Aspect Ratio Correction

[Chaosenemy]

There are some games I play that lag like no other unless I play them on a low resolution like 800x600. I have a widescreen monitor, so when I play these games, everything is stretched which is pretty irritating.

I have an ATI Radeon x1600 graphics card and I tried looking for an aspect ratio fix or something in the control center, but I didn't find anything. Also my monitor doesn't seem to allow me to adjust anything but the V and H position.

So, is there any way to fix the aspect ratio so that it actually displays the game properly?

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

run it at a small widescreen resolution like 800×480

 

[Chaosenemy]

But if it doesn't support resolutions that small natively, things won't look right. I remember trying to force a certain resolution in Halo a long time ago and my field of vision got really messed up and half my hud didn't appear on the screen.

 

[MikeReiner]

800x600 isn't a wide screen resolution though.
Most wide screen LCDs can only run one wide screen resolution: The native one.
Since your graphics card is too slow to do that, you're pretty much stuck at low resolutions that aren't wide screen. So your gonna have to either get a new graphics card, or get a 4:3 monitor.

 

[Kage]

Some games support tweaks to allow a different resolution than they are meant to play, so depending on the game, it may be possible to do this.

If your monitor supports the feature, you can sometimes force them to run in 4:3 mode, that put bars either side (but it seems yours does not)

If not, some video drivers allow you to do exactly the same thing, though some monitors may only allow you to set this when running in VGA mode.
If you are running from DVI, you may have problems, and it may not work at all.

I'm pretty sure the latest ATI drivers have options for aspect ratios.

For instance, I have a widescreen too, and some games don't support it as I say, but there are usually fixes, and or ways of getting around it.
My drivers don't allow me to have a 4:3 black bar though, because I'm running from DVI, which is actually less changeable than the VGA mode is.