Widescreen Gaming Forum

Well, I've tried a lot of different drivers, options, settings, etc.... And pillarboxing still doesn't work properly. I give up.

You are not the only one. :(
Overscan doesn't work for me either.

NVIDIA FIX THE DAMN DRIVER.

i've got a radeon x-800 that supports DVI, but no matter what i do, i can't get the use centered timings function to work. the only way i can get any sort of pillaring is when i go the the displays function in catalyst and force HDTV 1280 x 720, but that is the only resolution i change it to. very frustrating.



http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalystvm7.jpg

Yes

3007wfp 30inch 2560 x 1600 16:10

BFG 8800gtx 768mb

Works once the formentioned fix is applied with 169.04 beta drivers

There is currently a lot of misinformation in this thread. I'm going to try to clear some of it up...


First, ATI cards do not have support for native pillarboxing. "Use Centered Timings" simply hands the job off to your monitor, which may or may not support pillarboxing.

The most common 24" wide-screen is (I think) the Dell 2405FPW. This has several different editions/makes! Some (almost all) support pillarboxing (so if you choose "Use Centered Timings" in the ATI control panel, it will correctly pillarbox the image (for example, black bars with a resolution of 1600x1200).

The second-most common 24" widescreen is probably the Acer AL2416W or WS (or WD or WB -- there's a lot of them). As far as I know, none of the makes of this monitor support pillarboxing. This means if you select "Use Centered Timings" in the ATI control panel, the image will still be stretched.


Second, nVidia cards & drivers have native support for pillarboxing (or are supposed to). The option to select is "Use NVIDIA scaling with fixed aspect ratio". This will force black bars to be rendered on either side of a (for example) 1600x1200 image. Going back to my monitor examples, both the Acer and Dell 24" monitors would display a fixed aspect ratio with this selected.


Conclusions: If you have an ATI card and want 1:1 scaling ("pillarboxing"), you have to be picky about the monitor you use, and figuring out what supports and what doesn't support 1:1 scaling is going to require trial and error (or lots of online research). If you have an nVidia card, any monitor will do.

~~
For what it's worth, I have the Acer AL2416WD which does not support 1:1 scaling. I chose it over the Dell or Samsung 24" offerings because it has almost zero banding (which cannot be said for the Dell monitors especially). I originally had an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, and found out the hard way that it was impossible for me to fix the aspect ratio. When I upgraded, I bought an nVidia 8800 GTS largely for the ability to constrain the aspect ratio of games like Need for Speed.

Oh, and "Hi Guys!" (first post)

Yes Nvidia cards can and they do that in a large number of cases, but not all.
For some people it works, for some it doesn't. Fixes or no fixes.
Nvidia did something after release 97 or so that screwed this up. It took them several releases to "fix" it, and now it works for some, and for some it does not.

169. something Nov 12 07 date.

NEC20WMGX2,
7900GS. YES to pillarbox.

Guys please also mention your OS.

Yes, pillarboxing works.

WinXP x64 SP2

163.75 WHQL
169.09 beta

WinXP 32-bit SP2

163.75 WHQL
84.56 WHQL

7900GS 256MB
Samsung 226BW