force windows nt to use different aspect ratio resolution

[excalibur3]

Hi Everyone,
I have a computer running windows nt 4.0. My monitor died and I bought a lcd screen that is wide screen. It has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 which my card can't handle so I was using a lower resolution which works but everything is stretched in the X direction because windows NT only lets me select resolutions that are 1x0.75 ratios instead of 1x0.5625 like I have. Is there a way to force windows NT to output resolutions with a different ratio?

Thanks!
Stephen

PS- Clearly NT is not the ideal solution but it runs an instrument that requires it unfortunately.

 

[Nothinman]

That would most likely be a video driver/monitor driver interaction issue. If the card/driver can't do the aspect ratio, then how do you expect Windows to fix that?

 

[excalibur3]

Thanks for your post. I guess I thought that the resolutions a video card could do was related to the total number of pixels (ie 800*600=4800000) and that as long as you were under that amount you could output a resolution in whatever aspect ratio you wanted. Okay so maybe it wouldn't be quite that simple, but I thought that if you were willing to sacrifice resolution you could get the different monitor sizes and that it was ultimately based on the drivers you were using. (I have an ATI card.)

 

[Aluvus]

What specific card and what drivers are you using?

 

[yinan]

Virtualize the server running the application and this problem should be solved.

 

[ViRGE]

You could always try creating a custom resolution with PowerStrip. Apparently NT4 is still supported, which quite frankly shocks the hell out of me.

 

[dawks]

Virtualize the server running the application and this problem should be solved.

yea, probably the best idea. Chances are its running on old ass hardware too. When that hardware dies, you're gonna be screwed. If you convert to a virtualized environment, you have tons of flexibility.

 

[Nothinman]

yea, probably the best idea. Chances are its running on old ass hardware too. When that hardware dies, you're gonna be screwed. If you convert to a virtualized environment, you have tons of flexibility.

Except that he said "PS- Clearly NT is not the ideal solution but it runs an instrument that requires it unfortunately." so if that instrument is a piece of hardware virtualization might not be an option.

 

[imagoon]

On a machine running that old of an OS, you may a) not have EDID support and b) not enough video ram to support 1920x1080. Try setting the video depth lower (and I think rebooting was required for NT4 to do that...) and try again.


---edit---

also back in the day there was something called rapidres that let you set settings that the control panel blocked. Maybe it is hosted some where in the dead software world?

 

[excalibur3]

Hey Everyone,
Thanks so much for the response and I am sorry that it took a while to respond. The main issue is that the software uses a custom firewire card to connect to the instrument and the custom firewire card only works with the motherboard that it is plugged into as I am told. I know it sounds totally crazy but since the cost to replace the hardware is about $200k, I don't want to do anything crazy.

I am using ATI Rage128 pro video card. I downloaded the latest drivers that are compatible with windows nt. I tried installing powerstrip but I get a "access violation at address 00000000" error for some weird reason. I tried to find rapidres but most of the links seem to be dead. I am definitely fine having a lower resolution but I just don't want to stretching.

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[imagoon]

Hey Everyone,
Thanks so much for the response and I am sorry that it took a while to respond. The main issue is that the software uses a custom firewire card to connect to the instrument and the custom firewire card only works with the motherboard that it is plugged into as I am told. I know it sounds totally crazy but since the cost to replace the hardware is about $200k, I don't want to do anything crazy.

I am using ATI Rage128 pro video card. I downloaded the latest drivers that are compatible with windows nt. I tried installing powerstrip but I get a "access violation at address 00000000" error for some weird reason. I tried to find rapidres but most of the links seem to be dead. I am definitely fine having a lower resolution but I just don't want to stretching.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Maybe the monitor can be set to not stretch in the options then. Most have it buried in there some place.

 

[ViRGE]

Hey Everyone,
Thanks so much for the response and I am sorry that it took a while to respond. The main issue is that the software uses a custom firewire card to connect to the instrument and the custom firewire card only works with the motherboard that it is plugged into as I am told. I know it sounds totally crazy but since the cost to replace the hardware is about $200k, I don't want to do anything crazy.

I am using ATI Rage128 pro video card. I downloaded the latest drivers that are compatible with windows nt. I tried installing powerstrip but I get a "access violation at address 00000000" error for some weird reason. I tried to find rapidres but most of the links seem to be dead. I am definitely fine having a lower resolution but I just don't want to stretching.

Thanks for all the help so far!

If you look on Entech's site, they should also have a link up for the really old version of PowerStrip (2.xx). Give that a try, you may have more luck.