ATi fixed pixel aspect ratio issues with widescreen

I am trying to understand this thread. It seems no one has mentioned the widescreen mode option in the on screen options of the monitor. I am sure this option varies with each monitor. I am trying to understand how this comes to play.

Before I purchased my Dell WFP2407, I was able to demo my friends Dell WFP2405 running on a NVIDIA 7800GTX 512 using a DVI-D cable. When I ran games with none widescreen aspect (such as 5:4), I opened the monitors on screen options and switched widescreen mode to aspect. From then on when I opened games that ran in the 5:4 aspect the monitor ran in aspect mode with the black bars on the side. No other fuss required. My Dell WFP2407 is running on an ATI 1900XT using a DVI-D cable. The monitor does not retain the widescreen mode option, I have to choose aspect each time I open a 5:4 or 4:3 aspect game.

Sorry to bump this thread, hope to continue the discussion.
 
I think the point is that some monitors don't have native 1:1 scaling as an option on the monitor itself. I know my Acer 2423 doesn't have any options like this. But the argument is that the videocard should be able to render the black bars and the correct scaling before the image gets to the monitor, and it doesn't. At least, not in most cases.
 
It CAN do it. The video card can maintian the aspect ratio for monitors that either lack the option or for some reason hide it in certain modes.

nVidia drivers do it. ATI's Catalyst Mobility drivers do it. Regular Catalyst? Nope.

ATI Support told me that drawing black bars was pointless and removed, and had no purpose (Yet it exists in Catalyst Mobility for widescreen laptops). It took me two months of slow responses from them to get that final response, and after I replied they just pointed me to the feedback panel and said basicly "Well post it here, maybe we'll add it if enough people post"

For those who are interested, that feedback form is here:
http://support.ati.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=486&type=web
 
It would be true though, drawing black bars at the top and bottom or right and left is a little redundant if you have a LCD monitor that stretches it already.

I can see in certain situations where you would start to lose performance by drawing the black bars inside of the videocard. I mean you do have to draw more pixels to the screen, even if they are black it still takes up bandwidth.

If you send out say a 800x600 image to the monitor, and let the monitor figure out how to display it properly then you always get max performance. If you make the videocard try to stretch the 800x600 to 1400x1050 and then add 140 pixels of black bars to the left and right of a 1680x1050 screen, I'd think you'd be losing a hefty amount of performance.

Advanced stretching *should* probably be a function of the monitor, especially if with odd sizes like 1366x768 showing up. There will be more odd resolutions in the future too.
 
True. But the fact is, some (Not even a few or "rare") LCDs simply don't have these options or don't expose them to the user. In that case, it would be nice if we could fall back on the driver to handle it.

Drawing black bars may suck some performance out, but for those people with monitors that let them control the aspect and such it won't. For those of us stuck with a great monitor (At least IMO) like the VX2025WM, which DOESN'T let us change scaling, we're just screwed unless we have nVidia.
 
Just as an aside... I fired up Dark Messiah of Might and Magic today with my new 1950CF setup. Decided to fool with resolutions. I have an Acer 2423wd monitor. It doesn't have native 1:1 scaling. So im playing in 1920x1200 native res, and decide to bump down to see what happens. 1280x800 widescreen actually rendered with black bars and 1:1 pixel ratio. Next res up from that though did not. So it seems this really is a driver issue. And as for performance degrading while rendering black bars, it definitely isn't the case. the game ran fully juiced up at 60 fps.
 
The monitor is probably handling the black bars in that case. A lot of monitors/TV's will determine the input, and add or subtract the bars automagically if the aspect ratio is fixed.

I don't think any videocard can really nail down all the resolutions, even 1920x1080i is rarely 1080 lines of resolution because of digital over and underscan issues (Nvidia used to have a huge problem with this on older cards) just based on the quirkiness of each different display used.

ATi tends to err on the side of making the image smaller, than to have an overscan issue (image too large to display)

http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i=2181&p=4 Nvidia used to use a 1088x612 resolution inside of 1280 x 720 (720p) underscanned for HD output. Their overscan was really not too usable for most peeps. HDMI lessens over and underscan issues, but not many cards have this connector (still good old analog and/or digital DVI)
 
Has there been any progress or fix on this issue yet? I tried installing the CCP thinking that perhaps the center timing function would work, but nope, didn't happen.

