Widescreen + games = widescreen gaming. Does it work?

meglamaniac · 4 Nov 2006 at 16:33

I'm looking at getting a single widescreen panel to replace my two 17" panels. However, I'm worried about the state of games on widescreen monitors. What experiences have you guys had? Do many games fail? Do they tend to just get stretched (bad) or just leave black bars at the side of the screen (good)?

Thanks!

Fr0dders · 4 Nov 2006 at 17:46

depends on the monitor

most will allow you to choose whether to stretch the image or have black bars

but tbh most games can be coaxed into running widescreen.

have a look at www.widescreengaming.com for a full list of what can and cant be run in widescreen.

Borden · 4 Nov 2006 at 17:54

MrLOL said:
depends on the monitor

most will allow you to choose whether to stretch the image or have black bars

but tbh most games can be coaxed into running widescreen.

have a look at www.widescreengamingforum.com for a full list of what can and cant be run in widescreen.

Fixed

Fr0dders · 4 Nov 2006 at 17:55

thats the one

would help if id checked the link lol

meglamaniac · 4 Nov 2006 at 18:05

The other thing I just realised is that the nVidia control panel has the option to use the graphics card for scaling instead of the monitor. That way you can specify exactly what you want to happen, at the expense of dropping a couple of frames a second off the framerate from the extra overhead of scaling the image.

Kinda answered my own question there I guess

Mud · 4 Nov 2006 at 19:23

The nVidia control panel allows:

Display Adapter Scaling: Graphics card stretches out the picture to fill your screen (can distort the aspect ratio)
Centred Output: Pixels are displayed 1:1 in the middle of your screen with a border of black pixels around the image (border size dependant on proportion of native resolution used)
Preserve Aspect Ratio: Displays as big as possible with the correct aspect ratio, black borders in void space.
Monitor Scaling: The monitor chooses how to handle the picture. Useful if you have a decent Dell screen since you can choose aspect/1:1/stretch in the OSD.

At least those're the options from memory, the accompanying pictures may elucidate matters further.

PinkFloyd · 4 Nov 2006 at 19:35

Pretty much every big game I've played will either natively work fine in widescreen, or can be forced quite easily.
Only games I have encountered that I can't get working in widescreen so far are NeedforSpeed Underground2 (the hack doesnt appear to work) and Pro Evo 5.

Don't let the small minority of games put you off.

jmhduck · 6 Nov 2006 at 09:43

Mud said:
The nVidia control panel allows:

Display Adapter Scaling: Graphics card stretches out the picture to fill your screen (can distort the aspect ratio)
Centred Output: Pixels are displayed 1:1 in the middle of your screen with a border of black pixels around the image (border size dependant on proportion of native resolution used)
Preserve Aspect Ratio: Displays as big as possible with the correct aspect ratio, black borders in void space.
Monitor Scaling: The monitor chooses how to handle the picture. Useful if you have a decent Dell screen since you can choose aspect/1:1/stretch in the OSD.

Do ati drivers haven anything similar to the centred output?, I had a quick look and I couldn't see anything.