wide screen laptops

[lozina]

I just got a Dell laptop with wide screen display- and it's great for watching movies or doing some coding, however when it comes to games it's a disaster. Games are designed to specific screen resolutions, and they force the monitor to adjust it's resolution if the current resolution is not supported when you run them. The result is my laptop display winds up stretching images when it tries to project a more square image onto a wider screen.

One thing that would be great, is if it can run the game with its actual resolution (not stretched) and center the image so the sides where the screen is too wide will simply be blacked out- is there anyway to do this?

 

[KoolHonda]

On my Nvidia powered Inspiron, I have to choose "Centered output" in my display settings. I believe there's a similar function for ATI cards, but I can't remember what it's called right offhand.

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: KoolHonda
On my Nvidia powered Inspiron, I have to choose "Centered output" in my display settings. I believe there's a similar function for ATI cards, but I can't remember what it's called right offhand.

Right on buddy, I found the settings and it looks like Fixed Aspect Ratio is the key to the kingdom. Thank you sir, I owe you a :beer:

And say hi to the Dell forum guys for me

 

[KoolHonda]

:beer: Those funky resolutions (mine is 1400x1050 native) can be a pain for gaming:thumbsdown:

 

[lozina]

Shoot- I'm in trouble now!

I recently had to upgrade my video drivers to get rid of a very pesky BSOD problem when reactivting my laptop from hibernation... the problem is I had to install latest drivers from nVidia directly because Dell is too lazy to update their drivers that they offer. Now when I go into the display settings I cannot find anywhere to change the aspect ratio on my panel!

This is horrible!