ATi fixed pixel aspect ratio issues with widescreen

sparkie13

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Has anyone found a solution to getting an ATi card to work with a fixed pixel aspect ratio or center timing on older, non-widescreen games?

I have tried the Catalyst option of Center Timing, Omega drivers, Powerstrip and bubblegum. Nothing seems to allow me to run an older game in a non stretched format. The games designed to run in a wide format are absolutely beautiful, but my main concern is trying to salvage an acceptable size for non-widescreen games as there are a few I still play.

Please post your thoughts or possible fixes and maybe we can get this issue licked. Seems that there are quite a few nVidia users that are able to cutomize this setting and get the games to run in a letterboxed (all four sides) format without stretching.
 
Sure it's not your monitor doing the stretching? You have 1:1 set through your panel right? Might be a dumb question, but gotta cover the bases.
 
Thank you for pointing this out tex. I should have mentioned it in the main post.

I am runnning on the Viewsonic VX20254wm LCD and there is no option for 1:1 like some others (namely Dell). Not sure why they decided to omit this option, but could explain why they were able to keep the price down. In my research I came accross a number of widescreen LCDs that do not give an option for a 1:1 fixed pixel aspect ratio and thus stretch the image to a very distorted widescreen. There is an option for "Center Timing" or a fixed ratio in the Catalyst Control Center, but that seems to be a non factor. These same options in the nVidia control panel, per others, seem to do the trick and mantain the proportionate image by placing black bars on all sides.

I guess if I cannot get this resolved I will be in the market for a new LCD that has a built in 1:1. Considering I am impressed with this current monitor, I would first like to try working it out. Time will tell.
 
sparkie13 are you sure it's not just the drivers? I'll join you in asking ATI to fix that part of their drivers if they aren't working. Of course I may need to do that anyway, I don't want to send this monitor back and I'm not getting an Nvidia card.
 
i'd suggest filing feedback with ATI-- rage3d.com has a similar thread re: 4:3 scaling. it works in some configurations, but not all of them.
 
Cannydog, I am not sure it is driver or just a faulty option in the Control Center. Not sure how long it will take ATi to recognize or even if it is a big enough issue for them to address. My hope is they do. I literally just picked up this monitor 2 days ago and besides the scaling issue I have little to complain about. Unfortunately the scaling issue is pretty big in my eyes. Have been trying older drivers (5.5 and up) as well as Omega drivers. Resolution programs like Powerstrip are neat, but don't seem to help me as the image still gets stretched. I am not a big fan of nVidia, so buying another video card is out. That leaves me with returning the Viewsonic and looking into another monitor.
However if I am able to find a resolve or get some kind of confirmation that ATi is aware and will correct the situation, I will stick it out as this is a nice monitor.

m0unds, there was a link to a Catalyst Feedback survey at one point in that thread. I will try to post a link here so that all can submit. Who knows, maybe ATi will address this sooner than later.

I do have a ticket in to ATi that has not been aswered as well as Viewsonic. Although someone did get word from viewsonic to adjust the properties through the videocard. Not that that helps us.
 
The long and short of it is that while the ATI driver can stretch to fill or output a 1:1 signal, it is unable to force the LCD monitor to NOT stretch.

Remember, once it hits the DVI cable, the ATI card and drivers are done with it...it's up to the monitor to decide how to display the incoming signal; if the native behavior is to stretch and use every pixel, that is what it is going to do. If you don't have the option of using 1:1/centering in your monitor controls, learn to live with the stretch or shop for a new monitor.

There is nothing ATI can do about it, it's all a monitor hardware issue. I know that's not the answer you were hoping for though.
 
Croak said:
The long and short of it is that while the ATI driver can stretch to fill or output a 1:1 signal, it is unable to force the LCD monitor to NOT stretch.

Remember, once it hits the DVI cable, the ATI card and drivers are done with it...it's up to the monitor to decide how to display the incoming signal; if the native behavior is to stretch and use every pixel, that is what it is going to do. If you don't have the option of using 1:1/centering in your monitor controls, learn to live with the stretch or shop for a new monitor.

There is nothing ATI can do about it, it's all a monitor hardware issue. I know that's not the answer you were hoping for though.

Not true. How do you otherwise explain that nVidia can achieve this with their drivers?
 
Well if the drivers have "nothing to do with it"... then explain how some Nvidia cards can do 1:1 with this monitor?

