V4000t - How do you play 800x600 games?

Hey guys. I'm trying to play a game in 800x600 on my Compaq V4000t, but the screen keeps expanding out too far and blurs all the graphics. You'll notice the screen blurs even if you switch the display on the desktop to 800x600. How can I keep the 800x600 resolution without everything becoming blurry? I know I can do it because I used to have an old PC with a 15 inch monitor and 800x600 didn't look blurry on that. Thanks for the help!

- John

 

Yup, I have the exact same problem with the "Instant Immersion Japanese" software. It "forces" full-screen mode at 800x600 and so everything looks quite horizontally stretch (v4000t has a widescreen display)..


Who is to blame? The maker of the software.. Either they should have allowed an option in the menu to for the application to start with the D3DDevice Initialization set in "Windowed" mode.. OR they could have supported more than one resolution.. The software company did neither, and us users end up suffering..
Only thing you can do about it is hook the laptop up to an external monitor and complain to the maker of the software... (Of course, they won't fix it if its an old game.. But language teaching software that they release new veresions of every couple of years has my hopes up high!)..


Keep in mind, that some games like Warcraft III will not allow you to use widescreen resolutions because it might give you an advantage (or disadvantage) over other players.. The Warcraft III Resolution mode selection scales up, but you always see the same content as you would at lower resolutions (of course, it is more pretty at higher res). So people with big high resolution monitors see no more of a battle than those with tiny 14" screens... Pretty nifty if I do say so myself.. Some games like Red Alert and Total Annihilation allowed people to buy 21" monitors.. And those people would see MUCH more of the battlefield.. And thus have a significant advantage to those who have to keep scrolling everywhere to see the same..

First Person Shooters, its pretty much inavoidable. People with higher resolutions and larger monitors will always have the advantage because there is so much depth, you'll notice things that are farther away much easier with a bigger screen.

If the option isn't in the configuration/menu of the game, and you don't have the source code of the program to edit the Direct3D/DirectDraw initialization of the device.. Then there isn't anything you can do.

Literally, its a one-line edit to the source code... Pure stupidity on the maker of the software.. Adjusting the Desktop resolution DOES NOTHING if the software is a DirectX game.. The program will initalize its own resolution and screen options. There is no way to change this without the source code.

 

Isn't there a setting in display properties to adjust how non-native resolutions are displayed? At least on my 6600 you can either tell it to center the display or at least keep the correct aspect ratio. I'm pretty sure I remember the ATI control panel having a similar option.

 

Well I'll be darned.. A solution at the driver level...
You're absolutely right.. my bad..

Right Click on Desktop -> Settings Tab -> Advanced -> Displays -> Double click on the word "Panel" -> Click "Expand while maintaining aspect ratio"

 

Unfortunately I have already tried that, but the screen is still very blurry when I do that. Should 800x600 look blurry if it fills the entire screen with black bars on the sides? Indeed, the game looks like **** in 800x600 and I don't think that it is right.

For example, try playing a first person shooter game one day. First, play at 1024x768. Then play at 800x600. Yeah, your going to see less of the playing area in 800x600, but its not going to look really blurry.

Any ideas?

- John

 

It might still be scaling the image to at least fill as much of the screen as possible, while preserving the correct aspect ratio.

Check if there is a way to center the display, using the correct amount of pixels that matches your native display. That's the only thing I can think of to get rid of the blur, but it would probably look too small. I don't remember the ati control panel very well, but here is what it looks like on mine:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/screamxwithxme/display.jpg


Maybe you could also try using a different monitor?