Home » SIRTECH CLASSICS » Jagged Alliance 2 » JA2 Technical Department » Nvidia 4:3 tweak for widescreen monitors
| Nvidia 4:3 tweak for widescreen monitors[message #234451]
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Mon, 05 October 2009 12:14 
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 hal900x |
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Messages:64
Registered:August 2009 |
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Nvidia drivers used to have an option to force scaling to a fixed aspect ratio on the GPU, overriding the scaler in your widescreen monitor and letting you play your 4:3 games in their original aspect, with black bars on either side in fullscreen mode. This option was buggy as hell, rarely worked, and was finally removed in an acknowledgment of failure by Nvidia.
I searched and searched for tricks to make this driver option work, and failed miserably until now. I just found a set of strings, to be entered into the "Run" box on your Start Menu, which correspond to the four scaling options that used to exist. Now, I don't know if you need to run an older Nvidia driver (one that shows the aforementioned option) for this to work. Mine did have them, and I believe it's 182.08.
In the absence of a widescreen patch, I am overjoyed at finally playing Jagged Alliance 2 unstretched on my widescreen monitor. Here's the strings if you want to try it. I forget which string corresponds to which of the 4 scaling options, but I believe the last one (DA 5) worked for me. They are: Nvidia Scaling, Nvidia Scaling with Fixed Aspect (the one you want), Display Scaling, No Scaling.
rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg setscaling 0 DA 1
rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg setscaling 0 DA 2
rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg setscaling 0 DA 3
rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg setscaling 0 DA 5
I'd be interested to know if anyone else is able to get this to work.
[Updated on: Mon, 05 October 2009 12:40] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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| Re: Nvidia 4:3 tweak for widescreen monitors[message #234502]
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Tue, 06 October 2009 02:16 
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| Larynx |
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Messages:183
Registered:April 2003 |
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Hal900xNvidia drivers used to have an option to force scaling to a fixed aspect ratio on the GPU, overriding the scaler in your widescreen monitor and letting you play your 4:3 games in their original aspect, with black bars on either side in fullscreen mode. This option was buggy as hell, rarely worked, and was finally removed in an acknowledgment of failure by Nvidia.
There is a registry patch here which will give you that option again. I use it even with a 4:3 LCD monitor because the game gets stretched a bit vertically without it.
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Staff Sergeant
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| Re: Nvidia 4:3 tweak for widescreen monitors[message #234530]
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Tue, 06 October 2009 12:29
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| Starwalker |
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Messages:759
Registered:October 2005
Location: Hannover, Germany |
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Hal900xStarwalkerHal900xHowever, I am not pleased that NIV is unavailable in 640x480. Is this really necessary?
The resolution is too low at 640x480 to display all of the stuff that NIV needs to be displayed. It would need more than half of the tactical screen, and in the strategic screen there's not enough room left. So it was clear from the start that NIV would never be able to support 640x480.
So what if it covers everything up? It's not like you need to see anything else while you are viewing it. I can see if it overwrites the portrait area, IF that causes some kind of buffer overflow or whatever, then sure that's a hard limit. Otherwise, why not?
Back then, during the brainstorming phase, Headrock drew up lots of tactical interfaces, and people needed to get used to the fact that NIV already took that much space in 800x600. No one wanted their tactical screen cluttered with an inventory.
Basically, we were surprised how many people play on the tactical screen with the inventory /open/.
We could not do anything in 640x480 that would have pleased the community.
You will have to ask Headrock and ChrisL whether they want to make a 640x480 interface especially for you.
But if they do, and anyone else besides you sees what they have done, we'd get comments on how stupid it is to fill up the tactical screen so much! 
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| Re: Nvidia 4:3 tweak for widescreen monitors[message #235332]
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Sat, 17 October 2009 11:29
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| hal900x |
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Messages:64
Registered:August 2009 |
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I don't think I could bring myself to ask anyone who has done that much work to create an interface just for me. It's just that I play on an HDTV, that I am far away enough (and have crappy enough vision) that 640x480 is my resolution.
It is kind of annoying that it's all down to other's play styles, tho. I mean, I have it open fairly often, I suppose. But I would be perfectly happy needing to toggle it back and forth.
[Updated on: Sat, 17 October 2009 11:34] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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