(I know that Nvidia drivers have a special panel - give me a sec to fire up that system - Can't find it very quickly, but I know it's there.... Well can't find it and have too many things going atm to take the time to look. But there is another thread where they have pictures of this LCD doing 1:1 and also not scaling the view at all. I guess I can find that later as well.)
 
Simple test with the Nvidia drivers...set your monitor to stretch, and then set Nvidia to center...I've got a second rig sitting right here with an AGP 6800 in it, connected to a 2005FPW via DVI, using 84.21 drivers.

I get stretched display in 4:3 resolutions when the monitor is set to stretch, nothing ForceWare can do about it.

On the flip side, I can turn monitor to center, tell Nvidia to stretch, and it stretches. Leave monitor on center, tell Nvidia to let the monitor decide, and it black bars. Leave monitor on center, tell Nvidia to center, and it black bars too. But that's the same results I get with Cat 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5 beta.
 
Croak, you're missing the point. The nVidia drivers allow 4:3 aspect ratios on displays that with ATI cards don't support it. Display in question: Viewsonic 20.1" WS
 
Croak, thank you for the input and it seems that you are in line with ATi:

Regarding resolutions:
Please note that resolutions are limited by the performance of the attached monitor. The monitor tells the card which resolutions are available and the options are displayed in the advance display properties. Please contact the monitor manufacturer to make sure they have tested the monitor with ATI video cards.


What you are saying makes sense and I am left wondering if the information we are receiving on the nVidia options and solutions on the same monitor are correct. I personally cannot confirm this firsthand as the only nVidia card I have is a Chaintech FX5200 which does not support any widescreen formats and maxes out at 1280x1024. I do see the options for 'timings' and 'centerings' as well as the aspect ratios (4:3) in the nVidia control panel. Cannydog can you confirm this?

I have noticed that most people are running either Oblivion or Half Life2 when testing the scaling options. I think a more concrete test would be a game that does not support widescreen at all. Cause I am pretty sure I can get Half Life2 to run 1280x1024 with the proper aspect ratio (bars on side) currently. I will test that out tonight and post screenie.
 
Croak said:
Simple test with the Nvidia drivers...set your monitor to stretch, and then set Nvidia to center...I've got a second rig sitting right here with an AGP 6800 in it, connected to a 2005FPW via DVI, using 84.21 drivers.

I get stretched display in 4:3 resolutions when the monitor is set to stretch, nothing ForceWare can do about it.

On the flip side, I can turn monitor to center, tell Nvidia to stretch, and it stretches. Leave monitor on center, tell Nvidia to let the monitor decide, and it black bars. Leave monitor on center, tell Nvidia to center, and it black bars too. But that's the same results I get with Cat 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5 beta.

yes, forceware can do it.. because there is an evidence here

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1029448840&postcount=811

how does it works ? well, my best guess is nvidia driver uses native res (like 1680x1050) and place the 4:3 ratio res (like 1024x768) inside it and upscale it while maintaining aspect ratio. This is similar like when you play a 4:3 resolution .avi on 1680x1050. What do you get ? exactly.. 4:3 video playback with black bars on the side.. but i'll have to ask the guy (kevp) about it.. i'll post it when i get an anwer from him
 
Under digital panel in CCC, there are indeed options for centered timings.
 
sparkie13 said:
I have noticed that most people are running either Oblivion or Half Life2 when testing the scaling options. I think a more concrete test would be a game that does not support widescreen at all. Cause I am pretty sure I can get Half Life2 to run 1280x1024 with the proper aspect ratio (bars on side) currently. I will test that out tonight and post screenie.

i think if it really works, you don't need any game at all. Just set your desktop res to 1024x768 and see if it has black bars on the side.
 
As I stated in another thread, this monitor definitely has issues with scaling, but I think it is all driver related. On my 7800GTX, if I select the 'maintain aspect ratio' setting in my drivers, the monitor will immediately black out with an 'out of range' setting.

On my son's ATI 9800 PRO with the latest driver, If I select the 'centered timings' option, the monitor will simply ignore the setting, and continue to stretch everthing.

However, on another machine with an old Geforce 5700 card, if I select the maintain aspect ratio option, it works perfectly. Black bars will appear on the sides anytime I select a 4x3 resoloution such as 1280x1024 or 1024x768.
 
