Recommended screen resolution is stretching squares vertically more into rectangles

The title says it all.. when I use my native resolution (it also does this in games, I have a Acer x223w 16:9 1680x1050 native res) and when I use this on my destop or in game in stretches everything in a upward downward fashion, squares look like slightly taller rectangles, and in game everything looks skinnier.. why can I not use 16:9 with a res of 1680x1050 without it looking all vertically stretched? I want to play COD GHosts with my native res but If I switch the Aspect Ratio from Auto to 16:9 ... no matter what resolution I pick.. it still looks stretched even with a 1280x720 res... which I know for a fact on consoles or tv or on a bunch of other peoples computers, does NOT look vertically stretched out from the middle of the screen.. please help
 


sorry guys.. this is the site I got my info from http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5316256 and it says its 16:9 ... so what should I set my in game res n aspect too??? But even at that... the resolution for my screen still makes everything look vertically stretched... any way to fix this? I usually use 1152x864 ... it makes everything look normal.. squares look like squares.. but for cod ghosts they say u get better frames with your native res n aspect ratio.. but ive also changed the aspect to 16:10 IN GAME and it still makes everything look stretched.. just like on my desktop....
 
Your native resolution is 1680x1050, which is a 16:10 aspect ratio. Running it at anything other than that is going to make the image wonky in some way (in your case, its trying to fit 9 pixels where there should be 10, hence your tall pixels).
Have all your settings match the monitors native spec.
 
i have it in 16:10 now.. still looks taller than it should but a BIT better I guess... maybe Im just used to everything being wide.. idk.. but on my desktop I have everything set to native res.. 1680x1050 .... but icons that should be squares are taller than squares .... and the same thing happening in game
 
I think more fundamentally here, you shouldn't ever really need to manually select an aspect ratio unless you're trying some strange things. Some games base their selectable list of resolutions on a preselected aspect ratio, but it should be a straight forward matter of selecting 16:10 and 1680x1050.

If you have it at 1680x1050 in Windows, it doesn't even give you an option of aspect ratio - it should be displaying a 1:1 pixel image. If it isn't it can only logically mean that either you have done something in your monitor's menu (like selecting 16:9 because you thought it was that) or in the video card settings.
 


Im talking about in game.. cod ghosts
 
I was specifically referring to the non-square icons:

"...on my desktop I have everything set to native res.. 1680x1050 .... but icons that should be squares are taller than squares..."

There is no point checking games until you at least have the desktop correctly imaged. The fact icons are not perfrectly square strongly suggests there is a problem somewhere more at the core of it all. You're not using a VGA cable are you?
 


no im using DVI

1st pic is what Im used too.. and 2nd pic is the 1680x1050

http://s1342.photobucket.com/user/jhutch4200/media/desktopwider_zps656f40c7.jpg.html

http://s1342.photobucket.com/user/jhutch4200/media/talldesktop_zpsc9662ac4.jpg.html