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Thread: Older Games, Wide Screens, and Aspect Ratios

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    Red (Level 21) Jorpho's Avatar
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    Default Older Games, Wide Screens, and Aspect Ratios

    It suddenly occurs to me that if you're playing a game with a resolution of 640x480 or 800x600 on a widescreen 16:9 LCD, you're getting a rather different picture than you would get on an old CRT.

    Is there a good way of fixing this problem? Obviously it would end up putting black bars on each side of the screen, but that's not so bad. Anyway, I can't seem to find a relevant setting in my Samsung LCD's OSD.
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    Strawberry (Level 2)
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    I use an atlona video scaler for my old stuff, works pretty good and no black bars. Takes composite and svideo in and outputs component and vga from 480p to 1080p and in between for vga resolutions. Though I found out if you use the vga it wont pick up sound, so I use the component out and a component switcher for my wii and that. Just plug everything else into a switcher and take the audio from that and go right to the tv.

    Look on ebay theres a few different models rangingin price and abilty, mine cost around 180 bucks.

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    Red (Level 21) Jorpho's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gokugohandave View Post
    Look on ebay theres a few different models rangingin price and abilty, mine cost around 180 bucks.
    At that price one might as well put up with the inconvenience of keeping a CRT handy.
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    Cherry (Level 1) phreakindee's Avatar
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    I keep a CRT on hand, simple enough.

    With most modern systems you can use a driver solution like the aspect scaling for nvidia cards, but it doesn't always work with all games and it can depend on if your monitor allows it.

    Some monitors have a scaling/ratio feature built in, but my 22" Acer and 26" Magnavox do not, for digital input. It just stretches to the edges. Analog signals (composite etc) you can select your aspect ratio though.

    If you play Dos games DosBox can scale things to your native resolution in the proper aspect. For anything else, I gave up and use a real system for the time and a CRT, or just deal with the improper ratio.

    It is just too much time, hassle and money to get a everything working properly in all resolutions on one system. I would rather deal with a 16:10 game or a bulky CRT.
    PC Game Collector - DOS and beyond

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    It's worth pointing out that 4:3 LCD's do exist. My mom's computer is hooked to one at the moment. I don't know if they even make them anymore, though. I'll have to remember to hang on to her monitor if she ever upgrades...

    --Zero

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