Well it seems that there is no real resolve to this issue. I am coming to the end of my term with this monitor as I only have a few more days left to return it for a refund. Without any solution or any sort of word from Viewsonic (has been about a weeks time since I asked for a reply to my question with support) as to options, I will most likely return this monitor to the place of purchase for a refund.

I did order a Dell 20" 2007FPW and should have that here today so that I can do a side by side comparison and see if the reported banding issues are indeed a problem for me. It's a shame as I really did like this Viewsonic, but I still play quite a few games that do not support widescreen. My only other option if the Dell does not meet my standards is to keep the Viewsonic and run a seperate out to my standard 4:3 monitor when I wish to play those games. Defeating the purpose of a space saving flat panel, lol.

I will keep you posted on my findings and please if anyone does find a resolve to this, please post here. Thank you all for the input thus far.
 
Good Luck sparkie13 - I figured out how I can get it Not to scale on some "non-standard" resolutions but not how to get it to scale 1:1. I'm also going to try another widescreen LCD, though I'm thinking of going for an NEC 20WMGX2. I'm just about to order it.
 
I have been using the Dell 2007FPW and the Viewsonic VX2025wm side by side and I like both. Unfortunately I will have to return one. Wives just don't understand.

Anyways I am happy for the most part with the Dell and that is what I will keep. I still think the Viewsonic has a slightly better refresh/response rate and the overall design was more astheticly pleasing to me, but the omission of a fixed aspect ratio has me keeping the Dell. In a year from now when most new games support widescreen, the Viewsonic will be the perfect choice. For now, I just can't choose this over Monitors that offer this option. nVidia users have some leeway (as long as you don't have a 7x00 card) and I wish them happy times with this monitor. Now for us ATi users, I suggest if you wish to play older non widescreen games, to seriously think about this purchase before hand. A good monitor, but....

Take care for now and good luck and happy gaming to all.
 
Actually I think this is just a problem with the ATI driver. I'm having this problem as well, here's my situation.

2 weeks ago: Nvidia 6800GT on a NEC 20WMGX2. Half-Life 2, set to 4:3 @ 1280 X 1024. Check the option in the Nvidia driver to center the display. Worked like a charm, letterboxed, not stretched.

5 days ago: ATI X1900XTX (now on Cat 6.5) on the same NEC LCD. Half-Life 2, set to 4:3 @ 1280 X 1024. Check the option in CCC for centered timings. Image is still stretched.


Driver option is broken. I've submitted a ticket as well.
 
I just submitted a ticket as I have just received my VX2025WM, and the scaling is broken with driver 6.4
 
Does anyone know if ATI has any plans to work on this? Is this an issue that maybe the omega drivers have fixed?
 
The scaling was working with the 6.5 drivers and the 6.6-- They only scale 16:10 aspect ratio resolutions..anything else, and the display stretches the screen.

NVidia drivers are unique in that they automatically inject black lines to force display of any resolution with the correct scaling..so..at the moment, scaling works with all 16:10 resolutions, but not with 4:3 or 16:9.

1440x900, 1280x768, etc
 
my 6800nu scales 2070nx NEC, but my x1800xt does not. Just tried it same everything cept vid card, one is AGP the other PCI-E. Forceware newest, 6.6 cats. I think this is a big problem myself. My widescreen movies are streched and fugly. Thought it was my new monitor til now. :mad:
 
Maybe...I was playing around with the trial version of powerstrip (mainly to add 1440x900 and 1680x1050 support) but I don't see how it can affect the scaling.

Personally, in order to get the option for 1600x1200 on my monitor to work properly I decided to go nVidia. Just ordered myself a 7950GX2...will be selling my X1900XT to a friend fro $200.
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue :( I have a VX2025WM as well.

When I originally purchased it, I had a BFGTech 6800 OC. At first everything was fine, I went into the drivers after I first noticed stretching and changed it to maintain the aspects. Then I upgraded to a 84.xx driver and those options disappeared. Needless to say I was miffed. I put in a ticket with nVidia and they said they had removed it and had no plans to put it back "until monitor manufacturers follow the necessary standards." I downgraded back to 83.xx as a result. Eventually I decided to try the 91.xx series (Unsure what nVidia is on now), and the options were back, so that was cool. Kudos to nVidia: They responded to my ticket within a day, and although I wasn't happy with the response, it was quick.

