Widescreen question

PeteLucky7 · 18 Jun 2007 at 07:50

Ok, stupid noob question - if I get a widescreen tft (specifically looking at the cheapo HannsG 17" for about 90 quid) but my graphics card (256mb Connect3d x1800xt) doesn't have any widescreen resolutions supported according to the box, what's going to happen?

Cheers

Borden · 18 Jun 2007 at 07:57

I have that exact same card and it definately supports 1440x900. I think graphics cards are able to run most resolutions and manufacturers just put the most common ones on the box in order to show that it will work with them. Not sure on this though.

PeteLucky7 · 18 Jun 2007 at 08:15

Right, cheers. Another one, do most games support 1440x900 resolution, and if they don't will they just run in the middle of the screen with big black lines down the sides? If so, presumably they'll be limited to 1024x780 or something to fit vertically.. Am I right?

Borden · 18 Jun 2007 at 08:25

Most new games now support widescreen resolutions. With games that don't work natively you can use this website to find the game and see if they have any hacks on there which enable widescreen resolutions. It's an excellent website with some good guides on how to get it going.

You mentioned having black bars down the side of the screen. This is available in some monitors. What it's called is 1:1 scaling. It means that if you run an application at a lower resolution to native then the monitor can center the image in the middle of the screen and have black bars surrounding the image.

However, this option is only available in a few screens and i'm not sure if the one you're looking into has it. Its bigger brother, the 19" doesn't have this option so this may be an indication on whether this one will or not. You can use your graphics card drivers to center the image although i'm not sure how this is done as i've never had to do it.