How to force 1680x1050 monitor to 720p without stretching?

[DirkAction]

Basically as the title says, I'm trying to resize a 1680x1050 monitor into 1280x720 while adding black bars instead of stretching the image. I have an nVidia card and I can't seem to find an option in it's control panel that will do this. Any help guys?

 

[randomkid]

What about in Windows itself under "Screen Resolution"?

If you have not done so, put your mouse pointer anywhere the desktop & right click then choose "Screen Resolution".

 

[DirkAction]

Re-read my question, I said I'm trying to NOT stretch everything. 16:10 screens can't properly display 16:9 without stretching, which looks like garbage and I'm trying to avoid.

 

[rdc85]

What your monitor model, some had viewing mode that can be selected........


about NV, not own any so no help there.............

 

[photonboy]

I have no idea why you would want to, but you have THREE OPTIONS for sizing. I don't know the correct wording:

1) Maintain Aspect Ratio (most common. keeps proper ratio and simply stretches uniformly)
2) Use centered timings (just shows the EXACT number of pixels. May have black bars. such as 1280x720)
3) Stretch to full panel

Some monitors have scaling options as well.

So basically you would:
1) choose the closest 16x9 resolution (i.e. 1280x720)
2) then choose the "scale by aspect" (may have a similar option in your monitor as well)

**I'm curious as to WHY though. You'd always have black bars on your desktop, and videos and video games can already scale properly anyway.

 

[randomkid]

Re-read my question, I said I'm trying to NOT stretch everything. 16:10 screens can't properly display 16:9 without stretching, which looks like garbage and I'm trying to avoid.

Downsizing from 1650x1050 to 1280x720 will look worse, anyway. If you need to do this to be able to watch 1280x720 video's in your 1650x1050 monitor, then the setting should be done in the monitor. Something like "Zoom" function.

 

[DirkAction]

**I'm curious as to WHY though. You'd always have black bars on your desktop, and videos and video games can already scale properly anyway.

It's a secondary monitor I'm temporarily dedicating to Minecraft, which I'm not sure if it scales properly or not... 16:10 resolutions have always looked funky to me which is why I didn't just use 1280x800. Also, I'm using the GLSL Shaders mod which is horribly resource intensive and lags me to hell at 1080p and 1050p (2x260s = 10-15fps. (Yes I know I'm due for an upgrade, it's coming soon )).

Anyway thanks for the help guys, the "Maintain Aspect Ratio" was what I needed and it was hidden in my monitor settings instead of Windows/nVidia display options, derp.

EDIT: Ok, this failed and looks like crap. YouTube stretches 720p left and right, while adding black bars above and below, which is what I was hoping to get my monitor to do. My monitor actually stretches the screen up and down while putting bars on the left and right... I only have two options in my monitor, "Fill to Screen" and "Fill to Aspect Ratio" (which I'm now guessing is not the same as "Maintain Aspect Ratio"?), neither of which do the job.

Any other ideas? Or is my monitor just incapable of displaying that YouTube-style scaling? It's an HP w2207 if that helps.

 

[photonboy]

Fill to screen STRETCHES (not what you want).

Fill to Aspect Ratio will UNIFORMALLY STRETCH the image until at least the top or sides are hit. That's what you want. At 1280x720, you would have Black Bars on the top and bottom.

I do find it odd that you find 16:10 to look "funky" but whatever.

Keep in mind that BOTH your monitor and your graphics card have scaling options. If you mix these incorrectly you could get weird results.

 

[photonboy]

1080p
You imply that you have a main monitor which is 1920x1080. Since you like the 16x9 ratio why aren't you playing Minecraft on the main screen?

You can choose any 16x9 resolution you wish in Minecraft so performance is a non-issue.

 

[DirkAction]

Fill to Aspect Ratio will UNIFORMALLY STRETCH the image until at least the top or sides are hit. That's what you want. At 1280x720, you would have Black Bars on the top and bottom.

I do find it odd that you find 16:10 to look "funky" but whatever.

Keep in mind that BOTH your monitor and your graphics card have scaling options. If you mix these incorrectly you could get weird results.

But when I use the maintain aspect ratio option, it doesn't stretch properly, putting the bars on the sides. Also, let me clarify the 16:10 thing, 1680x1050 looks fine for anything, but any lower res looks horrible. Since you say I should have bars above and below, but I don't, maybe something is borked up causing the crappy quality? I've looked everywhere and can't seem to find any setting that looks out of place though.

1080p
You imply that you have a main monitor which is 1920x1080. Since you like the 16x9 ratio why aren't you playing Minecraft on the main screen?

You can choose any 16x9 resolution you wish in Minecraft so performance is a non-issue.

I have icons on my desktop that would get moved to inconvenient places if I resized it under 1080p, and windowed Minecraft shrinks the menus and inventory, which hurts my eyes after awhile.

Also, you can't really choose the resolution. I have a program that forces it into a perfect 720p window, but aside from that your only option is to fullscreen or manually resize it, and it doesn't even maintain it's ratio when you do.

Looks like I may just bite the bullet and get a new monitor. Anyone want to buy this one? lol