How do I put black bars when im playing games?

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collection

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
Messages
202
I have a x1950xt and a 20.1'' monitor. My poor card cant handle 1680 x 1050 on all games, so I want to like put bars around the games to run them @ like 1280 x 1024, I dont want it stretched. How would I go about doing this?
 
collection said:
I have a x1950xt and a 20.1'' monitor. My poor card cant handle 1680 x 1050 on all games, so I want to like put bars around the games to run them @ like 1280 x 1024, I dont want it stretched. How would I go about doing this?
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I believe you need to set your mapping to 1:1 and use a digital connection.
 
collection said:
How would I go about doing that? Cant I just use CCC to do it?
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In CCC go to digital panel properties and click on centered timings. It never used to work with my old x800 but with my 1950pro it works great.
 
ajhodges said:
In CCC go to digital panel properties and click on centered timings. It never used to work with my old x800 but with my 1950pro it works great.
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So if I set it to centered timings, I can set the resolution in a game, like oblivion to like 1280 x 1024 and I will see appropriate bars around my screen to fit that resolution?
I'll try it and notify you if it works
 
ah it works, but not with 1280 x 1024, just with some bull crap unknown resolutions >_>
I can live
 
Why to you need the black borders on the screen, is it a wide screen?
Your video card will handle that 20.1 LCD, wide screen or not.
If you check my sig you'll see that I'm running a x1950XTX with a Dell 2407WFP @ 1920 x 1200 with no problems at all.
I don't do FPS games but I do Racing Sims at that resolution with all the eye candy turned up and it doesn't miss a beat !
 
oldbrave said:
Why to you need the black borders on the screen, is it a wide screen?
Your video card will handle that 20.1 LCD, wide screen or not.
If you check my sig you'll see that I'm running a x1950XTX with a Dell 2407WFP @ 1920 x 1200 with no problems at all.
I don't do FPS games but I do Racing Sims at that resolution with all the eye candy turned up and it doesn't miss a beat !
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yes, but your card is 512MB, mine is 256MB
 
I run a 256MB X1950XT and I game at 1680x1050 with no issues whatsoever. In fact, everything runs fantastic. I can't imagine why you'd have any issues...
 
It's not possible with AMD. Last time I tried anyway.

You shouldn't have problems running 1680x1050 with x1950xt. Shoot I wouldn't have much problems with my 1900gt in that resolution.
 
Marvelous said:
It's not possible with AMD. Last time I tried anyway.

You shouldn't have problems running 1680x1050 with x1950xt. Shoot I wouldn't have much problems with my 1900gt in that resolution.
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Yes, it only works with NVidia cards. If your monitor is capable of doing it, you can do it with an ATI card, but obviously if your monitor could do it, you wouldn't be wanting the drivers to do it, now would you? LOL

It works with every monitor on NVidia cards. That is the main reason right there why I won't recommend an ATI card to someone with a widescreen monitor if they still play games that only support 4:3 (Infinity Engine games, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Sacred, etc.). Before everyone screams that nobody plays any of those games anymore, I'll just go ahead and pretty much label myself as a geek and admit I still play all three (IWD and BG for IE games, D2, and Sacred/UW).
 
Caffeinated said:
Yes, it only works with NVidia cards. If your monitor is capable of doing it, you can do it with an ATI card, but obviously if your monitor could do it, you wouldn't be wanting the drivers to do it, now would you? LOL

It works with every monitor on NVidia cards. That is the main reason right there why I won't recommend an ATI card to someone with a widescreen monitor if they still play games that only support 4:3 (Infinity Engine games, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Sacred, etc.). Before everyone screams that nobody plays any of those games anymore, I'll just go ahead and pretty much label myself as a geek and admit I still play all three (IWD and BG for IE games, D2, and Sacred/UW).
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Nah, it works, but only with some BS unknown resolutions. It works for like 1378 x sumthing while it doesnt work for 1280 x 1024 or 1024 x 768
 
its better if you set your monitor to handle it, most good monitors will have the ability to maintain aspect ratio..
 
Caffeinated said:
It works with every monitor on NVidia cards. That is the main reason right there why I won't recommend an ATI card to someone with a widescreen monitor if they still play games that only support 4:3 (Infinity Engine games, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Sacred, etc.). Before everyone screams that nobody plays any of those games anymore, I'll just go ahead and pretty much label myself as a geek and admit I still play all three (IWD and BG for IE games, D2, and Sacred/UW).
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I guess if you want to play 10 year old games at 4.3 resolution on a widescreen monitor that would sway you to buy only Nvidia cards. :rolleyes:
 
Marvelous said:
I guess if you want to play 10 year old games at 4.3 resolution on a widescreen monitor that would sway you to buy only Nvidia cards. :rolleyes:
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BF2 and BF2142 don't support widescreen and they're modern games.

Also, Most non widscreen LCD screens are actually 5:4 (1280x1024) so in these cases, if you play a game in a standard 4:3 resolution (800x600, 1024x768 etc) then the image will be stretched vertically making things look thin and stupid. This is where you need "fixed aspect ratio scaling" option to 'inject' black bars at the top and bottom of the screen in order to ensure the image maintains a true 4:3 aspect ratio.

ATI just don't properly support this in their drivers, simple as that. It's why I have an nvidia card, and I'm not just saying that, it was actually the thing that swayed me. This 'issue' has been around for ages now, and people have been going on and on about it, I've no idea why ATI doesn't respond and properly implement such an obvious and simple feature.
 
spine said:
BF2 and BF2142 don't support widescreen and they're modern games.

Also, Most non widscreen LCD screens are actually 5:4 (1280x1024) so in these cases, if you play a game in a standard 4:3 resolution (800x600, 1024x768 etc) then the image will be stretched vertically making things look thin and stupid. This is where you need "fixed aspect ratio scaling" option to 'inject' black bars at the top and bottom of the screen in order to ensure the image maintains a true 4:3 aspect ratio.

ATI just don't properly support this in their drivers, simple as that. It's why I have an nvidia card, and I'm not just saying that, it was actually the thing that swayed me. This 'issue' has been around for ages now, and people have been going on and on about it, I've no idea why ATI doesn't respond and properly implement such an obvious and simple feature.
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It don't officially support it but it does work with widescreen. Why would I want to play in such low resolutions? 800x600, 1024x768 was so 1990's.

I wouldn't want to play 800x600 or 1024x768 because I have a widescreen monitor. If I wanted to play 4.3 I would have bought 4.3 monitor. With black bars I'm losing about 25% of my screen real estate. Why would I want to do that?

Sure I want the feature there but it won't sway me to buy a different card when image quality and performance per $$$ is my top priority.
 
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