Help me puzzle out some things with my new widescreen monitor

[Thoth093]

I just bought a Samsung 225BW, which I like very much. I do have a few questions about it, however.

The monitor's native resolution is 1680x1050. Great for many things. But sometimes, I'd like to change the resolution -- either for games or other reasons.

I'd love to be able to change the thing to another 16:10 resolution, either temporarily or in individual software. My video card is an EVGA Geforce 6800 GT, and I have the latest drivers which are supposed to support various 16:10 resolutions.

The problem is (I'm assuming) that the monitor won't display those resolutions. I don't get them as an option to select in video properties. I do get traditional resolutions like 1024x768, 1280x1024, etc. The only 16:10 resolution in the options is the monitor's native resolution.

Mostly the issue is games. The monitor's native resolution causes a few of my games to chug quite noticeably, and I'm not quite ready for a system upgrade just yet. So it would be great if I could get the thing to run in 1280x800 or 1440x900, depending.

I've tried to set those resolutions in Quake IV, for example, using the suggested autoexec.cfg file that can save such changes, but it doesn't actually change the resolution to the custom level.

I've heard of Powerstrip, but I haven't needed it until now. I'm not sure if it's what I'm looking for, but it sounds like it might be what I need to force the monitor/video card to display the resolutions I'm wanting.

Any help you guys could offer would be great.

Thanks!

Brian

 

[Matthias99]

Powerstrip can force custom desktop resolutions. Also, in Display Properties (probably under one of the advanced tabs) there is a checkbox to 'hide modes this monitor cannot display'. Probably the only 16:10 resolution the monitor claims to support is 1680x1050. If you uncheck that checkbox, you should be able to select things like 1440x900 or 1280x800 from the drop-down list.

For games, they need to 'really' support the custom resolutions. You can't force them with Powerstrip, and even if you could it wouldn't look right. Try www.widescreengamingforum.com for detailed instructions on how to make many games play nice at different resolutions.

 

[Matt2]

You can display any resolution you want up to 1680x1050. Mess around with custom resolutions in the NV CP if you wanna change your desktop resolution to a sub-1680x1050 16:10 res. Although I dont know why anyone would want to change their desktop resolution to non-native.

Games will let you select lower resolutions the same as they will on the desktop, but you may have to play around with .cfg files or something to force certain resolutions that arent available in the game menu.

What do you mean you cant force resolutions in Quake 4? Are you sure it's not changing the res or is the monitor just stretching the picture to fill your screen? If it's 1:1 pixel mapping that you're looking for, your TN panel cant do it. So no matter what, the screen is going to be strecthing any res below 1680x1050.

 

[BassBomb]

Find digital flat panel scaling settings in nvidia control panel. Select DO NOT SCALE. Or set it to "nvidia adaptor scaling" try out each and see which you like

only works if using DVI

 

[JonnyBlaze]

For Quake, don't forget the seta r_mode -1 line. Add this to your autoexec.cfg

seta r_mode -1
seta r_customwidth 1280
seta r_customheight 768

 

[chizow]

Find your monitor's CD and manually update your .inf file. There really should be a more standard/intrusive way to do this in Windows, but basically it tells Windows the supported resolutions as well as the various scaled 16:10 aspects. Instead of "Plug and Play Monitor" it should display your actual display model.

Can get there by:

Right click desktop > properties

Advanced > Plug and Play monitor

Update Driver > point to your install CD

Also looks like there's some ICC profile info on these install CDs, which might give you a little better color accuracy if you apply them.