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ATI Widescreen Scaling - Hope!!

post #1 of 30
10/5/04 at 12:59am
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone...

I've been looking at the topic of widescreen scaling... as it's one of the biggest concerns people have when buying a widescreen laptop. Although most games have ways of supporting widescreen aspect ratios, many are not easy to set. Plus there are thousands that don't have any support for wide screen.

The best solution would be to have support in the video driver. As many of your know, ATI's drivers seem to lack the feature to stetch the image while maintaining the aspect ratio. Not only that, many times the image isn't stretched properly to fit the screen, even when it tries to scale the image.

The solution?
A.) Wait for ATI to publicly release the feature in their drivers (they aren't).
B.) Use the hidden feature that has always been there

As far as option A, ATI is releasing support in their new X600 and X800 mobile chipsets, calling it LCD-EE. The question is why doesn't the current chips support this already? The answer is, they do.

On to option B. ATI does support this feature, although it's not easy to get working. ATI first introduced this feature in the Rage Pro chip back in 1998, calling it Ratiometric Expansion. So where has it gone? And why? My answer, I don't know? It makes no since as people are buying nVidia chips since they DO support the feature! Why not just provide the feature? Is it to sell more X600 and X800 mobile chips?!?!


Now onto the information. There has been quite a few places I have seen that show the option, generally with the 9600 pro turbo mobility chip, and the Catalyst drivers. For those who don't already know, you can't just install the Catalyst drivers on a laptop running a mobility chip. You can instead use the drivers from your manufacture, the Omega drivers, or use a tool such as DH Mod Tool. Since I have already tried the Omega drivers I'll try the DH Mod Tool. My testing will be done on a couple versions of the Catalyst drivers (4.7, 4.8, 4.9...), and my Sager 3790... before I RMA it

Since this will take me a little time to play with, I'll give you a chance to look at some of the information I found...
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1333138060
http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?t=53679
http://www.opentechsupport.net/forum...ad.php?t=28853
plus some others... mostly pointing to these.

Now add some elevator music while I download and test...
<da da de... de dum da da de... da de daaaa.... de dum da de....>
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post #2 of 30
10/5/04 at 2:10am
Personally I've never had to change any settings for any game or program I run due to my widescreen.
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post #3 of 30
10/5/04 at 2:18am
In my 8600 i had for 21 days, there was an option in the bios that stated whether to stretch to fit the screen, or display only the amount of pixels with out stretching. Not sure how the sager is, I'd kind of assumed there would be such an option. There was a problem/flaw in the dells setting of this. From information i gathered on forums, it appears nvidia uses a software solution for scaling, but Ati uses hardware. I guess the hardware didn't compensate for uxga screens (Eg stretching 1600x1200 to 1920x1200) because it would not scale them to fit, but only leave black stripes on the side of the screen. Even dell said it was hardware and they couldn't fix it. That was a 9600pro fyi, similar card. Anyway, hope this aids you in your journey for a solid solution.
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post #4 of 30
10/5/04 at 3:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjb
In my 8600 i had for 21 days, there was an option in the bios that stated whether to stretch to fit the screen, or display only the amount of pixels with out stretching. Not sure how the sager is, I'd kind of assumed there would be such an option.
ati has this option in display settings...
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post #5 of 30
10/5/04 at 4:24am
This works on my MR9600PT, so it might work for you guys too. Of course, it could also be a feature of the Dell driver.

1). Go to "Display Properties"
2). Select the "Settings" tab
3). Click the "Advanced" button
4). Out of the many available tabs (I have three rows), select the one that says "Displays" (mine has the ATi logo in front of it)
5). Click the button that says "Panel"
6). Under "Panel Attributes", I have the option "Expand while maintaining aspect ratio"
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post #6 of 30
10/5/04 at 4:55am
Wooster, I'm running on Omega Driver (4.5 Cat) on the 3790, I don't see that. I only see ONE option when I followed through with your steps. "Scale Image to Panel Size" That's all I see.
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post #7 of 30
10/5/04 at 9:51am
tagged for later...

*Crossing fingers*
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post #8 of 30
10/5/04 at 10:25am
I'm running the newest Omega drivers (based on the 4.10 beta catalysts) I also don't have the option that wooster mentions.

I'm also experiencing the same problems...
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post #9 of 30
10/5/04 at 11:09am
I do NOT think this is something that resides in the drivers (I think all the ATI drivers support this feature)....however, i think it is something that has to be enables in the ATI bios.

Scotty
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post #10 of 30
10/5/04 at 12:38pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I've tried all of the standard Catalyst drivers from ATI's site, 4.7 through 4.9 and none of them offer the feature...