This is on my new Chimei 221D
 
This problem does not effect only ,'8 year old games' and I have been to the widescreengaming forum (There is no fix that passes punkbuster - go look). BF2 and BF2142 will not work properly, these are NEW games. EA will not support widescreen gaming on FPS because they say it provides an unfair advantage.

ATI refuses to fix the problem, NVIDIA has fixed the problem.

I like my x1900xtx a great deal, so I don't use my LG 104wt and have gone back to my monitor.

I have had ATI cards from my 9800pro/9800AIW/x850xt and x1900xtx, so you can't say I am a !!!!!! for NVIDIA. I will be revisiting this situation when moving to dx10 in a few months and this will weigh heavily in my decision for which card I get.
 
azure said:
This problem does not effect only ,'8 year old games' and I have been to the widescreengaming forum (There is no fix that passes punkbuster - go look). BF2 and BF2142 will not work properly, these are NEW games. EA will not support widescreen gaming on FPS because they say it provides an unfair advantage.

ATI refuses to fix the problem, NVIDIA has fixed the problem.

I like my x1900xtx a great deal, so I don't use my LG 104wt and have gone back to my monitor.

I have had ATI cards from my 9800pro/9800AIW/x850xt and x1900xtx, so you can't say I am a !!!!!! for NVIDIA. I will be revisiting this situation when moving to dx10 in a few months and this will weigh heavily in my decision for which card I get.
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I don't have problems with BF2 and widescreen other than EA chops little from the top and bottom of my screen... Never been punked out of BF2. EA doesn't know what the hell they are talking about... You think they give a shit about you? They want to collect $50 and pass go...

As for having advantage... Some people have 30" monitors with dual 8800gtx and they can see much further than a guy with a 17" monitor... So why doesn't EA limit it's resolution to 640x480 while they're at it... :rolleyes:

As for aspect ratio... I have yet to have any real problems playing games only using widescreen resolution... Even if the game doesn't support widescreen like BF2 for instance or NFS carbon there are hacks out there... It's just EA no one else... Does EA know there are more people buying widescreen monitor than ever? They're trying to dictate to us what we need and want... Soon they will be like 3dfx in the PC industry at least if they don't get with the program...

As for this issue... It's already been beaten up to death... :confused: if it matters to you that much... go Nvidia and ditch ATI until ATI fixes it...
 
My main problem is with Warcraft 3, just doesn't look right all stretched.

And it does look like I'll be going NV next, and this is one of the main reasons why.
 
Yeah I see that since it's not native widescreen game...

I don't play warcraft 3 so I don't know... I played warcraft 2 though... That was addicting... :p
 
gryfon said:
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
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nVidia CAN do Fixed Aspect Ratio scaling in the forceware drivers. ATI CANNOT do this. They claim it has something to do with the monitor eeid, but nVidia can do it just fine.

I have a Sager notebook with an X800 and a 1680x1050 panel that has *never* done 4:3 upscale - it only does upscale to stretch and fill the whole panel (i.e. without the black bars that retain the aspect ratio). An nVidia 6800 in this SAME EXACT laptop with the SAME EXACT panel WILL do Fixed Aspect Ratio scaling.

It is either one of two things A) nVidia hardware overcomes this with a hardware solution B)nVidia drivers overcome this with a software solution.

In either case, ATI is deficient in being able to provide this. Either there hardware is broken or their software is. This is a fact as evidenced by the above scenario, and countless others.

ATI can blame everyone else if they want to but it is still a load of horse turds.

pigwalk said:
My main problem is with Warcraft 3, just doesn't look right all stretched.

And it does look like I'll be going NV next, and this is one of the main reasons why.
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An this is also the reason why I don't own things with ATI in them any longer. This is a nasty issue, and it has never been properly addressed. I don't find fault with a company that acknowledges a problem and tries to fix it but fails. I find fault when a company denies that it is a problem and blames it on someone else.
 
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