'Expand while maintaining aspect ratio'; doesn't scale properly

Question

Hello all:

A half hour's worth of forum searching brought up the issue of scaling lower resolution images on widescreen notebook displays, however, no one seems to be having the kind of issue I'm having.

Anyhow, the problem I'm having is with the "Expand while maintaining aspect ratio" option in the advanced display properties. I use my XPS notebook mostly for gaming, and this option does a decent job of maintaining a letterboxed 4:3 image when I set the screen to any of the following resolutions:

800x600
1024x768
1600x1200

It also fills the screen properly to it's 16:10 ratio in 1920x1200 and 1280x800.

Every resolution other than the ones listed, however, are distorted in one form or another on my laptop's screen (the two biggest problems are making everything "fat", by not properly letterboxing certain resolutions; or filling the screen, and having to move the mouse to the top and bottom of the screen to scroll to the rest of the image).

Being a gamer, it is very frustrating not being able to set the resolution to 1280x1024 without eveything looking "fat", or to 1290x960 without having the tops and bottoms of the picture chopped off.

I just want to be able to set a resolution in a game to anything I want and have it scale to its proper 16:10, 4:3, or 5:4 aspect ratio. Is that too much to ask?

I have an ATi MOBILITY Radeon 9700 with Omega 2.6.05a drivers (DELL's default drivers have the same scaling problem as well...)

Any help with this issue is appreciated. Thanks.

cking32 · Answer

Let me see if i can address this correctly. Just to clarify you want to run something at say 1280x1024  and have black bars on the side.   First have you also check to see what the setting are in the bios for scaleing. It could possibly have an effect.   Ok just to recap on a known issue. All ATI chips prior to the Radeon 9800 can't scale an image above 1280x1024. This is why your middle of the road(SXGA res) settings will have a black boarder. This is a hardware limitation present in most all ati cards from the Radeon 9700 back, and only shows it head when you have a WUXGA screen. So that means 1680x1050 will always have a black border and 1600x1200 should always have black horizontal lines on it.   Now as far as the scaling to keep aspect ratio I haven't heard that, Though to be honest i can't remember ever setting mine to a lower res and expecting it to not be distorted. You may want to use 1600x1200 which should be fine since it can't scale.   Another point to make is that the standard resolutions are what you listed: 800x600,1024x768,1280x1024, and 1600x1200. Anything else is a custom res by omega and is bound to have issues.. The biggest reason i don't use omega is becuase of those custom resolutions. I prefer haveing the standard settings since they are boudn to work with pretty much everything.. The dell drivers only have the resolutions that are needed and not the extra ones..

jeffcmfrt · Answer

If you only want the 4.3 just go into your bios pages they have a feature it is expand image disable it select apply changes then reboot. But for the life of me i can't understand why you would want to give up this awsom widescreen display this is a first for me.There is no way i would give my display up lol. Best wishes

Inspiron XPS Gen 1
3.4 H/T processor
1 gig ram
256 ddr ati 9800
15.4 wide aspect ultra sharp
wuxga(1920x1200) display
Operating system windows xp home
Service pk 2
Logitech MX750 wireless mouse
Nostromo n52 gamepad

bobwalt · Answer

Cking32 hIt the nail on the head.  Since you have a 9700 it will not scale correctly; you might want to thnk about upgrading to the Mobility 9800 as it is a much better and faster part.   Bob

ScYtH · Answer

Let me clarify a bit: the reason why I wanted to be able to properly use 1680x1050, 1280x1024, and 1280x960 is because most games don't support widescreen resolutions, and I've noticed that my laptop simply isn't fast enough to run most games made after 2002 at 1600x1200 without signifigant framerate drops. I was hoping there would be some program I could download to manually resize the image (like you can do with CRT monitors); looks like I guess I'll just have to deal with 1024x768, although it would have been nice to step up to slightly higher resolutions. Either that, or fork over $400 for the obviously overpriced 9800... :(

jeffcmfrt · Answer

Yes the 9800 is expencive but is wort evry penny i have owend systems with both a 9100 with the 9700 and a XPS with the 9800.And WOW what a difference.

Inspiron XPS Gen 1
3.4 H/T processor
1 gig ram
256 ddr ati 9800
15.4 wide aspect ultra sharp
wuxga(1920x1200) display
Operating system windows xp home
Service pk 2
Logitech MX750 wireless mouse
Nostromo n52 gamepad

ScYtH · Answer

Well unfortunately, upgrading isn't an option for me right now... :(

So basically what everyone is saying the 9700 can't scale images above 1280x1024. But if this is true, then why can't it scale 1280x1024 or 1280x900 correctly? And why would DELL even include such a horrible card in their gaming laptops, knowing that gamers do a lot of resolution switching (or at least include some resizing software)? Makes me wonder why I didn't get an Alienware or a Falcon instead...

Oh well, no point in complaining any longer. Thanks for the help anyway, guys.

Locked Topics – Laptops General

"Expand while maintaining aspect ratio"; doesn't scale properly

Was this post helpful?