Posts: 284
Threads: 8
Joined: Feb 2003
My samsung 2232gw monitor went down and I am looking for suggestions to replace it. My OS is XP and the video card is an NVIDIA 8800gt. I still play some old games like Diablo and Diablo 2, and need one which supports the fixed aspect ration option, ie one which does not stretch these old games clear accross the screen but, rather, can produce black pillars on each side of the games display so it maintains its original proportions. Any suggestions? I just got an HP to replace it and got nothing but stretched displays on those old games. This bugged me to the point that Mrs. Thenryb now has that monitor. I am temporarily using her Viewsonic but it has the same problem. I suppose I could just get another Samsung but am a bit bummed that it stopped working and will cost almost as much to repair as a new one would cost, so am looking for some alternatives.
Posts: 1,250
Threads: 16
Joined: Feb 2003
A lot of monitors (including almost all budget monitors) just stretch everything to full screen. But if you are only using the monitor for your computer, and not for a game console or something, it shouldn't be a problem. You should be able to control the aspect ratio from the nvidia control panel, as a function of your graphics card drivers. There should be an option like "scale with fixed aspect ratio", and chances are that will be the one you always want to keep on.
Try it with Diablo II at 800x600 first. It should be pretty easy. With Diablo you may need an additional trickier step: setting up a custom resolution for 640x480.
Posts: 284
Threads: 8
Joined: Feb 2003
Quote:A lot of monitors (including almost all budget monitors) just stretch everything to full screen. But if you are only using the monitor for your computer, and not for a game console or something, it shouldn't be a problem. You should be able to control the aspect ratio from the nvidia control panel, as a function of your graphics card drivers. There should be an option like "scale with fixed aspect ratio", and chances are that will be the one you always want to keep on.
Try it with Diablo II at 800x600 first. It should be pretty easy. With Diablo you may need an additional trickier step: setting up a custom resolution for 640x480.
Thanks. I have tried that stuff with both the HP and the Viewsonic and it just does not work with those monitors. Of course, I also select the scale with fixed aspect ratio but it had no effect on the display. I also tried messing with the custom resolution thing to now avail. The nice thing about the Samsung is that the scale with fixed aspect ratio actually did what it was supposed to do. Not so with these other monitors. The Hp, btw, was not all that cheap either.
Posts: 1,250
Threads: 16
Joined: Feb 2003
Well you've got me stumped then. It seems like there should be a solution without buying another monitor, but hopefully you get some good recommendations at least.
Posts: 370
Threads: 12
Joined: May 2003
Would suggest taking a look around
this thread on the AnandTech forums. They have a review of just about every monitor that's good for gaming/multimedia. As for the resolution thing, I'm guessing you're looking for something that can do 1:1 scaling, which should be informaiton available at that link (in most cases).
Alea Jacta Est - Caesar
Guild Wars account: Lurker Wyrm
Posts: 3,498
Threads: 412
Joined: Feb 2003
Any LCD can be set to use fixed aspect ratios with nVidia drivers, as long as you are connected using a DVI or HDMI cable. You have to go into the nVidia control panel and set the display as "digital", then you can use whatever fixed ratio you want. If you are connected with a VGA cable, you cannot do this.
My 22" LCD does not natively support anything of the sort, but I can play Diablo 2 at 800x600 with the black bars.
Posts: 284
Threads: 8
Joined: Feb 2003
Quote:Any LCD can be set to use fixed aspect ratios with nVidia drivers, as long as you are connected using a DVI or HDMI cable. You have to go into the nVidia control panel and set the display as "digital", then you can use whatever fixed ratio you want. If you are connected with a VGA cable, you cannot do this.
My 22" LCD does not natively support anything of the sort, but I can play Diablo 2 at 800x600 with the black bars.
What you say is precisely what has me puzzled. That Viewsonic VA1912wb (once my wife's) referenced above has a digital display and I hooked it to my computer with a DVI cable, went into the nvidia control panel and selected fixed aspect ratio but it just distorted the display of Diablo 2 even more. Same with the Hewlitt Packard I bought to replace the broken Samsung. I found a thread where many others were having the same sort of problems with that particular Viewsonic. Some blamed the monitor and some the Nvidia drivers but no one had a solution which would work for me, including some involved workaround using the custom resolution feature. The Hewlitt packard monitor would produce black bars but they were so narrow as to be useless. Therefore, before buying another monitor I figured I should try to be certain it would produce the pillard effect I want. In the meantime, it is back to my old Nokia monitor (which I think was made circa 1996).
I am going to navigate through the site Wyrm suggested and see what I can find.
Thanks to both of you for your input.
Posts: 3,498
Threads: 412
Joined: Feb 2003
Quote:What you say is precisely what has me puzzled. That Viewsonic VA1912wb (once my wife's) referenced above has a digital display and I hooked it to my computer with a DVI cable, went into the nvidia control panel and selected fixed aspect ratio but it just distorted the display of Diablo 2 even more.
When I first hooked up my LCD and tried to enable a fixed aspect ratio, I could not. It wasn't until I bought a DVI cable and enabled it as a digital display that I could finally do it.
I've been looking around the nVidia control panel all day, and cannot for the life of me find where the little box marked "set as digital display" (or something to that effect) is. I do know that I HAD to select this, as just hooking up a digital display with a DVI cable was not enough. This was a couple of years ago, so maybe nVidia's drivers got better and smarter about it, but it doesn't look like it.
Posts: 284
Threads: 8
Joined: Feb 2003
Quote:When I first hooked up my LCD and tried to enable a fixed aspect ratio, I could not. It wasn't until I bought a DVI cable and enabled it as a digital display that I could finally do it.
I've been looking around the nVidia control panel all day, and cannot for the life of me find where the little box marked "set as digital display" (or something to that effect) is. I do know that I HAD to select this, as just hooking up a digital display with a DVI cable was not enough. This was a couple of years ago, so maybe nVidia's drivers got better and smarter about it, but it doesn't look like it.
In my nvidia control panel that setting appears to be under the adjust color settings menu.
