NVIDIA users, RE: Widescreen gaming

Serik

Serik

CAGiversary!
I just snagged a 8800 GT for $160 (after rebate) for my new rig. My current monitor is a Samsung Syncmaster 245BW 24'' widesceen. Unlike the HP monitor I exchanged it for, the 245BW has no built-in 1:1 pixel features or ratio scaling. Therefore, the graphics card must do this.

What this means: if a game doesn't support widescren resolutions or ratios, it will look like absolute crap. Try playing Starcraft on 1920x1200 in 16:10. Totally unplayable because everything is stretched and pixalated beyond recognition. The previous HP widescreen, color problems aside, shrunk older games to the middle of the screen, allowing you to play them in their intended resolutions (the rest of the screen real estate is framed black). Playing in windowed mode isn't always an option, either: WarCraft II, for example, won't go to windowed mode to save my life.

How do NVIDIA drivers support aspect ratios and what have you? Users report mixed success with the 245BW; sometimes the 8800GT does the trick and sometimes it doesn't.

Thanks in advance.
 
The Nvidia control panel has the option to:
a) Use Nvidia scaling
b) Use Nvidia scaling with fixe-aspect ratio
c) Use my display's built-in scaling
d) Do not scale

I use 'c' as my Dell 2407WFP has 1:1 if I need it, though I rarely use it. Haven't tried using the Nvidia scaling, in fact, I didn't even realize it was an option. I will try it for you and post back.

Forgot to add, I am using an 8800GT 512MB card.
 
OK, tried out Age of Empires 2, Crysis, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Universe at War. Tried with both 'Do not scale' and 'Use Nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio' and everything looked and worked well. Even tried the games with several resolutions so I would say you should be fine with your card.
 
Thanks bms. This is the first helpful response I've received to this question anywhere online :)

One last question: How does the NVIDIA scaling actually look on-screen? Are the games nestled in the center of the monitor (say for a really low res game like StarCraft) or are they stretched to the top of the screen while maintaining a standard 4:3 ratio?
 
I do that method for Starcraft on my 1280x800 laptop. It takes up the whole screen except with the appropriate black bars on the left and right that make it not stretch

I use Nvidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio
 
[quote name='Serik']I just snagged a 8800 GT for $160 (after rebate) for my new rig. My current monitor is a Samsung Syncmaster 245BW 24'' widesceen. ...[/quote]

I would recommend having the game software set to a lower output resolution closer to the 768 X 1366 of your LCD. 1920 X 1200 is about 1 1/2 times the native res of your LCD, which is going to be an odd ratio for any video processor, whether in the card or TV, to rescale.

I don't own Starcraft, so I can't say this for sure, but I would guess that being an older game it didn't have widescreen 720p output resolutions built into the software. It's been my experience that older (5+ years) games were designed for 4X3 multiple resolution CRTs.
 
The native resolution for 24'' widescreen LCD monitors is 1920x1200.

The problem stems from older games without widesceen support (or that can't be modified to support widescreen). Team Fortress 2, for example, can be set to a number of 16:10 ratio resolutions. If I select a 16:10 resolution less than 1920x1200, the game is framed by a black box. Works great.

But the 245 doesn't automatically adjust other ratios -- and neither does my ATI card. In fact ATI is awful for widesceen gaming, which is the main reason I'm switching to NVIDIA.
 
The nvidia driver settings allow you to do a 1:1 so if you did 1024x768 for example you would have a small window in the middle of your screen and it looks excellent but a little small. You can also have it stretch but keep the aspect ratio. In that case the above res would fill the screen top to bottom but would have black bars on the sides. This does impact the look a bit but the games I tried out it are definately playable that way.
 
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