Can't play games in Widescreen.

Tact1caL

New member
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.
 

My Computer

OS
Windows 7
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard
MSI P45 NEO-F, P45, Socket-775, DDR2
Memory
4 GB
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX 275 1792MB PhysX CUDA
Monitor(s) Displays
benQ 22" widescreen HD
Screen Resolution
16:9 Widescreen
Case
Cooler master HAF 922
Cooling
Fans/Air
Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder
Are there black bars on the sides?
 

My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Cheap $399.00 E-Machine
OS
Windows 7 Pro & Vista Home Premium
CPU
Athlon 64 3800+ (Orleans) 2.40GHz
Motherboard
Winfast
Memory
2GB DDR2 RAM DIMM
Graphics Card(s)
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512 MB memory HDMI out
Sound Card
creative X-Fi Exteme 7..1 channel
Monitor(s) Displays
Acer V223W 22" widescreen DVI
Screen Resolution
1680x1050
Hard Drives
WDC WD5 500GB
WDC WD25 250GB
PSU
OCZ 550 watt
Case
Gateway
Cooling
2 fans
Keyboard
Dell
Mouse
Sony Vaio
Internet Speed
18MB/s down - .72MB /s up

My Computer

OS
Windows 7
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard
MSI P45 NEO-F, P45, Socket-775, DDR2
Memory
4 GB
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX 275 1792MB PhysX CUDA
Monitor(s) Displays
benQ 22" widescreen HD
Screen Resolution
16:9 Widescreen
Case
Cooler master HAF 922
Cooling
Fans/Air
Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder
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 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!
 

My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Cheap $399.00 E-Machine
OS
Windows 7 Pro & Vista Home Premium
CPU
Athlon 64 3800+ (Orleans) 2.40GHz
Motherboard
Winfast
Memory
2GB DDR2 RAM DIMM
Graphics Card(s)
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512 MB memory HDMI out
Sound Card
creative X-Fi Exteme 7..1 channel
Monitor(s) Displays
Acer V223W 22" widescreen DVI
Screen Resolution
1680x1050
Hard Drives
WDC WD5 500GB
WDC WD25 250GB
PSU
OCZ 550 watt
Case
Gateway
Cooling
2 fans
Keyboard
Dell
Mouse
Sony Vaio
Internet Speed
18MB/s down - .72MB /s up
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 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!
No sorry, I have a NVIDIA card. So I cant do that.
 

My Computer

OS
Windows 7
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard
MSI P45 NEO-F, P45, Socket-775, DDR2
Memory
4 GB
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX 275 1792MB PhysX CUDA
Monitor(s) Displays
benQ 22" widescreen HD
Screen Resolution
16:9 Widescreen
Case
Cooler master HAF 922
Cooling
Fans/Air
Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder
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.
 

My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
self built
OS
7600.20510 x86
CPU
P4 550 3.4 GHz HT running at 3.5 GHz
Motherboard
MSI PM8M3-V (MS-7211 v1.x) Micro-ATX mainboard
Memory
OCZ 2 GB(2x1GB) DDR400mHz running @ 414 mHz
Graphics Card(s)
HIS Radeon HD 3850 IceQ 3 Turbo HDMI Dual DL-DVI AGP
Sound Card
MOTU Traveler firewire studio interface 192 kHz 24 bit
Monitor(s) Displays
22" widescreen Acer X223W LCD, 17" Compaq P75 CRT
Screen Resolution
1680x1050 and 1280x1024
Hard Drives
SATA I x2 WD, 400 GB and 120 GB, SATA 2 WD Caviar Black 1 TB
PSU
350W generic
Case
Cybertronpc, it glows blue
Cooling
stock cpu fan, Ice-Q 3 gpu and system, many case fans
Keyboard
Logitch Classical Keyboard 200
Mouse
Logitech Mediaplay cordless
Internet Speed
1792/448 kbits/sec
Other Info
SATA II PCI fake RAID adapter, 1 GB Readyboost, original ATI Remote Wonder (even works with WMC perfectly), Logitech Rumblepad 2 game controller x2
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 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!
No sorry, I have a NVIDIA card. So I cant do that.

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! ;)
 

My Computer

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

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 :mad: , and for some reason it didnt screenshot the game, only the other stuff on my desktop..) :
hl22009-12-0123-11-00-81.jpg

The NVIDIA Control panel:

W7Issues.jpg
 
Last edited:

My Computer

OS
Windows 7
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard
MSI P45 NEO-F, P45, Socket-775, DDR2
Memory
4 GB
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX 275 1792MB PhysX CUDA
Monitor(s) Displays
benQ 22" widescreen HD
Screen Resolution
16:9 Widescreen
Case
Cooler master HAF 922
Cooling
Fans/Air
Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder
Hey guys!
I just reformated and upgraded my system to win7. 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 win7 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
 

My Computer

OS
windows 7 Ultimate x64
CPU
AMD Phenom X3 8450 64 bit
Motherboard
ASUS M3A78-T
Memory
4GB DDR2
Graphics Card(s)
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Sound Card
Onbord S/PDIF sound
Monitor(s) Displays
Samsung 40" LCD full HD
Hard Drives
Maxtor 1TB
PSU
Chill 520W
Case
SilverStone LASCALA LC20M
Cooling
Arctic Fan 8 PWM x2/ Arctic Fan 9 PWM x2/ Royal Knight
Games in Widescreen

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 Win7, 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?
 

My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Acer e-Machines
OS
Windows 7
Motherboard
Asus
Memory
4GB
Graphics Card(s)
Nvidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
Monitor(s) Displays
Samsung SyncMaster SNXPlus 1360 x 768
Hard Drives
WD 1TB
Case
e-Machine
I would suggest installing the North Bridge & Southbridge... ACHI, SATA Drivers for your AMD processor.

ATI Radeon
 

My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
HP Pavilion Elite HPE-410f
OS
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
CPU
AMD Phenom x6 1045t
Motherboard
N/A
Memory
8 GB
Graphics Card(s)
ATI Radeon HD 5570
Sound Card
Realtek Highdefinition Audio / 5.1 Dolby Setup
Monitor(s) Displays
HP w2207h Widescreen
Screen Resolution
1680*1050
Hard Drives
1 TB (fixed), 320 Portable maxtor, Server Hard drives
PSU
350 Watt
Case
HP CASE
Cooling
Bass
Keyboard
Logitech MX 5500
Mouse
Logitech MX 5500
Internet Speed
ROAD RUNNER 16MB D/512 U
mr

mags i have the same problem, samsung monitor, just upgraded to w7 64Bit from vista and none of my games or films play in widescreen. are you any closer to finding an answer to this trouble?
 

My Computer

OS
64 bit Windows 7 HP
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