HOW TO play old PC games (4:3) on a 16:10or9 Widescreen

[glasscleaner]

after many time of searching incomplete topic about how to play old games in widescreen format without stretch the resolution, i found that:

If you are using the latest drivers then go into the tab for flat panel scaling and choose

"use nvidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio." This should do it.

i look around all menu of my nvidia's drivers and i found that:

(see screenshot)

i try to make some different thing but i dont understand well and btw all try i make, the screen is still stretched

someone can help me (us) with that?

spec:

Acer 20 widescreen at 1680x1050

geforce 7600 GT with lastest WHQL drivers

thanks

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Older games, especially 2D games, are limited by resolution because of the textures used. I doubt they were meant for gaming at high widescreen resolutions like 1680x1050 or 1440x900. For example, StarCraft is an old RTS game made by Blizzard back in 1998. I currently play it on an Acer AL2216W @ 1680x1050. The screen looks stretched because the game was originally developed with a native resolution of 640x480. Any higher resolution and the game's graphics become blurry and pixelated. Think of a 640x480 image. Stretching it to 1024x768 will result in a loss of image quality. The image will not look as detailed as it was in it's original resolution.

[glasscleaner]

yeah bit i dont really care of the resolution.i only want res not streched!! i dont have any problem to play it at 800x600 or 1024x768. by old games i mean age of empire 2, knight of honors, conflict vietnam, etc...

i know there is a way to have black line on the 2 side side of the screen.

but how? there is no options on my monitor`s menu :(

[shiny_red_cobra]

If you're this picky, just run them in windowed mode, then they won't stretch.

[curme]

I just got Crimson Skies and it crashes all the time, same thing I heard with AvP. Nvidia forums are full of people complaining about older games not working with newer cards, but Nvidia just ignores the issue.

[Ravensky]

I just got Crimson Skies and it crashes all the time, same thing I heard with AvP. Nvidia forums are full of people complaining about older games not working with newer cards, but Nvidia just ignores the issue.

The Crimson Sky patch if you can still find it fixed a lot of crashing issues on newer OS's.

Good luck

[theyarecomingforyou]

The option is "Change flat panel scaling" but the screenshot detects the monitor as a CRT, hence why the option is missing. You need to get the display detected as a flatscreen. The option works perfectly and there's none of that custom resolutions nonsense.

[glasscleaner]

The option is "Change flat panel scaling" but the screenshot detects the monitor as a CRT, hence why the option is missing. You need to get the display detected as a flatscreen. The option works perfectly and there's none of that custom resolutions nonsense.

that what i want to hear.

so this IS possible.

now i must find a way to fix this issue.

[nexx]

You have a few options

1) If your monitor supports it (such as the Dell monitors), enable 1:1 pixel mapping or 1:1 scaling via the monitor menu.

2) Use nvidia's "Change flat panel scaling" settings. These will only be available if you use DVI (are you using VGA?)

3) Check out www.widescreengamingforum.com - they have guides for getting certain games to run widescreen etc

[theyarecomingforyou]

2) Use nvidia's "Change flat panel scaling" settings. These will only be available if you use DVI (are you using VGA?)

Is that really the case? I didn't realise it was specific to DVI.

[El-Diablo]

go to www.widescreengamingforum.com if you aren't sure if a game supports widescreen, also it will tell you of how to make the game appear widescreen all be it with registry hacks or some other methods. As it's been said above it's a great resource.

[Caleo Global Moderator]

Is that really the case? I didn't realise it was specific to DVI.

Yes, it's very much specific to DVI. Unless your monitor is DVI (and you have a recent nvidia card), or your monitor is a more expensive one that supports 1:1 scaling onboard... you're out of luck.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I'm in the same boat, it thinks my LCD is a CRT so screws up the images.

I don't see why it just can't surround the image with black to fill it up to the native resolution.