FoF on a widescreen LCD monitor?

[Temple]

My wonderful Sony Trinatron CRT, five years old, is starting to die [:(]. I guess I'm finally going to have to break down and buy a new LCD monitor, and pretty much nowadays everyone is pushing widescreens at you. Will FoF run normally on a widescreen or does it need to be tweaked, or the monitor tweaked, or what? I know practically nothing about widescreen and gaming (particularly wargaming) on them.

[Adam Parker]

I'm running a widescreen laptop with no probs.
 
But I'd buy the screen for the screen and not for the game! For LCD though I like the Samsung zero dead pixel guarantee. They've got some super fast refresh rates too for 19 inch and above.

[Tacoma]

I have a 24" Dell widescreen LCD and the game looks and plays great. I didn't have to make any adjustments. Screen was full right from the start... [8D]

If you're shopping for a 24" LCD, Gateway just recently released a 24" HD monitor for under $700 bucks... [&o] you can grab it at Best Buy! [;)]

[Jonathan Palfrey]

I use a semi-widescreen laptop (1440 by 900 pixels) and the game runs OK. The only disadvantage I know of is that the aspect ratio is distorted: I see exactly what I would see on a normal screen, but stretched horizontally to fill my screen.

This is tolerable, but it's not the best way of using a wide screen. The better ways would be:

1. Use the whole screen without stretching the picture -- by showing more of the map to left and right.

2. Use less than the full screen: leave black strips on the left and right edges of the screen.

3. Display the game in a window rather than full-screen.

[Marc von Martial]

The only disadvantage I know of is that the aspect ratio is distorted:

You normally can have the monitor adjust this (if he features different apsect rations) or let the graphic card driver handle this. Consult your LCDs manual for this, or check the preferences of your graphic card driver.

[Nibelung]

I have the same problem but I'm a bit unsure you can do that Marc, a game is not a standard windows application. If you run with DirectX in fullscreen mode, then FoF will runs in 1024x768 and full screen, and there is nothing you can do to prevent that, except if you switch to windowed mode. If FoF can run in windowed, then this is cool though!

[Marc von Martial]

ORIGINAL: Nibelung

I have the same problem but I'm a bit unsure you can do that Marc, a game is not a standard windows application. If you run with DirectX in fullscreen mode, then FoF will runs in 1024x768 and full screen, and there is nothing you can do to prevent that, except if you switch to windowed mode. If FoF can run in windowed, then this is cool though!

The monitors aspect ratio support has nothing to do with a windowed application or DirectX. It is a feature of your monitor or graphic card driver in order to prevent "stretching".

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

The only disadvantage I know of is that the aspect ratio is distorted:

You normally can have the monitor adjust this (if he features different apsect rations) or let the graphic card driver handle this. Consult your LCDs manual for this, or check the preferences of your graphic card driver.

Thanks for the suggestion. I dug into my monitor settings, and discovered that I have access to an ATI Catalyst Control Center, which seems to offer me the options of scaling images to fill the whole screen, scaling while preserving the aspect ratio, or not scaling.

I'm experimenting with not scaling. With this option, Forge of Freedom appears unstretched in the centre of the screen, with black on all sides, because the unscaled image isn't big enough to cover even the full height of the screen. I'll try it like that for a while and see how I go.

I'll be interested to see whether this setting affects any other programs. So far, it doesn't seem to. I use the computer mainly for work and don't play a lot of games on it.

[Marc von Martial]

I'll be interested to see whether this setting affects any other programs. So far, it doesn't seem to. I use the computer mainly for work and don't play a lot of games on it.

Nope it does not affect other applications. Only such that have a hard coded resolution.

It is basically the same like the black bars (called "letterbox" ) when you watch 16:9 or CinemasScope movies on a 4:3 TV.

[dude]

I'm rather enjoying using my Dell 32" LCD TV as a monitor lately...[:D]  No problem seeing anything.

[nmleague]

I recently upgraded to a Dell super sharp 24" wide screen monitor [:)][:)], its fantastic for both FOF and Maximum Football.   Im using my wives computer with a 17" flat screen to type this and its like going back to the stone age.

[Tacoma]

Just like the old saying, SIZE does matter! [:D]