New widescreen monitor - Radeon 9600 - Flat Panel Scaling question.

[randwill]

I have a widescreen monitor for the first time and I want to see games in their original aspect ratio (4:3), not stretched abnormally across the wide screen. I understand that some video cards offer a Flat Panel Scaling option that will do this.

My card is a Radeon 9600 Atlantis by Sapphire. Does anyone know if this card supports this option and, if so, how do I access this feature?

 

[Tmagic650]

Do you have the Catalyst Control Center installed, and is your ATI video driver updated to the latest? You may be able to adjust the flat panel scaling through the CCC Advanced options

 

[randwill]

I haven't updated the driver since installation several years ago. Will an updated driver provide the ability to shape the screen to 4:3?

I do have the Catalyst Control Center installed (Version 05.8). On the "Displays" tab of that window I click on the upper left box (only one active) labeled "Monitor". There I see 3 tabs; "Attributes", "Adjustments" and "Advanced". The only one I understand enought to fool with is "Adjustments". In the "Screen Size" box, I found that I could bring the sides of the screen in by pushing the "-" sign, but only 5 times and that doesn't bring it in enough to achieve 4:3.

Can I change the Aspect Ratio with one of these controls or is there a more recent version of the CCC that works with my card to do this?

Thanks for the input.

 

[Tmagic650]

Update the ATI Driver along with the Catalyst Control Center software... I use the same video card, and while I don't see specific Scaling adjustments, there are many adjustment options in the Advanced CCC.

Get the Catalyst Software Suite version 7.10 here:

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

 

[randwill]

Well, the scaling adjustment is the only option I really need.

Anyway, I've downloaded it so I can look for myself. Is it necessary to uninstall all the current ATI driver and CCC before installing this newer version? If so, any tips on this procedure?

 

[Tmagic650]

The new driver will uninstall your ancient driver, and install the updated driver automatically. I really think you will find the Catalyst Advanced adjustments enough to satisfy your scaling needs

 

[randwill]

Okay the all-new Driver and CCC are installed but there's nothing here to help me. There is are "Scaling Options" instructions listed in the Help section but it applies only to Digital only. So I see no "Digital Panel (DVI)" under the "Graphics Settings" tree.

Plus, what's the deal with this new driver? Windows s-l-o-w-ly move, a piece at a time, when dragged across the desktop and menus take forever to pull down and load up with the type in them. I created a restore point so hopefully I can successfully roll back to that, but why is everything so crappy under this new driver? Shouldn't an updated driver improve performance instead of degrade it to near unusability? I'm missing something here for sure.

 

[randwill]

Wait a minute. Should I be using the DIGITAL cable and DIGITAL ports on my card and monitor?

 

[Tmagic650]

The 9600 has a VGA and a DVI output. I'm running a Sony SDM-M81 LCD monitor using the DVI connection. If you are only able to run using the VGA connection, the advanced settings won't be available. Your PC is old. The motherboard/memory and CPU might not be able to take advantage of the new ATI drivers. As I said, I am running a Radeon 9600XT 256MB board using the Catalyst 7.10 driver. I have no problems with this setup. I have 1GB of system memory and a OC'd 3.8GHz Intel CPU

 

[Tmagic650]

Wait a minute. Should I be using the DIGITAL cable and DIGITAL ports on my card and monitor?

Yes, if you can...

 

[randwill]

After I posted I realized that I can't use the digital stuff because this keyboard, mouse and monitor are all linked to 2 other computers, besides this one, which they share and the KVM device is analog and one of the computers is an old Mac G3 so I doubt it's possible and it's starting to make my head hurt anyway.

You are probably right about the incompatability of the new drivers with this older motherboard and processor. I used System Restore to put me back before the new drivers, so I'm okay.

Since it doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to use the cards functionality to achieve 4:3 for games, are there other Windows XP system options? Is it possible to run games in re-sized windows or something?