Black Bars/Desktop Resizing Issue.

Hello all,

My first post, and yes I tried to searching the forms prior to posting, but did not find anyone having a problem exactly like mine, so I figured I'd make a new post and see if any of you had a solution.

Basically, the problem is that in playing games lower than my Desktop resolution results in black bars that appear on the top and bottom of my screen. And generally (like in Windows XP) I could just use my monitors resize features and stretch the image to fill the screen. However, after I do that, and exit the game, my desktop will return to its normal resolution, but it will be stretched pass the limit of viewing for my monitor.

I've made some images to demonstrate what I am talking about:
Normal Desktop:


In-Game w/ Black Bars:


Desktop after stretching In-Game Image and quitting the game:



Videocard: Nvidia GTX280
Monitor: CRT Viewsonic Professional Series P95f+

I cannot understand why one resolution (1024 x 768) is linked to the other (1280 x 1024). On Windows XP, I could adjust each resolution differently for my monitor, but that does not seem to work for Windows 7.

Anyway to resolve this?

Thanks.

in vista mine was doing same...i seemed to have to have the game res and desktop res the same.....

If yiu have an ATI video card...........

I had a similar problem with my HD 4850 when switching from vista to win7. 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!