setting must be stored somewhere, otherwise it wouldn't remember what is selected. We just need to find out where it it stored and change the 0 or 1 to a 2, so it uses that setting instead.

I could be wrong since I really don't understand exactly how this works, but hopefully someone around here will know how to use it or knows someone that can make it work.

Does anyone know if we can access this using the CLI or the DeveloperConsole directly?

I was working on it earlier before my old X850XT PE crashed... :(
The settings are stored and can be manipulated in the documents and .../"name"/local settings/application data/ATI/ACE/profiles.xml or similar. I don't have the card anymore, but given your information, there might be an option for people to try this out and see if there is a possibility to enter the new scaling option manually and get fixed aspect scaling... Anyone who wants to give it a go?

Hi,
I already posted here before I discovered this thread.
But unfortunately nothing seems to work.

-Want to have a 1280x1024 resolution, unstretched.
-Monitor is a Samsung 226BW (native res. 1680x1050)
-Graphics card is a ATI Radeon 9600XT (Omega drivers, downloaded yesterday)
-Connected with DVI
-Switching the option "Scale Image to Full Panel Size" (in the "Display"-Tab) on/off changes nothing
-PowerStrip doesn't help me either. When I make changes in this menu the monitor gets dark for a second and nothing changes OR the picture gets totally weird, looks like multiple images upon the other.

Can anyone help me with that? Or can anyone show me what exactly I have to do in PowerStrip... Maybe I didn't click the right things...

Thanks,
isch

Hello Everyone,

I'm new here, and i got a few questions to ask.

Here's my rig:

LCD: Samsung 940BW. DVI 1440 x 900 @ 75Hz.
Videocard: Inno3d 6600 128mb 128bit on latest driver from Nvidia.
CPU: Athlon 64 3000 Venice
Mem: PQI 512mb
No OC's or whatsoever.

I tried and been able use "No scale" @ 1024x768 or 800 x 600 under flat panel settings display settings on Nvidia Control Panel. Problem is the result is not really that crispy is still kinda like stretchy unlike the native solution on the desktop. But playing it in games is kinda fine. is that normal?

Uhh, seems quiet in here...

same question though.

I've got the new ATI card, the Radeon HD2900 with the latest catalyst.

I selected "use centered timings" which is supposed to give me the desired "black bars" to no avail. I am hoping to run BF2142 in 1280x960 on my Asus 22" However, stretchies....... =(

Has there been any updates on the issue with ATI cards?

Hello Everyone,

I'm new here, and i got a few questions to ask.

Here's my rig:

LCD: Samsung 940BW. DVI 1440 x 900 @ 75Hz.
Videocard: Inno3d 6600 128mb 128bit on latest driver from Nvidia.
CPU: Athlon 64 3000 Venice
Mem: PQI 512mb
No OC's or whatsoever.

I tried and been able use "No scale" @ 1024x768 or 800 x 600 under flat panel settings display settings on Nvidia Control Panel. Problem is the result is not really that crispy is still kinda like stretchy unlike the native solution on the desktop. But playing it in games is kinda fine. is that normal?

:welcome

Do you get black bars when choosing under native resolution? Why use anything under native on desktop? :)

Uhh, seems quiet in here...

same question though.

I've got the new ATI card, the Radeon HD2900 with the latest catalyst.

I selected "use centered timings" which is supposed to give me the desired "black bars" to no avail. I am hoping to run BF2142 in 1280x960 on my Asus 22" However, stretchies....... =(

Has there been any updates on the issue with ATI cards?

:welcome

Centered timings means that the GFX outputs the resolution "as it is" without any sort of scaling. If it doesn't work (provided that there is no bugs in drivers), any scaling you see thereafter is done by the screen itself. Some screens scale to full screen no matter what resolution you throw at it, while others have settings like 1:1, scale to aspect, scale to full screen, custom scaling, where you can choose what the monitor does with the signal once received.

In most cases, to get scaling option, the screen should be used with DVI. This goes especially for Nvidia (to get digital flat panel scaling).

Hello.

First I'd like to say that I read the entire thread, and I'd like to thank all those helping people on it. My goal is to get rid of scaling (stretching) in my games. I want those black bars :)

Monitor: Viewsonic VA1930wm
Adapter: GeForce 4 Ti4200

I am using a VGA cable. As a result, I do not get the nice flat panel scaling properties in the NVIDIA control panel that a DVI cable would give me.

And so it seems from the way this thread has been going that my only hope is Powerstrip.

So a couple questions:

1. Is Powerstrip the only utility that can help me?

2. Has anyone here actually successfully stopped stretching on their VGA LCD widescreens via Powerstrip? I keep reading posts from people saying that it should work, but I've yet to see anyone report that it has. If it's worked for you, please tell us how you did it.

Thanks for any help.