Posted December 07, 2013
Okay, 1280x800 is 16:10 and 1680x1050 is 16:10, so from that, the 1280x800 resolution should be able to fill the screen of a 1680x1050 monitor as it has the same aspect ratio.
However, when I try to use 1280x800 I get a letterboxed image. The screen is stretched to the left and right, but not to the top and bottom. (For reference, my only reason for using 1280x800 is in trying to eke out a little extra performance in gaming from my now 6 year old machine). This letterboxing appears in the desktop and in games.
To investigate further I decided to go into my GPU control panel (I have an nvidia GTX260). If I customize the view then I can get a preview of what the screen image will look like. There are three options for scaling - aspect ratio, fullscreen and no scaling. I've attached screenshots of these different settings.
The first one, using aspect ratio, shows that the 1280x800 resolution leaves the top and bottom with black bars (letterboxed). But why?
The second one, no scaling, gives an identical letterboxing.
The third one, fullscreen, shows it filling the screen as desired.
So, any ideas as to why 1280x800 does not fill a 1680x1050 16:10 monitor screen by default? Is it, by any chance, a non-square pixel resolution?
However, when I try to use 1280x800 I get a letterboxed image. The screen is stretched to the left and right, but not to the top and bottom. (For reference, my only reason for using 1280x800 is in trying to eke out a little extra performance in gaming from my now 6 year old machine). This letterboxing appears in the desktop and in games.
To investigate further I decided to go into my GPU control panel (I have an nvidia GTX260). If I customize the view then I can get a preview of what the screen image will look like. There are three options for scaling - aspect ratio, fullscreen and no scaling. I've attached screenshots of these different settings.
The first one, using aspect ratio, shows that the 1280x800 resolution leaves the top and bottom with black bars (letterboxed). But why?
The second one, no scaling, gives an identical letterboxing.
The third one, fullscreen, shows it filling the screen as desired.
So, any ideas as to why 1280x800 does not fill a 1680x1050 16:10 monitor screen by default? Is it, by any chance, a non-square pixel resolution?
This question / problem has been solved by DreadMoth
