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re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 2:50 pm Posted by Bob B (1139 messages posted) Why don't you experiment? On Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 2:16 pm, J wrote: >I have a dell Inspiron 8100 laptop and everytime I try to play any game the resolution >on my monitor refuses to change and I have black space around the video window. >ex: my resolution is 1024x800 and when a 640x480 game launches, the monitor will >stay at 1024 x 800 with a small screen in the middle and lots of black space around >the image. I have tried adjusting my monitor settings with no luck. Is this something >I have to change manually before I start the game or could it be an issue with my >nvidia Geforce2go video card? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 3:37 pm Posted by 666 (2255 messages posted) right-click the game icon, click properties, and set the resolution in the compatibility mode tab [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 3:47 pm Posted by Ricer46 (22013 messages posted) Second one of these today, it's the way LCD's work. They really want to run at their design resolution, so 640x480 only uses the central pixels. LCD's do an awful job of interpolation to other resolutions, so they typically just don't do it at all. If you change the display resoltion for Windows to 640x480 (although obviously it would make no sense to do so) you'll get the same result. This problem most often crops up when a user buys an 1152x864 display and then tries to run it at 1024x768 to make the text bigger - it doesn't work. On Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 2:16 pm, J wrote: >I have a dell Inspiron 8100 laptop and everytime I try to play any game the resolution >on my monitor refuses to change and I have black space around the video window. >ex: my resolution is 1024x800 and when a 640x480 game launches, the monitor will >stay at 1024 x 800 with a small screen in the middle and lots of black space around >the image. I have tried adjusting my monitor settings with no luck. Is this something >I have to change manually before I start the game or could it be an issue with my >nvidia Geforce2go video card? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 11:34 pm Posted by jagged ben (3536 messages posted) And the second time today you've overstated. I have the same computer as this guy and I don't have the problems he has. Games work beautifully on my computer at 1024x768. On Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 3:47 pm, Ricer46 wrote: >Second one of these today, it's the way LCD's work. They really want to run at their >design resolution, so 640x480 only uses the central pixels. LCD's do an awful job >of interpolation to other resolutions, so they typically just don't do it at all. > >If you change the display resoltion for Windows to 640x480 (although obviously it >would make no sense to do so) you'll get the same result. > >This problem most often crops up when a user buys an 1152x864 display and then tries >to run it at 1024x768 to make the text bigger - it doesn't work. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 11:36 pm Posted by jagged ben (3536 messages posted) All I can say with the info you've given is that on my 8100 I restart when I have this problem and it goes away. It only happens occasionally, and only if I've woken up from standby. Is this problem particular to certain game? On Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 2:16 pm, J wrote: >I have a dell Inspiron 8100 laptop and everytime I try to play any game the resolution >on my monitor refuses to change and I have black space around the video window. >ex: my resolution is 1024x800 and when a 640x480 game launches, the monitor will >stay at 1024 x 800 with a small screen in the middle and lots of black space around >the image. I have tried adjusting my monitor settings with no luck. Is this something >I have to change manually before I start the game or could it be an issue with my >nvidia Geforce2go video card? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Monday, June 9, 2003 at 7:42 am Posted by Ricer46 (22013 messages posted) There have been a substantial number of articles written on this subject. I have seen the interpolated images, they look like crap on an LCD. On Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 11:34 pm, jagged ben wrote: >And the second time today you've overstated. I have the same computer as this guy >and I don't have the problems he has. Games work beautifully on my computer at 1024x768. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Monday, June 9, 2003 at 8:11 am Posted by Ricer46 (22013 messages posted) You might want to read these and learn something about the Native Resolution of LCDs: http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,2579017,00.html http://compreviews.about.com/library/weekly/aa-lcdspecs.htm http://www.idg.net.nz/pcworld/tipworld.nsf/0/C2103A6E6D2C7AFCCC256C8C00727A5C?opendocument http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1016-8-8798084-4.html On Sunday, June 8, 2003 at 11:34 pm, jagged ben wrote: >And the second time today you've overstated. I have the same computer as this guy >and I don't have the problems he has. Games work beautifully on my computer at 1024x768. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Monday, June 9, 2003 at 9:15 pm Posted by jagged ben (3536 messages posted) What's the point of this now? Reading a bunch of articles is supposed to make me disbelieve my own eyes? Regardless of whether the Windows Desktop looks like crap on an LCD screen that isn't at it's native resolution, that has nothing to do with the original subject of this thread. The poster should be able to get his game to run on his whole screen, and it shouldn't look bad. On Monday, June 9, 2003 at 8:11 am, Ricer46 wrote: >You might want to read these and learn something about the Native Resolution of LCDs: > >http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,2579017,00.html >http://compreviews.about.com/library/weekly/aa-lcdspecs.htm >http://www.idg.net.nz/pcworld/tipworld.nsf/0/C2103A6E6D2C7AFCCC256C8C00727A5C?opendocument >http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1016-8-8798084-4.html > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: laptop monitor setting leaves black space around screen! Monday, June 9, 2003 at 10:26 pm Posted by Ricer46 (22013 messages posted) Native Resolution has everything to do with the original thread. If the Native Res is used and the game is programmed for 640x480, you get the black border with the small display. If you force it to full screen, the display looks fuzzy and generally just ugly. That's what all of these articles are stating. I did not make it up, nor exaggerate the problem. Now if the Native Resolution of your display is 1280x1024, you can probably get a good image, since no interpolation is required , 640x480 doubled is 1280x960, which I guess would leave two small bands of black32 pixels high at the top and bottom. But if the Native Resolution is 1024x768, there is simply no way to make 640x480 look good on an LCD. On Monday, June 9, 2003 at 9:15 pm, jagged ben wrote: >What's the point of this now? Reading a bunch of articles is supposed to make me >disbelieve my own eyes? > >Regardless of whether the Windows Desktop looks like crap on an LCD screen that >isn't at it's native resolution, that has nothing to do with the original subject >of this thread. The poster should be able to get his game to run on his whole screen, >and it shouldn't look bad. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum