1280 x 1024 looks squished

CaxusCaxus
edited February 2004 in Hardware
It seems like a lot of games today have a res option for 1280 x 1024 but not one for 1280 x 960. Since 1280 x 1024 is a 5:4 ratio instead of a standard 4:3 ratio is there some setting that will make it adapt and not look squished on a 4:3 screen? Or is that 5:4 setting for some other type of monitor? I know the squishing is only slight but its still very noticable to me. Thanks.

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Some monitors do BOTH well, and a more square RES distorts less horizontally and vertically if monitor is native to the squarer display. Then you take a monitor that converts 5:4 to 4:3 as it only knows 4:3 and you get a vertical and\or horizontal stretch. How can this be??? If monitor syncs to refresh ratios(they all do) and only knows 4:3 refresh ratios and has a pixel structure that is 4:3 only, then 5:4 gets distorted as it is converted to nearest 4:3 match. IF you take a 5:4 monitor that multisyncs and has dense enough pixel or cell map and fast enough circuit switching, you get a monitor that can change pic size and do 4:3 also if it designed to. That is why 5:4 is good, less distortion, but that is why monitors that can sync both ways are more expensive-- fast painting and fast display at very high densities are needed to do this, and that kind of smartness is more complex to do and more complex things cost more. Monitors that do this well can be $800.00 to $2,000.00 each depending on how they do this and how well they do this.

    The conversion from 5:4 to 4:3 results in pixel doubling(conversion from vector calcs to bitmaps will do this, and bottom line this is what is happening, plus the display devices limits as to how dense it can display and how it can resize a picture) at monitor if monitor does not know how to sync to both display kinds. To get a 1280x1024 to display fairly well on a monitor, set monitor to 1024x800 (to get precise ratio, you would need 1024X819) or as close to that as it can display. Going to lower res results in pixel dropouts, but that is for unaliased graphics. Antialiasing and FA compensate for missing data by averaging out changes over a bigger area of screen. 1024X768 is acceptable to many older monitors, and that will result in more pixel dropouts but AA and AF can compensate some for that if monitor is dense enough in pixels.

    John D.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited February 2004
    I run my games in 1280x1024 (when I can) and they don't look any more squished than 800x600, or 1024x768.
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