[Minty Fresh]

I've been looking at getting one of the new 20" Cinema Displays. And I've looked on Apple's site, but cannot find an answer to my question. Anyways...what I was wondering was. Since the screens are setup in a widescreen format (16x9), what happens if you play a game (or movie), that only supports standard 4x3 format? Does it stretch it, or does it just center the picture (to where there are "black bars" on the left, and right), or is there a button/option to manually change it from 16x9 to 4x3? I'm mainly thinking of getting one for my gaming PC, so that's why it concerns me, because I don't want to play games that don't support 16x9, if the LCD will automatically stretch them to fit.

[magid]

When i watch non widescreen movies on my "old" cinema display there are just bars on the right and left. With games that dont support widescreen, im not too sure, i have only played halo and warcraft, both of which took up the whole screen, not sure if they were stretched or they were supported.

[Cadaver]

On my old 22" CInema, when I play a game at 1280x1024 or 1024x768, it leaves black bars at the sides. I find this preferable than if the image was stretched and distorted.
Many games, especially the first-person shooter types, have console interfaces where you could custom specify a widescreen resolution if you wanted.

Edit: on the Apple displays, there is no button to switch between widescreen and 4:3 (as per your question in the original post).

[Minty Fresh]

So if I were to play Doom 3 for instance (since it does not support 16x9...and set it to like 1280x1024 within the game itself...the screen would automatically center it (and not stretch it to fit)? Would Windows handle this different that OS X? Or does that not matter?

[subego]

I booted up Fallout last night on my new 20", just for giggles.

It had bars on the sides.

[Alan Flanary]

It will have bars on the sides. I have new 20" ACD and pay Call of Duty at 800 x 600 and have about a three inch vertical bar on each side, with the game centered on the screen.

[Hydra]

I guess there really aren't too many Mac gamers on these forums Most games based on the Quake 3 engine can be made to run wide-screen with a simple edit of the config file. I have the new 23" CD and had the older 20" before and I always play UT2k4 in widescreen. It looks gorgeous at 1920x1200 btw I also play Call of Duty and MohAA as well in wide-screen at that resolution (and yes there are no bars on the side). I do have a Radeon 9800 Pro so you may need to run a bit lower with a lesser card. The aspect ratio is altered in the config as well to avoid a stretched look.

Movies are a different story. A 4:3 movie isn't being rendered on the fly like a video game is so it will stay 4:3 unless you stretch it which is ugly. It is the same conundrum as buying a HDTV- regular broadcasts will have bars on the side. Hope this helps.

-Jerry C.

[Minty Fresh]

Yeah, I know about editing the width/height in the game config, as well as changing the FOV. But even though it makes it "fit" a widescreen...you still can see a bit of stretching. And...because a game is setup to render, and run at 4x3...and you widen it past that ratio...the textures will distort a little, because they are setup for 4x3.

But, at least I know it will center the picture. Thanks guys!

[Hydra]

Originally posted by Minty Fresh:
Yeah, I know about editing the width/height in the game config, as well as changing the FOV. But even though it makes it "fit" a widescreen...you still can see a bit of stretching.

But, at least I know it will center the picture. Thanks guys!

I don't think that is correct. Quake 3 based games, including COD and MOHAA change the aspect ratio to accommodate. The config changes include an aspect variable too. Did you change this as well? If it is stretching the image to fit I can't really see it.

seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customheight "1200"
seta r_customwidth "1920"
seta r_mode "-1"

The custom aspect part would not be necessary if it was just stretching the render to fit the wide-aspect. UT2k4 supports all Apple's wide aspects out of the box.

-Jerry C.

[pjmurphy]

Originally posted by Hydra:
I don't think that is correct. Quake 3 based games, including COD and MOHAA change the aspect ratio to accommodate. The config changes include an aspect variable too. Did you change this as well? If it is stretching the image to fit I can't really see it.

seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customheight "1200"
seta r_customwidth "1920"
seta r_mode "-1"

The custom aspect part would not be necessary if it was just stretching the render to fit the wide-aspect. UT2k4 supports all Apple's wide aspects out of the box.

-Jerry C.

hey there - I remember being able to go into Soldier of Fortune and changing the settings for my 20" Cinema - I now have the 23" and want to do the same with Call of Duty - where do I go into the settings and do this??

thanks

[Hydra]

I believe the cofig file is located in user/Library/Application Support/Call of Duty/. I'm at the office now but I'll check later when I get home.

-Jerry C.