[RESOLVED] Aspect ratio issue

[Gildahl]

I have a widescreen LCD monitor (16:10, 1920x1200) in my new arcade cab with a 4:3 bezel in front of it. Emulators such as MAME work fine on this, correctly adjusting their aspect ratio to fit within the 4:3 space (i.e. black bars on the sides). I am having a frustrating problem, though, trying to get GameEx to size itself to this 4:3 aspect ratio. I thought this would be a simple matter, but its not. So I'm looking for some assistance.

First off, I'm aware that one solution could be to simply run a theme having a 4:3 resolution (such as 1024x768 or 1600x1200); but unfortunately, this changes the actual monitor resolution, and my monitor always stretches these. So for this--and a few other reasons--I want to keep the monitor in its native 1920x1200 resolution.

Here are some of the ways I have tried to solve this--but none have been completely successful. If anyone has any other ideas, or if a "fix" could be offered, it would be greatly appreciated.

1. In my first attempt to address this I tried modifying my 1920x1200 theme to resize/move all of the frames to fit within a central 4:3 (1600x1200) area. This actually works really well--to a point. The problem is that there are some things in the theme whose size/placement I can't seem to change. These include the status window, manual/pdf display, and CP Wizard screen. In each case, these items are always stretched to the full 1920 width. If there were any way to set the dimensions/placement of these items I could fix this, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this.

2. Another option (one that works in Hyperspin) would be for Windowed mode to respect dimensions set in the configuration wizard as a window size (rather than a resolution), and to display GameEx in this window without a border/title bar. This would allow me to simply set a window size of 1600x1200 which would cause GameEx to be displayed in a window of that size in the center of the screen. As it is now, GameEx permits me to run in a window and to manually resize the window; but the fact that the window has a border makes the solution less than optimal. If an option to remove the window border and set the window to be topmost, i think that might be an adequate fix.

3. The most ideal solution would be to do what the emulators do. An option to set an aspect ratio in GameEx would be present, and once set, this aspect ratio would be respected in whatever resolution the machine is running in (displaying black bars as appropriate). This would enable GameEx to be run in any custom aspect ratio in full screen mode independent of the resolution.

[Draco1962]

Would you mind providing us a copy of your gameex.ini? Also, under Display Settings within the Setup Wizard, how do you have it set for "Don' switch resolution" and X Res / Y Res?

[Gildahl]

Would you mind providing us a copy of your gameex.ini? Also, under Display Settings within the Setup Wizard, how do you have it set for "Don' switch resolution" and X Res / Y Res?

I used the "Don't switch resolution switch" and it works correctly and as one would expect. If it's off, GameEx uses my native resolution of 1920x1200 and if it's on it uses the X Res and Y Res settings (such as 1600x1200). That's not the issue though. The issue is that when an alternate resolution (such as 1600x1200) is chosen my monitor stretches the image to the full width of my monitor rather than preserve that resolution's 4:3 aspect ratio.

Strictly speaking, one could say that my problem is not GameEx, but my monitor's inability to force a 1:1 pixel ratio when not running in its native resolution. If my monitor was able to do this (as many are) this wouldn't be an issue. However, widescreen stretching is a semi-common issue with some widescreen monitors (especially slightly older ones like mine) and it would be nice if there was some way that one could specify that GameEx run in a fixed aspect ratio independently of the screen resolution as this is what most emulators such as MAME do. This would be nice, even on a monitor that does support forcing 1:1 pixel ratios since it would allow these monitors to be kept in their optimal/native resolutions.

[Draco1962]

What OS and GPU do you use?

[Gildahl]

What OS and GPU do you use?

OS is XP, GPU is ATI X300. Note that the GPU driver does not support aspect ratio correction (force to 4:3) capabilities, so there's no work around there.

[Draco1962]

Does that include when used in conjunction with the Catalyst Control Center? You may also want to check out this article on TweakGuides.com. ATI Tray Tools may have some additional options to allow for better scaling control and per game ratio selection.

Keep in mind I am mainly googling this stuff as I am not real familiar with the ATI Radeon line of GPUs. (I work mostly with nVidia so am more familiar with the line and applications (ForceWare).

[Gildahl]

Does that include when used in conjunction with the Catalyst Control Center? You may also want to check out this article on TweakGuides.com. ATI Tray Tools may have some additional options to allow for better scaling control and per game ratio selection.

Keep in mind I am mainly googling this stuff as I am not real familiar with the ATI Radeon line of GPUs. (I work mostly with nVidia so am more familiar with the line and applications (ForceWare).

I'm actually very familiar with ATI (and nVidia) equipment and drivers and know for certain that my particular combination of monitor and GPU driver is literally not capable of displaying 4:3 resolutions (such as 1024x768 or 1600x1200) without stretching (i.e. it will not show black bars in those resolutions). This is a known and documented limitation of this particular hardware. For example, my Dell 2407WFP with firmware A02 is clearly documented to not support 1:1 pixel ratios for analog/VGA inputs -- athough later firmware versions (not user upgradable) apparently added this capability. The GPU driver is not the issue since it supports black bars on other monitors; just not this one.

This is not an issue at all for most emulators (like MAME) running on this monitor because they compute their aspect ratio relative to whatever the current resolution is set to (i.e. one could say that they generate their own "virtual" black bars), allowing aspect ratio and resolution to vary independently and not rely on hardware or resolution switching (I'm pretty familiar with this since I personally added this capability to the Win32 version of the Atari800 emulator--which previously lacked this capability--in order to give it the abiltiy to display correctly on widescreen HD TVs). So while I don't regard this as a "bug" in GameEx, it is a "limitation" that is preventing me from using it with this particular hardware. So my only alternative is to either use different hardware or to lobby for a solution in GameEx for this.

So to summarize the most fundamental points, I'm just looking for a way for GameEx to display at a 4:3 aspect ratio while in a widescreen resolution.

I realize this might be a niche request, but I wanted to see what was possible before seeking solutions that require $$. I should also remark that this would likely be useful to other folks with bezeled cabs and widescreen monitors, even if their hardware supports 1:1 or forced 4:3 aspect ratios, since it would avoid needless resolution switching (which is so 90's)!

[Draco1962]

At this point I will defer this to Tom and Ben. I am not sure if this can be done through GameEx, or, if so, at what cost to other aspects of the frontend.

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks for the post and support. This should really be a feature request. Its not a bug as such.

Cheers.

Tom.

[Gildahl]

Thanks for the post and support. This should really be a feature request. Its not a bug as such.

Cheers.

Tom.

I agree. It is a feature request and definitely not a bug. Thanks for your time!

[Gildahl]

This issue is now resolved.

I used PowerStrip -- a software utility from EnTech -- to adjust my display. I encounered this utility a few years ago when I was setting up my HTPC, but had forgotten about it. It is capable of producing VGA timings that the standard driver can't, this enabled me to scrunch the 1600x1200 resolution (which was being stretched) back into its proper 4:3 aspect ratio to fit within my bezel.

[Draco1962]

Glad to see you found a solution! Thanks for sharing!