Configuring samsung 216bw for 1080p

ovaltineplease

Junior Member
Oct 17, 2009
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So, while I know this isn't completely uncommon knowledge, this display does in fact support 1080p even though its only advertised for 1680*1050.

Heres my dilemna:

The display has confirmed to work correctly with PS3's bluray playing 1080p movies/games.

I can get 1920*1080p to work in the windows interface correctly and easily by going through display options and listing all modes.

The problem is that I can't quite figure out how to get games in PC to recognize the new resolution - i'm assuming this is driver related, does anyone have any ideas how I can make this work, or if there is a compatible driver for a 1080p samsung display that might work with the 216bw; any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 

yh125d

Diamond Member
Dec 23, 2006
6,907
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Uhhh I don't know what you have in your head, but a 1080p monitor that samsung isn't
 

thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
11,848
2,051
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It might be able to take a 1080p signal...but it's probably still only outputting at 1680x1050. I don't know why you'd want to run games at 1080p that would be scaled down to 1680x1050 anyway...you'd just be getting lower performance for no benefit. The PS3 can be outputting at 1080p (in your PS3 display settings, which resolutions do you have checked?? Did you do an auto configuration or choose the resolutions manually?) but your monitor is not outputting at 1080p.
 

ovaltineplease

Junior Member
Oct 17, 2009
3
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0
Samsungs OSD indicates that the monitor is operating at 1920*1080 resolution, so far i've gotten 1 game to work with this resolution on this configuration, far cry 2; where there is a noticeable quality increase over 1680*1050.

Using powerstrip and moninfo allows me to create custom resolutions, refresh rates, and operating parameters for those resolutions/aspect ratios. Regrettably, the only game which doesn't experience lockups on startup when 1920*1080 is enabled, is Far Cry 2.

Regrettably, troubleshooting that is beyond my expertise; however if you have absolutely nothing constructive to add to this and want to do nothing but troll this thread, then please find someone else to troll.
 

bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
3
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Samsung 216BW is a 1680 x 1050 panel, it physically has only 1680 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high for a total of 1,764,000 pixels. It might be able to accept sources that are 1920x1080 and downscale them to 1680x945 to fit on the screen (and this is assuming its maintaining the proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of stretching it into its native 16:10 res of 1680x1050) but it certainly isn't magically growing more pixels to become a higher resolution screen than its native resolution.

Also, it isn't trolling, its a reality check.
 

zebrax2

Senior member
Nov 18, 2007
972
62
91
Originally posted by: ovaltineplease
Samsungs OSD indicates that the monitor is operating at 1920*1080 resolution, so far i've gotten 1 game to work with this resolution on this configuration, far cry 2; where there is a noticeable quality increase over 1680*1050.

Using powerstrip and moninfo allows me to create custom resolutions, refresh rates, and operating parameters for those resolutions/aspect ratios. Regrettably, the only game which doesn't experience lockups on startup when 1920*1080 is enabled, is Far Cry 2.

Regrettably, troubleshooting that is beyond my expertise; however if you have absolutely nothing constructive to add to this and want to do nothing but troll this thread, then please find someone else to troll.

Maybe your monitor is able to handle 1080p but can't handle a refresh rate 60hz at that res? Far Cry 2 may not be crashing because it isn't surpassing the max fps your monitor can handle at that res.

BTW
Isn't there a possibility of breaking the monitor with what you are doing?
 

cyclohexane

Platinum Member
Feb 12, 2005
2,837
19
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Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Samsung 216BW is a 1680 x 1050 panel, it physically has only 1680 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high for a total of 1,764,000 pixels. It might be able to accept sources that are 1920x1080 and downscale them to 1680x945 to fit on the screen (and this is assuming its maintaining the proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of stretching it into its native 16:10 res of 1680x1050) but it certainly isn't magically growing more pixels to become a higher resolution screen than its native resolution.

Also, it isn't trolling, its a reality check.

owned.
 

LCD123

Member
Sep 29, 2009
90
0
0
Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Samsung 216BW is a 1680 x 1050 panel, it physically has only 1680 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high for a total of 1,764,000 pixels. It might be able to accept sources that are 1920x1080 and downscale them to 1680x945 to fit on the screen (and this is assuming its maintaining the proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of stretching it into its native 16:10 res of 1680x1050) but it certainly isn't magically growing more pixels to become a higher resolution screen than its native resolution.

Also, it isn't trolling, its a reality check.

My 32" 720p LCD TV also does 1920x1080 but it looks like crap and text is very hard to read, that's because it's physically only 1360x768. The OP should just buy a real 1080p monitor(or TV) that supports this resolution natively!
 

ovaltineplease

Junior Member
Oct 17, 2009
3
0
0
Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Samsung 216BW is a 1680 x 1050 panel, it physically has only 1680 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high for a total of 1,764,000 pixels. It might be able to accept sources that are 1920x1080 and downscale them to 1680x945 to fit on the screen (and this is assuming its maintaining the proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of stretching it into its native 16:10 res of 1680x1050) but it certainly isn't magically growing more pixels to become a higher resolution screen than its native resolution.

Also, it isn't trolling, its a reality check.

If people are unwilling to explain their conclusions in a civil manner when there is more than enough reason to draw the conclusions which I did, when googling and a good afternoon of research into the issue doesn't turn anything up, than they should expect people to question their conclusions.

Just because you knew how to explain it and they didn't, and instead intended for me to "take their word for it", doesn't mean its not trolling.

I appreciate your time, and i'd like to take the experience as a bonus anyways, as I learned a great deal about EDIDs and monitor drive editing in the process which can come in handy with HDTVs.

While I know now that " it certainly isn't magically growing more pixels to become a higher resolution screen than its native resolution", it is certainly not the first time that a pre-revision panel has been pre-calibrated in such a way that it isn't at its limitations, Samsung had a series of BW panels in 206-226 which had 4 revisions, all of which had different panels from different manufacturers, with different color configurations.
 

Qbah

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 2005
3,754
10
81
ovaltineplease - as bunnyfubbles explained, it's not physically possible for a native 1680x1050 screen to display 1920x1080. LCD panels have a fixed pixed count and no panel revisions or firmware updates or anything else can change that. The other issue is that 1920x1080 is 16:9 and 1680x1050 is 16:10 - so the aspect ratios don't match either. What is happening is that your monitor accepts an input of 1080p and downscales it internally to fit its native size. You didn't mention anything about bars so I reckon it's also stretching the screen (=bad). This is a common thing with 720p HDTVs - they can accept 1080p input but they output it at 720p anyway.

You're trying to tell us you managed to fit 10L of water in a 5L bottle...