As people have suggested, here and on other forums, it most likely is a BIOS feature enabled on the video card. The 9600 Pro Turbo mobility chips seem to have this feature, and are not specifically dependant on the driver installed.

In these case, we need to look for the following...
A.) A hacked BIOS for any chip that's not a 9600 Pro Turbo mobility
B.) A software way to force this feature on, enabling the option in ATI's control panel.

I'd prefer option B because it would allow everyone to use the feature. If it is tied to hardware support, and only the 9600 Pro Turbo chips have it, then a software based feature similar to nVidia would be a good solution.

I'll keep looking around...
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post #11 of 30
10/5/04 at 12:40pm
Thread Starter 
Wooster, I would like to know what registry setting is changed when you enable the option... Do you know how to use Regedit?

Also, what version of the Catalyst drivers are you using? If you install the Omega drivers, do you still have the option?
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post #12 of 30
10/5/04 at 12:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atragon
I'm running the newest Omega drivers (based on the 4.10 beta catalysts) I also don't have the option that wooster mentions.

I'm also experiencing the same problems...
How in the world did you managed to instal the latest Omega Driver?! I tried the 4.8 and 4.9 catalyst based Omega Drivers and they all gave me black screens right after the reboot... I haven't tried the 4.10 yet, but I'd assume it to be the same.
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post #13 of 30
10/5/04 at 2:25pm
Thread Starter 
Um.. I just install them Even though they don't say you have to, I still always uninstall all my old drivers by going through the Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel. Also, ATI has an uninstall tool available on their site. I think they give you a link somewhere on their driver download page.

I found another interesting fact here:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...sage.id=112533

It seems it could be based off of a hardware limitation that has to do with what resolutions ATI's scaler supports. Does anyone with a WSXGA+ screen have the scale while maintaining aspect ratio option? XClaude? However, it would seem odd that they did something with the 9600 Pro Turbo chips. I would bet it more has to do with something in the BIOS. No matter the case, ATI could always add a software based option... and I'm hoping they do.
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post #14 of 30
10/5/04 at 2:51pm
I think you have to uninstall your previous video driver to install a new one
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post #15 of 30
10/5/04 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hex2bit
Wooster, I would like to know what registry setting is changed when you enable the option... Do you know how to use Regedit?

Also, what version of the Catalyst drivers are you using? If you install the Omega drivers, do you still have the option?
I don't know how to use Regedit, but if its not too hard, I can learn.

Also, I'm using Dell's driver. I tried the Omegas, but it seemed to slow my card down. I didn't have it installed long enough to mess with that particular setting.
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post #16 of 30
10/5/04 at 9:09pm
^^

We are making progress!!
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post #17 of 30
10/5/04 at 9:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FuFu
Personally I've never had to change any settings for any game or program I run due to my widescreen.
same here.. everything runs and looks perfect for me..
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post #18 of 30
10/6/04 at 2:06am
Thread Starter 
FuFu... what laptop do you run? Is it WSXGA?

ianpantz... yours is WSXGA... and it scales everything correct right?


First question, does it have the scale while maintaining aspect ratio option with generic drivers like the Omega?

Second, could you go through all of the resolutions available in Windows, under display setttings, and see if ALL of them scale correctly. This means the aspect ratio is kept, and there are black borders on the top/bottom only, left/right only, or none at all when the aspect ratio fits. Do any of the resolutions scale incorrectly or leave black borders around the whole image top/bottom/left/right?

If this does turn out to be a limitation in ATI's hardware scaler, due to resolution, I might (only a little bit) consider getting a WSXGA rather than the WUXGA. However, I'd regret getting the lower resolution if ATI does come out with a solution. The WUXGA will scale soo nicely once it is implemented correctly
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post #19 of 30
10/6/04 at 5:05am
hex2bit,

I am waiting for you to solve the video scaling problem before I purchasing from PCT. Keep up the good work!

DolphinNB
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post #20 of 30
10/6/04 at 5:17am

Widescreen scaling...

Perhaps we need to clarify that there are a few options here:

1) scale a 4:3 image to 16:9(ish) ratio
2) display a 4:3 image on a 16:9ish panel
3) display a 16:9 image on a 19:9ish panel

Option 1 means that the image has been stretched - sometimes looks ok, but sometimes it will look bad. Option 2 means you get black bars on the SIDES of the screen - wastes alot of screen space. Option 3 is the best - your using all your display and everything is in the right ratio.

Now, I normally go for option 3 where possible. Not all games support this - some you can "hack" their settings (like Doom 3). If the game is not stretch sensitive, option 1 is the go. Option 2 is a bit of a last resort.

One game I CANNOT get to work in option 1 or 2 is Perimeter (on an 8790 WSXGA+). If I try to up the 4:3 image resolution with or without scaling I end up with the bottom of the screen being lost. Any ideas?
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