Change lcd resolution in software instead of hardware?

[gsiener]

Hey,
My friend has a 15" lcd screen that does 1024x768. When he plays games though (ie Starcraft) it drops to 800x600 and he gets a tiny little screen. I saw somewhere that you can switch res in windows, so that it interprets 800x600 to 1024x768. He is running w98, mind you. What software/drivers/etc are required to do this?? I don't remember off hand what the lcd is, I'll check. PC is a dell p3 800 though.

Thanks

PS He will switch to xp soon, if that makes a difference.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

For such LCD doesn't scale, if you don't want to watch in tiny box, you must run the game at a resolution matches your LCD's native resolution or run the game at windows mode instead of full screen mode.

 

[nightowl]

It is depends on your video drivers. My laptop's 15" LCD runs at 1400x1050 and when I run games at 800x600 it scales the images to fill the entire screen. My friend who has a laptop with the same screen can choose if he wants the display to be scaled (causing the image to be distorted/blurred because of the scaling) or have it display it normally and not fill up the screen. I do not have this option on my laptop and I wish I did sometimes.

 

[zephyrprime]

It's a function of your video drivers not your OS. My GF4 can do scaling for LCDs. Also, I believe most LCDs can scale resolutions themselves without any software assistance. Or at least my LCD can.

 

[corkyg]

And also keep in mind that any resolution in a LCD other than Native Resolution is degraded because it is created by interpolation. If the game can't hack it - get rid of it and get one that can.