ATI Radeon Xpress 200m: NO scaled (correct) aspect ratio?

ah, weaksauce. I've scoured the internet for anything about this and it seems that I'm plain outta luck. The radeon Xpress 200m simply does NOT support scaled aspect ratio. The only two options that this card offers is full screen (on my 1280x800 laptop 4:3 (640x800, 800x600,1024x768,etc) games will be stretched horizontally -- the only games I play are older games like baldur's gate or fallout, none of which support widescreen) or "centered" with trimmings (meaning that I'm gonna need magnifying glasses to see anything)... What I want is the "centered" to be magnified yet retain its 4:3 ratio (so that there will be no black bars on the top and bottom, but there will be vertical bars on the sides). The latest catalyst drivers clearly do not support scaled aspect ratio, and I don't think any omega-drivers work for vista yet.. I think this is a lost cause.. but I might as well ask if anyone out there knows a solution to this? Are there any 3rd party patches or drivers that enable scaled aspect ratio on this card?


specs: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8224753&ref=39&loc=01&type=product&id=1166840116787

 

You might be able to find workarounds for the games to allow them to work at 1280*800.

Try looking for sites such as this which have widescreen solutions.

 

lol
mine is widescreen and works perfectly on hp laptop
its because of something else and they all support for me i believe

 

I'm surprised that the latest Catalyst drivers don't work . . you were using the Catalyst Mobility ones, version 7.1 yes? If not try those. They allow for scaling on my X700 under Vista.

 

Can you post your catalyst version? I've scoured the internet and others with 200m seem to be having the same problem as me.

 

Sorry for bringing up this thread again, but I only have access to this computer on weekends... Apparently, in the help file for Catalys, the scaled aspect ratio is only supported for "wide-aspect" resolutions. My computer's natural resolution is 1280x800, which I thought was considered wide-aspect.. It's not quite 16:9 , but **** close (heck it even says wide-screen on top of the notebook screen)... My computer doesn't have a 16:9 resolution, but I tried one that gets closer to that ratio and still have no scaled aspect option. I guess my only option is to wait for some 3rd party drivers to come out for vista and enable it...

 

Driver support for Vista is continually improving, especially video. The latest drivers for ATI are the Catalyst 7.2.

 

Notebook widescreen ratio is 16:10, not 16:9.

Currently the Catalyst drivers for Vista are extremely bugged. If you want to play your game the way you want so badly, install XP, ME, 2k, 98 or 95 on your HD and play them from there.

The Vista drivers are so bad for me that my machine just restarts whenever I try to install them, so I'm still using the stock drivers that came with Vista Business, which has an absolutely rubbish version of Catalyst Control Center that doesn't allow me to enable hardware acceleration through my VGA port.