Automatic Image Scaling?

[DrRon]

Bear with this newbie for now please...

I bought a new widescreen monitor for my wife's old AMD Sempron machine using integrated graphics. The monitor has VGA, DVI and HD ports, but using VGA for now.

I'm looking to buy an AGP card for the Micro ATX MB to get DVI.

Here's the question: will the GPU drivers give me automatic scaling capability on the digital camera images she edits? Right now the VGA interface either stretches everything to 16X9 or makes everything 1X1.

Her MacBook Pro does exactly what she wants, rendering the images in whatever aspect she took them in. Will the PC be able to do the same with an AGP card?

Thanks for your consideration.

 

[BernardP]

You have an older system that, if I understand, is not able to correctly display a 16:9 picture. The DVI output will allow for proper scaling. NVidia is better at this, especially if you have to use custom/non-native resolutions. But to get an AGP card, you will have to get an older 6 Series card (that is still supported by the latest Nvidia drivers):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...520548&page=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True

This should put the videocard/monitor driver question out of the way. Then, from what I understand of your question, what you are looking for, scaling-wise, could have more to do with the imaging software than with the computer's graphics driver.

Certainly, the PC is not using the same imaging software as the Mac.

As a test, I suggest you download and install Irfanview (free!)

http://www.irfanview.com/

You will find all options you want to display pictures with the correct aspect ratio. Irfanview is only a viewer with very basic editing functions. But it will help you find out if there are problems with the PC's current imaging software.