I should have known I'd have trouble with ATI. After lightning killed my motherboard, I was briefly using a PC with a Radeon 9800 Pro in it with this monitor. Since it was temporary, I didn't worry about the fact that the CCC didn't let me fix the aspect stretching, and partially decided it was due to the older card.

A few weeks ago, I upgraded to a Radeon X1900 XTX. Joy of joy, this thing stomps my 6800. Beautiful graphics, and high fps in almost any game... even about 35-40fps in Oblivion full details @ 1680x1050. Very quickly though I noticed the stretching in other games (Quake 4, Battlefield 2), and went into CCC to change it. Only two options... Fill panel and centered timings. Well, let's try centered. No luck. GAH!

I put a ticket in. After /4 hours/ I finally got an AUTOMATED response. After two WEEKS I finally got a personal response, which just asked for me to run their detection utility to grab my system configuration. I guess I'll do that tonight when I get home.

While googling to try to find a work around for this, I came across this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=77769

It seems to support the idea that Mobility users have this feature just like nVidia does, as a third option is listed that us desktop users don't have, "Maintain aspect ratios"
 
wow, I am glad that I sumbled on this issue before swapping my 7900GT for an XTX...
 
I decided on a somewhat pricey and "less elligant" solution. I bought a VX922 on the cheap. It is an outstanding gaming monitor, and when not playing games the second display adds allot to desktop area. :)
 
drizzt81 said:
wow, I am glad that I sumbled on this issue before swapping my 7900GT for an XTX...

I guess so... :rolleyes:

You already knew about the problem from the other thread and you resurrected a thread that was weeks old so you sway people away from ATI to Nvidia... WOW... famboism to the supreme... :confused:

Tell you what guys... There are instances where some 8 year old game doesn't work with widescreen but most can be converted to widescreen...

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com
 
Marvelous said:
I guess so... :rolleyes:

You already knew about the problem from the other thread and you resurrected a thread that was weeks old so you sway people away from ATI to Nvidia... WOW... famboism to the supreme... :confused:

Tell you what guys... There are instances where some 8 year old game doesn't work with widescreen but most can be converted to widescreen...

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com

No, your post is rampant !!!!!!ism. He is pointing out a valid problem with ATI driver's which their fans would like to turn into a non-issue by blaming the games / the monitors / the alignment of the plantes / whatever. As long as it ain't ATI the !!!!!!s have a good excuse for it.

I got a 20.1" Belinea widescreen and ATI's crappy lack of 1:1 really annoys me too. It works sometimes but other times it still stretches regardless. Always worked perfect with my last nV card.
 
Demon_of_The_Fall said:
No, your post is rampant !!!!!!ism. He is pointing out a valid problem with ATI driver's which their fans would like to turn into a non-issue by blaming the games / the monitors / the alignment of the plantes / whatever. As long as it ain't ATI the !!!!!!s have a good excuse for it.

I got a 20.1" Belinea widescreen and ATI's crappy lack of 1:1 really annoys me too. It works sometimes but other times it still stretches regardless. Always worked perfect with my last nV card.

Well you should have done more research before jumping into widescreen and stop blaming XXX company because XXX company does it XXX doesn't... If you can't stand it so much all you have to do is change over to NVA cards or buy a widescreen monitor that fixes in aspect ratio and your problems are solved.

Fact is Drizz knew about this from the other thread we were discussing 8 pages long... He resurrected a thread after weeks of dying and acting like he doesn't know anything about it... Everyone in their mothers know about this issue... And it's really minor issue at best... It's only the selective older games that doesn't work in widescreen...
 
The 1:1 does technically seem to work just not for all aspect ratios. If you select centered timings it will center the image 1:1 but only if you're already running a widescreen format.

If you try one of the 4:3 formats it's gonna stretch it all over the place. When I was using my 9700Pro I'd lower the res to one of the low 16:10 resolutions and it would center it perfectly on my 2025. Go to 1024x768 and it's stretched to fit the screen.

I would think it would be rather easy for ATI to hack the front/back buffers and add black bars but they probably want to get the drivers WHQL'd which means it could take months to make it through the process by the time they actually fix it.
 
I think you peeps are expecting too much from your LCD's.

Scaling never being an issue with CRTs, you can run 320x200 to 2048x1536, and have it fill out the screen at any aspect ratio you want...

