Widescreen Gaming Forum

That's it - thanks Bongo. :D

I've read the whole thread, I promise!

Now, my problem is running Battle For Middle Earth II in widescreen. I'd like to use the whole height of the monitor, and fill in the side edges with black bars (like others before me) to maintain 4:3.

So, I'm just supposed to dodge into the Right-Click/Properties/Settings/Advanced... etc. Simple, eh?

Even though I have a DVI input and cable, I still can't find the checkbox to activate the option discussed above. Yes, I feel stupid, since it seems to work for everyone else with an nVidia card.

Native resolution on the monitor is 1920 x 1280 (or something similar).

Thanks,
Imp

I've read the whole thread, I promise!

:lol: :lol: :lol: LOL! :D

According to your specs, you have a Dell 2405FPW. Go into the monitors OSD (on screen display) and under image settings -> scaling, choose "Aspect: Increases Vertical image size to fit screen and adjusts Horizontal size to maintain proportional image". If you are unsure on how, go here.

I feel like Tantalus. There it is, exactly as described, the perfect solution sitting in the OSD of my monitor.

But it's greyed out! And per the link you so kindly provided, it shouldn't be.

Dell support has been useless so far, merely referring to the same link.

Why is fun so much work? :)

My fault... I forgot to tell you that you need to lower the desktop resolution into a non-native resolution (anything below 1920x1200 will do) like 1680x1050. Then it will not be greyed out anymore. :oops: You can only access the scaling option, when the resolution indicates that there is a need for scaling.

I got to the answer, and I feel a little silly :oops:

Here's how it might have played out.


-----------------------------------------
Person with common sense: "Are your drivers updated?"

Me: "Oh, 2004 wasn't that long ago, was it?"

PWCS: "Just humor me and try it."

Me: ***updates drivers***

Me: "Er, ah, well, now that works just like you said it would...."


Narrator:

So, boys and girls, don't be like Imp. Update your drivers before asking stupid questions!
----------------------------------------------------

Cheers, and thanks,

Imp

I just want to say that to those who started this tread and did the research... Thank you sooooooo.......ooooooooooo much! :D

I've got myself the Dell 2405FPW and I've got quite a few games that dont come in the native widescreen, however, I'm really not against playing it on a 4:3 resolution. Problem was that my monitor streached it out and it drove me nuts. Now that I can play with the black bars on the sides, the games feel like normal again. Playing with my 24 incher at 4:3 still is larger then the 19 inch monitor I migrated from.

Anyway, the simple fix provided by Tamiln was what did the trick for me. You guys are the best...

Welcome and congratulations with new screen! Always nice to help a fellow widescreen gamer! I also like the picture to be pixel perfect, though I prefer widescreen as well. Hate stretching, so it happens I play it in 4:3 as well. The 2405FPW should do the scaling nice for you though and stretching isn't so bad in some games.
Thank you, but it was really WIZ32 who came up with the trick you needed to access scaling options on the 2405FPW. :D

I second the thanks wholeheartedly.

What's amazing to me is that good people like Tamlin are 1) quicker and 2) more accurate than the Dell customer support people who are paid full time to answer these questions.

Cheers,
Imp

I shoulda posted this awhile ago, I had this ticket for awhile.

I believe I figured out the cause of this problem. I contacted ATI inquiring about this problem on laptops. This got me nowhere because he kept saying to bother the manufacturer. I then pretended I was planning to buy a screen for my desktop. They claimed that I should see the options as long as the drivers for the screen were installed. So I asked about screens which were not provided drivers and defaulted to windows drivers. I got the following reply:

"Then you would have a problem with the monitor. If it does not have drivers and relies on EDID information there will be issues.

It is a similar problem that the laptops have. There is no information provided by the screen to the drivers, the dirvers have to be custom written for the display."

So here is the answer. I do not exactly know what is stored in the EDID but it seems that some have more or better information than others, which would result in the missing scaling functions and weird panning. Is it possible to write our own custom screen/monitor drivers?

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=21578