Windows 7: Can't play games in Widescreen.

The problem is simple, I cant play In widescreen anymore.
I've tested all the resolutions and settnings, not working.
I mainly play SOURCE games, and its not working in any of these. and I dont think it works in goldosurce too.
and fyi, it worked in Vista, I have the same hardware and software I used to have, Ive only upgraded to Windows 7.



Thanks in advance.

Are there black bars on the sides?

Yep.

This worked for some but not all,.]

I;m assuming you have an ATI card also:

I had a similar problem with my HD 4850 when switching from vista to Windows 7. I actually found a fix inside the ATI Catalyst Control Center.

Open CCC and somewhere in the display configuration for your monitor ensure that there is no over/underscan.

For some reason my CCC had a small degree of underscan turned on which led to the black bars you mentioned.

A word of caution, when you start your games up and pick the native resolution the underscan may show up again. Just turn on any options for windowed mode and/or full screen and then turn off windowed mode again and the black bars should go away. Hope that helps!

No sorry, I have a NVIDIA card. So I cant do that.

This is normal. If you can't set an aspect ratio matching your screen, you are out of luck. You can use scaling to stretch the screen, making a square appear as a rectangle but this is definitely not what you want to do.

Only chance is to set a res matching aspect ratio of the monitor, in game.

Vista used a WDDM 1.0 driver and displayed incorrectly for you before as it stretched the screen out.

I had the same problem and I fixed it myself.
1. First of all, right click on Desktop and select "nVidia Control Panel"
2. If a prompt appears, select Advanced Settings.
3. On the left hand side, in the pane, expand "Display", then select "Change flat panel scaling".
4. In the middle of the window (somewhere says 2. When using a resolution lower than my display's native resolution...) Select the third radio button which says: "Use my display's built-in scaling".
5. Click "Apply"
Voila!
Hope it helped!

I got the prompt up and running, Didnt find the "Change flat panel scaling" .
So I guessed it was change resolution, only to find out that neither of the options you mentioned above were there.
I messed around with the whole resolutions thing with no succsess.
How my screen looks like In game (used fraps to take a screenshot, so the annoying black edges didnt come up , and for some reason it didnt screenshot the game, only the other stuff on my desktop..) :

The NVIDIA Control panel:

Hey guys!
I just reformated and upgraded my system to Windows 7. YAY
How cool is that!?! after playing around with all the network stuff (that just worked - NOT like Vista) I started installing games and found out that all the games run in 4:3 ratio?!?
I have tried all the guides and this thread, and the only way I can get em to run in full screen is by distorting the image and scaling the screen size to fit.
I have installed dotnetfix (the Windows 7 beta), directx, the CCC - but I have a feeling that Im leaving somthing out...
Any help would be apreciated

My specs:
AMD Phenom X3 64 bit
ASUS M3A78-T
Radeon HD 4870

New guy

I'm having the exact same problem like Tact1caL's.

I got this Acer e-Machine (very frustrating piece of...) and it used to run on Vista. In fairness, all the games automatically are widescreen too. When I switched to Windows 7, none of the games are. I've seen numerous threads about the "advanced settings" in NVidia Control panel, but like Tact1caL, this doesn't show on mine either.

How can Vista best Windows 7 in this matter? And why can't they come up with a "one-click-widescreen-repair-download-this-fix.exe" kinda thing?

It's really frustrating and Microsoft is not addressing this issue. See I don't even play the hardcore games. From time to time I would just like to relax and unwind for a few minutes playing Plants vs. Zombies, Need For Speed (old), Diablo II (old) or Fishdom. If the OS can be widescreen, why not the games adjust accordingly? Such frustration really. I mean why can't Microsoft, Samsung and nVidia work on this problem together? I'm sure they know about it. It's frustrating you always seems to be short changed. You buy the product in the price they give but it always seems not to work 100%.

Wonder why it's so hard to get a fix on this. Vista was very frustrating to use. Switching to 7 was the best idea but then Vista was better in adjusting the games?