If an old game runs 800x600 or 1024x768, then you can't expect miracles on a fixed 1280x1024 LCD, or a widescreen LCD monitor and still have compliance with say an HD 1080i output. Everyone knew the limitations of fixed pixels with LCD's right? Its been said many times over. Gamers nowadays try to match their videocard capability to get the native resolution of their LCD monitor, and will sometimes sacrifice a few pixels on their LCD if their videocard is not up to par.

You can't please everyone, IE: Some people like to watch widescreen DVD's on normal aspect monitors with the black bars at top and bottom, some people like to cut the right and left sides off, and watch pan and scan. Some people don't mind a 16:9 to 16:10 stretch. Some people find that trying to scale any game to a 1680x1050 monitor is tough (I mean really, an 800x600 game even scaled to a 4:3 aspect with black bars at the right and left - Is gonna look fugly to some people when you don't have common reducable multiples of 64 for pixels, no bicubic, bilinear or Lanczos algorithm is gonna help you with that, nevermind widescreen)
 
ZenOps said:
I think you peeps are expecting too much from your LCD's.

Scaling never being an issue with CRTs, you can run 320x200 to 2048x1536, and have it fill out the screen at any aspect ratio you want...

If an old game runs 800x600 or 1024x768, then you can't expect miracles on a fixed 1280x1024 LCD, or a widescreen LCD monitor and still have compliance with say an HD 1080i output. Everyone knew the limitations of fixed pixels with LCD's right? Its been said many times over. Gamers nowadays try to match their videocard capability to get the native resolution of their LCD monitor, and will sometimes sacrifice a few pixels on their LCD if their videocard is not up to par.

You can't please everyone, IE: Some people like to watch widescreen DVD's on normal aspect monitors with the black bars at top and bottom, some people like to cut the right and left sides off, and watch pan and scan. Some people don't mind a 16:9 to 16:10 stretch. Some people find that trying to scale any game to a 1680x1050 monitor is tough (I mean really, an 800x600 game even scaled to a 4:3 aspect with black bars at the right and left - Is gonna look fugly to some people when you don't have common reducable multiples of 64 for pixels, no bicubic, bilinear or Lanczos algorithm is gonna help you with that, nevermind widescreen)

Research comes a long way when buying anything... Everyone wants a perfect product but it doesn't exist...
 
Marvelous said:
Research comes a long way when buying anything... Everyone wants a perfect product but it doesn't exist...

Well I'm just saying that it seems to be a trivial issue. The argument about the time it takes to get it WHQL'd is kind of moot anyway, because they've had plenty of driver revisions in a row, all WHQL'd and none of them with a fix.
 
All I can say is that I prefer ATI's IQ over Nvidia. Also from my perspective ATI's products are better engineered, whereas Nvidia seems to take the brute force approach. The flip-side of the coin is that Nvidia typically seems to have slightly better drivers, and allways have!

In this particular case I'd say you're flogging a dead horse. ATI is clearly not interested in resolving this issue for us. The return on investment (of time and resources) is not great enough to warrant their attention at this time. Now you can get outraged and vow never to purchase another ATI product if you choose. But it would be more productive to address those comments to ATI directly, because the rest of us don't really care! We make our choices based on factors other than the opinions of someone we don't know. (Truthfully we seem to make snap decisions then look for evidence to corroberate our own preconceived ideas. Then we adamantly deny any facts that contradict us, or expose our failure to really think things through.)

I bought my VX2025wm because I wanted widescreen. And most of the newer games, with some notable exceptions (BF2 is really a cludge), work flawlessly at a 16:10 aspect ratio. Still there are some "older" games that I still want to play that simply don't work. When I decided to get this display I didn't think things through. I didn't realize how much I would miss those few titles that wouldn't work. So I what I had to figure out was: "what could I do to change the situation?"

See I can't control ATI, or Nvidia, or anyone else but myself. I made the decision that got me where I am, and I'll have to make the decision that will get me where I want to be. In this case the options seemed to be get an Nvidia card, or get another display. Since I have X1900s in each of my systems, the best choice (as in least expensive!) for me was to purchase a second display. Fortunately the VX922 is a very fast LCD that seems to be targeted towards gaming, and is very modestly priced at the moment. Your choice may differ and that's a good thing... :cool:
 
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