4:3 pillarboxing with LCD lacking 1:1 pixel mapping?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 20 May 2007, 10:27

Hi,
My LCD doesn't support 1:1 pixel mapping AFAIK. Is there any way to get software-based 4:3 pillarboxing with the Nvidia Forceware drivers or something?

My screen is a Samsung 226BW, my vid card is a NV7900GS running Forceware v94.24. OS is XP x64.

Thanks in advance.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 20 May 2007, 11:03

Are those the drivrs with the new control panel? In the older ones it's nView Display Settings > Device Settings > Device Adjustments for scaling.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 20 May 2007, 11:16

Thanks! That's done the trick.

BTW the classic control panel was never removed from the later drivers and is still useable. In fact v94.24 lacks the new CP altogether cuz it was buggy.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 20 May 2007, 11:22

Forgot about that, I went back to the 80's at highspeed.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 20 May 2007, 23:37

This is probably a really stupid question but to get 4:3 pillar boxing on a WS monitor can't you just choose the highest 4:3 aspect ratio the monitor/graphics card support, no?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 May 2007, 01:23

bradavon wrote:This is probably a really stupid question but to get 4:3 pillar boxing on a WS monitor can't you just choose the highest 4:3 aspect ratio the monitor/graphics card support, no?

The problem is in getting it to maintain the aspect ratio once you've set it to a 4:3/5:4 resolution. Before I enabled the scaling 4:3 resolutions were horizontally stretched to 16:10.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 21 May 2007, 10:46

ATI doesn't support pillarboxing at the moment.
Well... they do but it doesn't really work yet.

If you want black bars on the sides, you need either:
-an NVidia GFX card.
-an HP widescreen monitor (they're rubbish, but they support hardware pillarboxing).

Just FYI.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 May 2007, 12:14

tom2681 wrote:ATI doesn't support pillarboxing at the moment.
Well... they do but it doesn't really work yet.

There goes my plans of considering a 2900.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 21 May 2007, 18:16

Oh yeah I forgot about that. I'd like to do this to for testing web pages. I have a Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 but when I choose a 4:3 aspect ratio it stretches it to 16:10.

What do I need to overcome this? I have the latest drivers from Toshiba, if I install the "apparently" one-for-all Nvidia ones they fall over saying something like no supported card found (despite the 7300 being in the list on the website).

I don't have anything like the option above. I guess it's because I'm running Vista and the drives are a bit basic, so I'm stuffed. I couldn't it on my old XP PC either (same monitor) but that had an ATI card which would explain that too.

All I can literally adjust is: Desktop colours, Rotation (what a useless function) and enabling/disabling multi-monitors. That's it. Oh and some 3D features too.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 22 May 2007, 13:32

Tom, ATi have a fixed aspect scaling option too.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 24 May 2007, 14:50

I know. It's called "centered timings".
But it doesn't do anything at the moment.

I'm sure they'll fix it eventually.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 May 2007, 17:52

Can you get third party drivers to force 4:3 Pillar boxing?

I wouldn't need it very often but considering you need to design websites for 4:3 it would be useful to test when I make website changes.

Microsoft Expression Web (and the older FrontPage) do offer some attempt at emulating a 4:3 ratio but it doesn't get it quite correct when checking the site on my Dad's 4:3 LCD.