Instruments missing with 1440 x 900 monitor

[Yossarian]

Hi, I just got an HP w1907v monitor today, and am currently running everything at the resolution of 1440 x 900.  I have an NVidia GeForce FX5200, and in-game everything looks superb.  However, I've noticed that some instruments which I used to be able to see easily from the default cockpit view of aircraft such as the Spitfire, I now have to hit F8 and look down to see those instruments.  For example, in the F6F, I can no longer see my airspeed indicator without looking down, and in the Spitfire I can't see my ammo counter without looking down.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get around this, and so that I can see these instruments again without having to look down?

Also, here's a screenshot of what the text I see looks like (also please note that the "damaged parts" list has overflowed onto two columns):


Sorry about the messed up colours, I was trying to get it down from a bit under 5MB so it would fit on imageshack.

Thanks in advance,
<S>

Yossarian

[Motherland]

Aces High does not have widescreen support- thus, on a widescreen resolution, the top and bottom have to be cut off.

How big is the monitor? 1440x900 is a really weird resolution...

[Skuzzy]

Aces High does not have widescreen support- <snip>

This is not accurate.  The game will run at any resolution the video card will support.  The game runs at a 4:3 aspect ratio to prevent distortion of the image.

[Yossarian]

So is there any way I can see those instruments again...?

<S>

Yossarian

[Krusty]

Map a key to forward-down and hit it when you want the instruments, move head position BACK (sometimes this gives more view on instruments) or use some type of track IR or view pan to see them.


Long story short: Not really, you can't do it in widescreen layout. It's all in 3:4 ratio, and if you choose widescreen it's still in 3:4 ratio, the rest is just "cropped out" so to speak. Only way around it is to play another resolution or adapt by using head/views to see what you need to.

[Yossarian]

Ok, so let's say I decided to play in another resolution.  How would I change this (as in would I change it in the Aces High video settings thing), and what would I see.  I did try changing the AH Video Settings to different resolutions, however all that happened was the screen seemed to get warped.

<S>

Yossarian

[Krusty]

If you've got such a widescreen monitor (laptop?) chances are it's scaling inputs to fit the screen. So if you set the game to run in 800x600, for example, it would then take that 800x600 and stretch the raw pixels to fill all the monitor space. It's a hardware feature, not really part of the drivers, and many monitors do it.

You might be able to disable this. This would result in a 800x600 area centered on your screen with black unused pixels surrounding it.

So to minimze the black unused space you need to find the resolution that uses the most of your height. Off the top of my head I think it might be 1024x768 (see what your vid card supports). Then go to your video card settings in Windows, and under "Monitor scaling" set to "do not scale" or whatever the option is called.

Set this resolution in AH and try it out.

[Yossarian]

In the 'display properties' that I get from right-clicking on my desktop, the following resolutions are listed:
800 x 600
960 x 600
1024 x 768
1152 x 720
1152 x 864
1280 x 720
1280 x 768
1280 x 800
1360 x 768
1440 x 900

In the Aces High video settings, the only available resolution unless I clicked on "show all resolutions" (or something like that) was 1024 x 768.

<S>

Yossarian

[Krusty]

1152 x 864 <-- use that. It's the proper ratio (nothing will be cropped) and the closest one to the 900 physical pixels your monitor has in height.

There should be a check box in AH's video screen that says "show all resolutions?" or if not, go into your settings folder and find video8.cfg and edit the resolution values in there manually. It's a text file.

[Yossarian]

I've set 1152 x 864 in AH (I had set it in Windows display properties), but I've changed Windows back to 1440 x 900 now.

In Aces High, the screen is now stretched, however all the instruments appear.  Is there any way I can get reduced of this stretched appearance?

<S>

Yossarian

P.S. Thanks for all your help so far 

EDIT:  I just reread your previous posts, and tried messing around in my video card control panel to get it to actually leave black areas on the screen, but I only got some weird results (aside from the usual stretching) that reverted themselves a few seconds later.

As a sort of workaround, I noticed that under the Analogue assignments section of the Controller options (don't know the exact names) in Aces High, there's one called "Field of View".  Does anyone know what this is, and if/how it could help me?

[Krusty]

No, it's nothing inside Aces High.

Assuming you have a desktop, you said you have an FX5000 series card (Nvidia). Also assuming the monitor itself is an LCD, you need to:

1) disable monitor scaling. It should have its own page on the driver settings screens. Often it has 4 radio boxes. Check the one that says "no scaling" or disables it.

2) If you set to this it shouldn't take effect until AH runs. Then when AH runs it should come up windowed. If it is off-center or the screen is messed up try the OSD (on screen display) options for "auto detect".

If AH crashes as soon as you start it, try verifying you've got the right resolution chosen in AH and that your card actually supports this (not all cards support all resolutions!)


If you are on a laptop ---.... well the options are usually more limited for driver settings and the cards often support fewer resolution choices.

[Yossarian]

I am using a desktop, and it is a LCD screen.

I'll look for them now, but just in case I can't find them, where are the driver settings?

Also, how would it know that I only want it to do this when AH runs, or have I misinterpreted your point?

<S>

Yossarian

[Krusty]

If you run other games at other resolutions they will also use "exact pixels" to display on the screen as well.

Right click desktop, select the detonator drivers option or the settings for the monitor on the side pop-out menu if you have it enabled. If this doesn't show up, go to properties, and on the right-most tab where it allows you to set resolution hit "advanced" and look for the main video card settings there.

You know the same area you set anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, etc? It's in that area.

[Yossarian]

Could you please tell me what you mean by "exact pixels"?

Also, what are detonator drivers?  I did what you said, and got into the "NVIDIA Control Panel", but it only has the sections:

3D Settings
    Adjust image settings with preview
    Manage 3D settings
Display
    Run display optimization wizard
    Move CRT screen position
    Change resolution
    Adjust desktop color settings
    Rotate display
    Manage custom resolutions
    Set up multiple displays
Video & Television
    Adjust video color settings

I was messing around with the "Manage custom resolutions" section earlier, with no desired results.

Also, I'm assuming that you mean for me to go into the "Manage 3D settings" section, and change the options for Aces High (under "Program Settings").  I have tried getting best performance that way a while ago, but here are the options I see:

Anisotropic filtering
Antialiasing - Gamma correction
Antialiasing - Setting
Antialiasing - Transparency
Conformant texture clamp
Extension limit
Force mipmaps
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration
Stereo - Display mode
Texture filtering - Anisotropic mip filter optimization
Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias
Texture filtering - Quality
Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization
Triple buffering
Vertical sync

Also, I was just looking through the NVIDIA control panel help section (what you get when you hit "F1"), and I searched for "monitor scaling".  I wound up in something about "display scaling" and it refers to topics in the Control Panel's navigation tree which I can't see.  Is there any way you know of to get these to show up/get around this?

<S>

Yossarian

[NOT]

i run my 24" widescreen in portrait mode(turned side ways), and i love it that way. resolution is 1200x1920. you see the whole cockpit, what little you lose on the sides is more than made up for in the top and bottom.





NOT