What happens with widescreen monitor?

smithpd on 4/11/2006 at 22:49

I have considered buying a wide screen monotor, but I am not sure. It depends on how Thief would look on it. Not having one, I cannot test it. So, widescreen owners, what happens with T1 and T2 when playing it with a wide screen monitor?

First, let's say you are running the widescreen at some native resolution with a 16:9 ratio, which is needed for corrrect display of Windows. Then you bring up Thief, which is set in the Options menu to 1024 x 780, a 4:3 ratio. What does that look like? Is the Thief screen stretched to fill the wide screen margins, does it have black bars to the left and side, or is the top and bottom cut off?

If stretched wide, then I would want to avoid that if possible, because I prefer to see things in natural aspect ratio, i.e., circles look like circles, and people do not look fat. Is there any easy way to force the pixels to have square ratio?

I found a thread here:
(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99202)

that has some information about this isssue, but I am confused by it. It looks like Yamentha has found a way to change the FOV using Dromed, but that method cuts off the top and bottom. I would not want that, either, because I want to see everything on screen. Besides, I don't use Dromed, and I don't really want to.

So, what I am really looking for is a convenient way to ensure that the displayed pixels are square, or nearly so, to preserve the original appearance. How would you do that?

Another related thing. If you could play with black side bars, would that burn in stripes on the monitor?

T-Smith on 4/11/2006 at 23:13

I have a widescreen on my laptop, and the game runs absolutely fine. No stretching, black bars or the like. Specifically, I've been playing Thief 2 on it, both OMs, FMs, and T2X. I'll go double check to make sure, but I believe I have been playing with 1024 x 780 in game, and I haven't had any problems.

smithpd on 4/11/2006 at 23:17

T-Smith.

Thanks. And yes, please do check it. I think there has to be stretching or cropping somewhere, because T2 does not have native support for widescreen aspect ratio.

lactose on 5/11/2006 at 01:33

I've been playing Thief: TDP and Thief 2 using a widescreen monitor with 1024x768 resolution and it's definately stretched. According to widescreengamingforum.com there are no fixes for the 1st two games, just Thief: Deadly Shadows.

Here's a link to the page the Thief games are on:

(http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=Master_Games_List_-_T)

smithpd on 5/11/2006 at 02:18

Thanks, lactose. I had seen that table in widescreengamingforum.com before, but I did not understand what "None" meant, that is, how it really looked. "None" is not very descriptive. :)

I assume it is stretched in width. So, how do you think it looks in its stretched mode? As a frame of reference, do you like "wide" football players on 16:9 TV? Understanding that Windows is beter in wide screen, would you be happier with Thief if it were displayed on a 4:3 monitor instead?

lactose on 5/11/2006 at 02:18

I was just messing around with the Nvidia Control Panel for my graphics card to see if I could do anything to avoid stretching the screen horizontally in the Thief games and found an option to change flat panel scaling. I set it to "use Nvidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio" which now stretches the 1024x768 resolution to fit the screen vertically with the 4x3 aspect ratio intact. It's got black bars on either side of the display, but it doesn't bother me because that's how I watch TV that's not widescreen anyway. I'm guessing that ATI probably has a similar feature in their control panel as well.

smithpd on 5/11/2006 at 02:21

Hey, that's good news, lactose. I have an Nvidia card, so no problems now, but I am thinking of going with ATI. Anyone have experience with that?

smithpd on 5/11/2006 at 03:54

I found the following posts on the internet, all dated October 2006. Does anyone here have a non-mobility ATI who can verify this behavior with Thief?

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Depends on the monitor and the graphics card combination. If you have a monitor that has no scaling options at all (most of them like the ChiMei's, Viewsonics, etc) then it will simply take the image and stretch it out = ugly. This can be "fixed" using an nVidia card and setting the scaling options in the control panel. If you have an ATI card you are outta luck cos their drivers do not have that option. In this case you should be looking at Dell's, and I think Samsungs, which have internal scaling built into the monitor.

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I am runnning on the Viewsonic VX20254wm LCD and there is no option for 1:1 like some others (namely Dell). Not sure why they decided to omit this option, but could explain why they were able to keep the price down. In my research I came accross a number of widescreen LCDs that do not give an option for a 1:1 fixed pixel aspect ratio and thus stretch the image to a very distorted widescreen. There is an option for "Center Timing" or a fixed ratio in the Catalyst Control Center, but that seems to be a non factor. These same options in the nVidia control panel, per others, seem to do the trick and mantain the proportionate image by placing black bars on all sides.

I guess if I cannot get this resolved I will be in the market for a new LCD that has a built in 1:1. Considering I am impressed with this current monitor, I would first like to try working it out. Time will tell.

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I love my 20" Dell 2007WFP, and its pretty damn good for games, does its own scaling so I can play games in any resolution (within reason) and you can tell the monitor to change what it displays on screen to the same resolution as specified in game.

So instead of games stretching, there is just black empty space on the side of the screen, if you want to play a game at 1280*1024 for instance.

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Lol guys... First off, ATi does not have the option to scale and maintain the aspect ratio with 4:3 images. Someone did once tell me that Omega drivers give you this option but recently I installed some Omegas and did not get that option anywere. And I don't think it matters whether you are running DVI or not (although i'm not sure).

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That's probably because that option [1:1 pixel ratio] is only available on the "mobility" ATi cards (meaning only on laptops). For the life of me I can't figure out why that option is only available on laptop ATi cards... i'd like to slap ATi for that one :(

OrbWeaver on 5/11/2006 at 11:24

Quote Posted by smithpd

I have an Nvidia card, so no problems now, but I am thinking of going with ATI. Anyone have experience with that?

Yeah, don't. ATI make good cards, but their drivers generally suck (although they are supposedly getting better).

phide on 5/11/2006 at 18:36

The ATi cards aren't great for those with widescreen monitors. nVidia's display method allows them to place frames within larger frames, which means that image centering and fixed aspect scaling will work regardless of the capabilities of the type of display engine in the monitor itself. Basically, the driver creates a black box in the native resolution, then places the rendered frame within that box and performs any required processing (for stretching).

Still, without centering or fixed aspect scaling, Thief doesn't look too terrible. The stretching is tolerable on my Cinema Display, and the most glaring issue is still 16-bit color precision.

The Dell WS LCDs use Genesis scaling engines, so they can perform any required scaling after they receive the signal. Of course, with Dell panels, you get what you pay for, and that isn't much.

And no, LCDs are unlike plasmas or CRTs in that they will not suffer from burn-in.