Darn Non-Native Panel Resolutions!!

Jabberwocky

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I bought a new PC a few weeks ago and decided to get a spiffy new flat panel display to go along with it. It's a WIDESCREEN ratio, mind you. I'm loving my beautiful new monitor. Things never looked so good before, and even old games like Gothic support resolution settings for widescreen.

But there are a few games out there, namely, any Need For Speed title, that do not offer any resolution greater than 1024X768! Now that's just stupid, I mean, how many people have widescreen now? Wait, let me answer that: A LOT! It's become more and more popular, and has been in Europe for quite some time.

The problem is that resolutions disproportionate to the panel shape (Non-native resolutions) are stretched to fit, and as a result look.. well... ugly - kind of like when your wife wears that horizontal striped dress... :S hee hee

My apologies to all the women roaming these forums! :blush: moving on...

Now I will concede that perhaps many widescreen users aren't as picky as I am, and I am much more tolerable when it comes to displaying things that don't really show the asymetrics. But I refuse to play a racing game that makes
a Volkswagon Golf look longer than most train boxcars, riding on egg-shaped wheels no less. :-/

After abandoning NFS Most Wanted after getting my new monitor and being put off by the lack of widescreen support, I just downloaded the demo for NFS Carbon with much anticipation, hoping that it would display correctly. Guess what the highest resolution setting is? That's right: 1024X768!! :mad:

I've tried every setting I can think of to get my monitor to stop scaling to fit, with no success. The settings accessed from the actual display offer no help, and neither does the Catalyst Control Center for my Radeon X1300 Video card. There is an option whether or not to scale non-native res, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

And so once again, the streets of my city have become a little more dangerous now that my need for speed will only be quenched in real life. :uncool: Don't worry, when the cops ask me to put my name on the infractions, I'll sign it "EA Games". :rolleyes:
 
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I've been using flat panels exclusively for gaming for ... well, at least 6 or 7 years, so I've gotten used to it, but most of these game have things you can tweak in the ini files ...
 
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I've been using flat panels exclusively for gaming for ... well, at least 6 or 7 years, so I've gotten used to it, but most of these game have things you can tweak in the ini files ...

What would you be able to tweak in the .ini that would make it work? Of course I don't care so much about screen space, I would rather see the cars proportionate.

@ Danicek: Are you speaking about Need 4 Speed games getting good reviews about widescreen support? I didn't quite understand.
If that's the case, then it would seem that my setup is at fault, and not the games. Like I said, the option is there in my video card control panel, but it doesn't make any difference, like it's not working. I just figured something about the game was overriding the setting, but maybe my monitor itself is overriding it??

Of course all of this could be avoided if they would just set up the game to offer widescreen resolution settings. So I'm still blaming them to some degree! :mad:

Thanks for the comments :D Any other suggestions would be most appreciated!
 
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What would you be able to tweak in the .ini that would make it work? Of course I don't care so much about screen space, I would rather see the cars proportionate.

In Mage Knight Apocalypse the ini file has two lines like this:
SCREENHEIGHT = "900";
SCREENWIDTH = "1440";

So I could adjust them from their defaults to get true resolution of my screen.
 
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@ Danicek: That's what I thought you meant, but just wanted to be sure.

@ txa1265: Okay, thanks for the tip, I'll check that out on the games I'm having trouble with.

My panel does fine with everything else, like movies that aren't in widscreen format. It just doesn't work on games. This is my first Plasma panel, so I guess I've learned a valuable lesson. Well consider this a caution: The LG Flatron Wide, model LG L194WT, will burn your retinas with an incredile 2000:1 contrast ratio, but may not always display non-native game resolutions correctly. :)

I'll also check for any driver updates for the monitor itself. I'm current on everything else.
 
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@ txa1265: Okay, thanks for the tip, I'll check that out on the games I'm having trouble with.

Be very careful - some games are really finicky about that stuff, and you could end up locking up your whole system.
 
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Wasn´t there a whole website somewhere exclusively dealing with convincing games to run at strange resolutions?
 
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I have one regular screen and one widescreen, and I am amazed personally that old games like Gothic 1 and 2 has widescreen support, yet everything from EA does not. Games like C&C Generals and the Need for Speed games do not support it even today, which is annoying, as it really looks great to run games on widescreens.
 
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Well, I've done some searching, and lo and behold! Ran across this site: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Whooohoooo!!! They've got work-arounds for everything, including a handy little startup program (sort of like Gothic Starter) for NFS Most Wanted, which allows you to select whatever resolution you want. I chose my native res of 1440X900 and it works beautifully. :biggrin:

I'm now more confident about buying NFS Carbon, seeing as how someone is sure to fix the lack of support there as well. Law enforcement officials for 50 square miles can rest easier tonight, seeing as how I'll be taking my proportionately correct 550 HP Dodge Viper out for a spin in virtual world, as opposed to my 350 HP Firebird in real life! :p
 
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Thanks Jabberwocky! Bookmarked right away - since both of my gaming systems are widescreen that will come in handy.

Interesting note - NWN2 supports 900x1440 as well as 1440 by 900 ... but it is hard to control your mouse when you've selected the 'sideways' resolution to get it back to 'normal' :D
 
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