Win7 Resolution Resize Problem

[miki86]

Hello,
Just installed win7 with latest drivers for my VGA.
I have 22" monitor so my natural resolution is 1680x1050.

Problem is when i run any game that i set to use lower resolution, i have black bars to both sides of screen, meaning my monitor doesn't change resolution.
I tried with monitor driver, and without him (default win7 driver), same thing.

Searched over net and saw that im not the only one who's got this problem.
I didnt had this problem with Vista.

If anyone have any suggestion, please...Thanks

 

[Kencelot]

Using a lower resolution on a wide-screen monitor, the games are simply not filling the sides because they are not wide-screen games. Meaning, if they were to fill the whole screen, the image (game) would be stretched.
I too would play games on Vista and the game would fill the whole screen, but at the cost of stretching and distorting the image.

 

[PC WhizzKid]

Also check it in the Games, because sometimes they have widescreen options.

 

[miki86]

I tried using 16:9 in game, but that didnt help.
No matter which resolution i set in game, i see black bars.
Higher resolution, smaller bars, which is logical.

I want them to be streched, thats the main problem, they'r not.
1280x960 is resolution i use in games.
Tried looking in my VGA control panel, but i didnt found anything about that.

Do you have same problems as i have when trying to play games which have smaller resolution than desktop?

 

[Mazz]

Hi,

I'm having a similar problem. I'm using a Dell Studio 1737 laptop, ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3650 graphics/Windows 7 Ultimate x64; when I open games (or any programs, even an install disc for the software for my mobile phone) and the resolution has to change from its native 1440x900 default I get black bars on the top bottom left and right of my screen. The programs still function correctly, but the display isn't right. I figured this was a problem with Windows 7 and resolution resize, which is how I found this forum and question... Is there any way to fix this? The game I play most often doesn't allow you to change it's resolution, so unless theres something I can install as a tool tray or graphics properties I don't know what to do.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

 

[miki86]

Thats what im talking about.
If you are using ATI that excludes bad video card driver.

 

[Mazz]

bump, still need help. :huh:

 

[Kristina Leona]

I have the same problem.

Cant use my prefered resolution 1280*1024 in games

its just small and Huge black spaces on each side of screen.

I had to install win xp again to get my games to work.

 

[Kristina Leona]

Using a lower resolution on a wide-screen monitor, the games are simply not filling the sides because they are not wide-screen games. Meaning, if they were to fill the whole screen, the image (game) would be stretched.
I too would play games on Vista and the game would fill the whole screen, but at the cost of stretching and distorting the image.

Is it possible to stretch and distort in windows 7 aswell??

 

[reghakr]

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!

 

[miki86]

Allegedly this fix our problem, didnt worked for me:

Nvidia users solution 1:

1. Install the lastest NVIDIA driver.
2. Enter in NVIDIA Control Panel, choose advance settings.
3. Go to Display -> Manage Custom Resolutions
4. Click Create... button
5. Fill your desired resolutions settings and GDI Refresh Rate.. (60, 75..) and click Advanced...
6. In Timing standard, select one of the options available (GTF, DMT, CVT...) continue testing those options until you get no black borders.

Solution 2:

1-Go to Start
2-Go to Control Panel
3-Go to Nvidia Contol Panel
In case is first time choose advanced settings
4-Go to Display
5-In display go to Change flat panel scaling
6-Than go to 2
7-Normaly the option that is selected is the "Use my display built in scaling"
8-What you gonna do is to check the 1st one "Use nvidia Scaling"
9-Aplly
10-Done

ATI users:

1) Open Catalyst Control Center
2) Use the drop down box at the top to click on Desktops and Displays
3) At the very bottom where your monitors are displayed, click on the little black arrow and click "Configure". Note that if configure does not appear, you are clicking on the wrong black triangle (you must use the one in the very bottom section).
4) This will bring up properties for that display. Choose "Full Screen" or "Maintain aspect ratio", whatever your preference. If you are getting black bars on all sides, you are likely on "Centered".
5) IF THE OPTIONS ARE GREYED OUT, as they were when I first tried this, the workaround is to lower your display resolution before attempting the above. Once you have changed the setting, you can return your display resolution back to whatever you like and the setting will remain as your display changes (movies, games, etc).

btw why cant i save my refresh rate to 60, it constantly drops it to 59 Hz :S

 

[Kristina Leona]

Thanks a lot=)

I used Nvidia utility and went to "adjust desktopsize and position"
clicked "use Nvidia scaling"


Now it works=)

Thank you

 

[Mazz]

Great, it works now. Thank you!

