Widescreen Gaming Forum

hello,

I want to buy a wide 22" with VGA connector (cheaper in France... yes I'm french) but my graphic card is a little bit old (x800xl). My questions are:

1. The wide screen native resolution is 1680x1050. Is it possible to use other resolutions which will help me to have a good frame rate (with my 17" I can switch from 1280X.. to 1024x768 or 800x600)? Will the image be stretched? Is the quality in such resolutions enough good to play correctly?

2. If I want to use a 4/3 resolution with an old game (which isn't compatible with a wide resolution), what happens? Is the picture stretched or will I have some black bands? Is it possible to force the resolution to a 4/3 with a VGA connector (with an Ati card of course)?

3. Same question as 2. but in DVI mode?

Thanx for your help and as we say in France: A bientôt!

Disiz

PS: si tu es français et que tu peux me répondre, pas la peine d'écrire en anglais, je comprends le français :wink:

afaik the x800 should support 1680x1050 just fine. It should also have enough horse power to play all but the cutting edge games at that resolution.

The question of weather you CAN play in widescreen is up to the game, and is generally the purpose of this site. Each game is different, and if it supports widescreen, we mark it off as so. If it dosn't, we look into common hacks that might get us what we want.

Yes, I understood well the prupose of WSGF, but my question deals with the games that don't support widescreen at all or which I want to use in 4/3 aspect ratio in order to have a good framerate.
Are they displayed with a 4/3 aspect ratio or are they stretched involving a crushed image?
By the way does the connector type (VGA or DVI) affect the 4/3 aspect ratio as I described ?

It's better to use DVI (the cables shouldn't cost that much). While most monitors can pillarbox a 4:3 image, some can't, and your video card can definitely pillarbox it, as long as you use DVI.

In fact the problem is not the cost of the DVI cable but the cost of the DVI entry on the screen. In France, widescreens with both DVI and VGA entries are about 100 € (120$) more expensive than the ones with only VGA entry... this is due to a special tax (DVI monitors with a diagonal of more than 20" are considered as possible TV).

By the way, could someone answer my first question concerning the different resolutions in 16/10 aspect ratio?

In fact the problem is not the cost of the DVI cable but the cost of the DVI entry on the screen. In France, widescreens with both DVI and VGA entries are about 100 € (120$) more expensive than the ones with only VGA entry... this is due to a special tax (DVI monitors with a diagonal of more than 20" are considered as possible TV).

By the way, could someone answer my first question concerning the different resolutions in 16/10 aspect ratio?

Ouch... that's one damn ugly tax. :(

And The_cranky_hermit kinda answered the other part. It depends on the monitor and the graphics card on how different aspect ratios will be displayed on your monitor. The two main functions are i) stretching the picture over the entire monitor, or ii) using fixed aspect ratios only. A 4:3 resolution will look a bit messed up if you stretch it over a 16:10 monitor, of course. If you keep the correct aspect ratio of a 4:3 resolution on a 16:10 monitor, typically the picture will be shown in the centre and you'll have some black "bars" on the left and the right of the monitor.

Some wide-screen monitors have options for this, but some don't, which would mean that your graphics card has to deal with this. I'm not sure if ATi cards have options for aspect ratio scaling. NVidia cards do for sure. My monitor is 2 years old and it has options for this, so I guess most monitors nowadays do. But read the product details and read reviews on the Web before you buy your new monitor.