Widescreen

[Zallek]

Ok, some of you are probably going to call me a tard just for the sake of it, but is it possible to force widescreen on a CRT/Not so widescreen LCD? I noticed HL2 has a setting for 16:9 and 16:10 ratios, and I wanted to see if I can get them to work properly on my monitors before I bring the computer upstairs to my willing 48" widescreen HDTV. But when I force the 16:9, on my CRT, it makes it tall and skinny.. Its suppose to be short and wide damnit lol
If you can understand what Im getting at, think its possible to do without buying a true, widescreen display?

 

[Ice Czar]

Ok, some of you are probably going to call me a tard just for the sake of it,

oh I dont know
think that is unlikely

 

[Mesos]

You could use the controls on your actual monitor to adjust the vertical stretch and add a black border to the top and bottom of your screen.

 

[moralpanic]

You could use the controls on your actual monitor to adjust the vertical stretch and add a black border to the top and bottom of your screen.

LOLOLOL WTF?!

 

[Cody8417]

in most games at a given resolution it can display the image so that when stretched to fit a wide aspect ratio screen, it will look proportional.

It should actually be tall and skinny because when it gets stretched out, it will look right.

 

[Mesos]

LOLOLOL WTF?!

He wants to make a 4:3 CRT look like a widescreen to test it ;p, how else could he make it the same shape as a 16:9 ;p

 

[Krazy_Joe]

You could use the controls on your actual monitor to adjust the vertical stretch and add a black border to the top and bottom of your screen.

I hope that is a joke, ROFL

 

[Krazy_Joe]

He wants to make a 4:3 CRT look like a widescreen to test it ;p, how else could he make it the same shape as a 16:9 ;p

thats not possible unless the crt has the supported resolution which is highly unlikely if its 4:3. It will work on your widescreen tv as long as it has 480p, 720p, 1080i hince these resolutions(eg 1280x720 for 720p; 1920x1080 for 1080p; etc)

my older widescreen tv only supports 480p but i have a L2335 for ultimate gaming pleasure!

 

[Shroomie]

But when I force the 16:9, on my CRT, it makes it tall and skinny.. Its suppose to be short and wide damnit lol

It does it for the same reason as when you watch something at 4:3 on a 16:9 TV without the side bars it's short and fat. On a 16:9 HDTV, your game will look like it's supposed to.

 

[Mesos]

thats not possible unless the crt has the supported resolution which is highly unlikely if its 4:3. It will work on your widescreen tv as long as it has 480p, 720p, 1080i hince these resolutions(eg 1280x720 for 720p; 1920x1080 for 1080p; etc)

my older widescreen tv only supports 480p but i have a L2335 for ultimate gaming pleasure!

I have a fairly stardard 17inch CRT, and a sanyo plv-z2 projector, which has a native resolution of 1280x720.

I use the projector in games and use the CRT for everything else. I'm running them both in 1280x720. The CRT will run in any resolution you throw at it, it doesnt matter if its 4:3, 16:9 etc. Its just going to look stretched tho if u dont adjust the physical shape of the screen.

I think games that offer dif screen ratios, are to tell the game what shape your screen is, so it doesnt stretch anything, and doesnt use a fov trick to correct it.
Remember when doom3 first came out, you could force the game into 1280x720, and even change the fov, but ppl complained it wasnt true widescreen. Now that they added the 16:9 options to the config files, you can play it without stretching and not have to run in a oval shape with the fov workaround.

Btw, my point wasnt to have everyone adjust their screens so you got a fake widescreen, i'm just saying, if you wanna see roughly what its going to look like on a widescreen display before switching, and how the dif game ratio options effect the graphics, like the original poster suggested, then it could do the trick in a pinch =p.

 

[SLee]

I hope that is a joke, ROFL

Why? This feature is found on a lot of newer 4:3 TVs with the name "anamorphic squeeze" or something similar, allowing for better picture quality with widescreen material.

 

[Shapeshifter]

You could always get a widescreen crt?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004YNSR/103-8626040-6883021

 

[Zallek]

What I was getting at, was when I set the resolution on my desktop, its tall and skinny as well.. To me, it would make sense for it to be short and wide? When I set my desktop to 1280x768 It honestly doesnt even look any different from 1280x1024.. When it should, shouldnt it? I may end up buying a 17" widescreen lcd, but I was looking more towards the cheaper way of doing it.. lol

-Edit-

Someone on my msn list just mentioned that I could try and fake widescreen driver side.. Like, force an install of a widescreen monitor driver.. It sounds possible, because I've 'accidently' installed wrong video drivers before back in the day when I had no idea what was going on...

 

[Zallek]

Another example of what I want my in-game resolution and desktop resolution to look like (without physically changing the monitor to a widescreen, or just shrinking the screen with the buttons on it..), is something like a widescreen movie, if nobody caught that part yet, I figure some games may look pretty neat like that.. I just dont want to have to fork out another $700 just so I can play a few games like that, on the weekend I'll try it on the tv and see how it looks.. Last time I tried though, it looked horrible.. But that was before I knew that you actually had to change settings for it to work, it wasnt just plug and play lol

 

[Zallek]

Well, I got it working.. Someone in this thread probably said what Im about to say on how to do it.. But I think I 'figured' it out on my own, only because I could have misunderstood the person(s) who suggested it.. I set the desktop resolution, so it made it tall and skinny, then I used the monitor settings to adjust it, so nothing was stretched, and it worked fine. Made the beating of HL2 seem a lot more movie like, imo hehe