16:9 resolutions on a 4:3 computer monitor

[imported_Sasha]

Morning All,

When I select a 16:9 resolution, either from Windows' Display Properties or in using PowerStrip, the displayed results are not what I expect at all. What I expect is a 16:9 image contained within the 4:3 physical screen of my monitor. Instead, what I get as a result is what appears to be a 3:4 image contained with 4:3 physical screen of my monitor.

The most common 16:9 resolution I am trying to achieve is 1280x720, but there are plent of others (1600x900, 1024x576, 960x540, and 853x480 to name a few). I have tried this using NVidia Ti4200 Ultra650 (AGP), NVidia PCX5300 (PCI Express), and ATI AnW 7500 (PCI) video cards, and also on ViewSonic A70f and PS790 Professional Series CRT monitors, and a Dell FP1800 UltraSharp LCD monitor. All yield the same results.

For those that have been able to properly display 16x9 resolutions, can you state what video card, operating system, driver, associated software, and monitor that was used in your seccess story?

 

[THUGSROOK]

i wish it worked correctly too

especially since im on a gaddamn 5:4 LCD

 

[oupei]

is this what you want it to look like? you just have to go into the menu on your monitor and decrease the height of the image. works on lcd too, but of course the pixels won't match up 1:1.

 

[imported_Sasha]

I tried to view that image and got:

Not Found
The requested URL /~gtg890r/widescreen.JPG was not found on this server.

 

[oupei]

err, i took the image of my website after a week or two and I can't put it back up til i go back to school after winter break. anyways, have you tried accessing the menu of your lcd and decreasing the height of the image?

 

[jiffylube1024]

You can actually get it done if you have a DVI LCD (someone told me how to do it but I forget who).

On an ATI card (only works with control panel, no CCC) go to Display Properties > Advanced > Displays and click the power button thingy next to the monitor (under either 'Monitor' or 'FPD' - I forget which - play around) and it changes the 'stretch screen' option so it runs naturally on the LCD.

1280X768 and 1280X720 work fine for me on my 17" LCD.

There's a way to get it done on Nvidia too through their control panel but I'm not sure - a search is in order .

Best of luck!

 

[lazybum131]

CCC has the option as well for ATI cards. Under 'Digital Panel Properties' -> 'Attributes' there's an option for Image Scaling, change it to 'Use centered timings' instead of 'Scale image to full panel size'.

 

[Peter]

Exactly. The reason is that "wide aspect" resolutions actually just have a higher pixel frequency within the same timing. Hence, a CRT monitor will "squeeze" the higher amount of pixels per line into the same physical line length.

 

[imported_Sasha]

I agree with this, Peter, but that is why the dimensions were not specified as 4:3, but 16:9. I know this can be done, as others have done this, including with almost identical displays. For some reason I am just not having any luck. I even tried on HTPCnews.com and wasn't successful beyond the VGA resolution.

jiffylube1024, I tried 1280x720 on a Dell UltraSharo 1800FP LCD monitor with my ATI AnW 7500. It exhibited the same behavior as with the NVidia cards on the CRT monitors.

 

[nitromullet]

This is kinda goofy, but it works... I have a 1600x1200 CRT, and I can select say 1600x900 which results in the 900 pixels getting stretched until they are the height of 1200. However, I can adjust the height of the viewable area on my monitor, so I just reduce the height until the screen doesn't look stretched anymore. I don't normally do this for my desktop, but I played HL2 at 1600x1024 (roughly 16:10) this way and it really did work out pretty well. I also tried to do what you are talking about with drivers and powerstrip, but I didn't figure out how to do it.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
This is kinda goofy, but it works... I have a 1600x1200 CRT, and I can select say 1600x900 which results in the 900 pixels getting stretched until they are the height of 1200. However, I can adjust the height of the viewable area on my monitor, so I just reduce the height until the screen doesn't look stretched anymore. I don't normally do this for my desktop, but I played HL2 at 1600x1024 (roughly 16:10) this way and it really did work out pretty well. I also tried to do what you are talking about with drivers and powerstrip, but I didn't figure out how to do it.

It's not goofy at all. You're doing what many newer 4:3 TVs do with anamorphic DVDs.