 

[morty82]

Other solution

Hi, I sucseed with 1) solution, just make my resolution 1024X768 (allready have one by default but make another) and it works.When I make resolution click on test and while seting I saw that my screan is streached.Start a game and in 1024X768 it is now streached.Try 800X600 it is no streached !!! Then just make another 800X600 resolution, and that new res. are by Custom, now it work.
just make resolution you need and

Thanks for IDEA it help me. ENJOY (I know I will)

 

[daroga]

Hey all,

I'm having a similar issue (I think) and am not sure what to do.

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 with an ATI x1400. To get proper driver support from ATI I need to use Mobility Modder on the Catalyst drivers. When I do that, I have the issue where the image is not scaled to fit the screen, rather it just has black borders all around. Obviously if I need to run a game at a low resolution (like 800x600), on the 1650x1080 screen I have that's very, very small.

Now, in the Catalyst Control Center (under the Basic options, I don't have it under advanced) is the option to resize the screen (stretch), resize (maintain aspect ratio) or do what it's doing. It, however, will not save the settings. I've tried the "set your Windows resolution to the resolution you'd use in the game and change the settings there" That does seem to work for a bit, but once I set the screen back to its native resolution and launch the game, it's back to being not resized but just running in a postage stamp version.

Now, here's the kicker, if I use Windows Update's driver, I can set the settings and they save just fine and operate as I've set them to. But that introduces a whole host of other problems (flickering images when 3D is being run, monitor not turning on after stand by, etc.). Is there anyone with any thoughts on that? I've looked around for a solution, and this thread is the closest I've gotten, but still to no avail. I was looking, briefly, to see if there was a registry entry I could change to brute-force the setting to stay put, but I've come up with nothing.

 

[miki86]

Do you have borders only when you run 3d or on desktop also?
I solved my problems by changing resolution in 3d from 1280x960 (which worked perfectly fine on vista) to 1280x768 on win7, or full resolution.
You need to experiment a little with those. I cant see any of those options from my post above in my control panel, or as you said when i change something it doesnt save it.
Aspect ratio is problem here, so try this resolutions.
If some of them fit to whole screen you need to use only them (4:3, 16:9 or 16:10)

List of 4:3 Monitor Resolutions
Resolution - Aspect ratio
640x480-----4:3
800x600-----4:3
1024x768-----4:3
1152x864-----4:3
1280x960-----4:3
1400x1050-----4:3
1600x1200-----4:3
2048x1536-----4:3
3200x2400-----4:3
4000x3000-----4:3
6400x4800-----4:3

List of 16:9 Widescreen Resolutions
Resolution - Aspect ratio
852x480-----16:9
1280x720-----16:9
1365x768-----16:9
1600x900-----16:9
1920x1080-----16:9

List of 16:10 Widescreen Resolutions
Resolution - Aspect ratio
1440x900-----16:10
1680x1050-----16:10
1920x1200-----16:10
2560x1600-----16:10
3840x2400-----16:10
7680x4800-----16:10

Here is the extended list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions

 

[torrentg]

Most crt monitors are 5:4 in case anyone cares to know.

 

[daroga]

Yeah, the Windows desktop shrinks when I change the resolution as well. If I change it to say, 800x600, it'll be a tiny postage stamp on my screen. I go to CCC and set it to resize and maintain aspect ratio it'll blow it up (but obviosuly keep the borders on the left and right because of the widescreen monitor). But then the moment I do anything to change the resolution we're back to being not scaled to fit the screen.

For instance, I set the screen to 800x600 and changed the setting so that it was blown up but kept the aspect ratio. Then I launched a game that was set to 800x600 as well. The game was then tiny on screen.

If I'm misunderstanding what I ought to be doing, please don't hesitate to say to. I've been fighting with this for two months now.

Thanks!

 

[morty82]

Forgot to say

I have Nvidia graphic card 8500GT 256MB RAM and just posted my sucsess, i hope it will help some1.Just as a say on Nvidia control panel u have resolution but just try to make another you need, and i forgot i have old monitor plug VGA (short one) -not DVI but my monitor is wide 19 " LG 1941s.
JUST DON'T GIVE UP

 

[daroga]

Is there an alternative to the CCC I could try that might play nicer with this issue? It seems like maybe this is a combination of the 64 bit version of Windows, ATI's software, and just an older piece of hardware not all playing 100% nice together.

If anyone has any thoughts on it, I would be very, very appreciative!