running a 640x480 game on a 720p TV in fullscreen

[digitalray]

hi there,

this is my first post and i apologize if this question was discussed before, but i searched topics before posting and couldn't find an answer.

the problem i am facing is this:

i have an ags game that uses 640x480 resolution.

i have a sony kdf e50a11e widescreen connected to my nvidia gtx 260 via hdmi in vista 64.

i can set the game running in fullscreen, but as my screen is a TV and not a monitor, i don't see about 10 % on the upper and lower side of the game screen, so the inventory and text is not readable.

i can only run the game in 640 x 480 in a window and that is very small when using a 1280x720 resolution in windows (can just use 720p or 1080i).

when i try to run it with 2x, it shows me a resolution of 1280x900, i tried that, but can't start the game, because this resolution is not supported by my "monitor" aka TV.

so i tried running it in windowed mode in 1280x900 but it won't work either, i get the same startup message.

there is also no possibility to run it windowed in 640x480 and simply resize the window with the mouse on the desktop.


is there any solution to this problem ?

i guess many people are facing this problem with HD TVs connected to their pc today.


i can play other games running in 640x400 resolution with sidebars without problem, it just matters in 640x480 games, as this resolution is 4:3 and so even more 1:1 than 640x400 or 320 x 200 for example..

is there a possibility to make a feature in winsetup.exe for Widescreen "TV"s so that the picture is resized to about 84 percent in height and centered, so TV users can see the top and bottom of the game screen ?


i know there is a nvidia resize feature so i can adjust the edges of the visible screen and make a new resolution, but this doesn't really work like it should and the picture is not sharp anymore and text gets blurry or unreadable.

[Pumaman]

It should be the responsibility of your video card's driver to ensure that the connected TV can display 640x480 resolution (with black side borders as appropriate), I don't think this is really the responsibility of AGS.

[digitalray]

so i guess this is a no then


i studied film arts, what i learned is, that you should always keep the action and characters in the 90% zone of the screen because all tvs cut off some space.. additionally as a kind of design rule you shouldn't put your text and other stuff out of 80 % of the creen.

i guess this doesn't apply to pc games, so well yeah, i guess you are right, it should really be the responsibility of the graphics driver to show the whole picture on the TV screen.

btw. HD movies are also cut off when you play them in 720p or 1080 mode, you only see all of the video picture on a PC Monitor. even Cameras have this "action safe" zone and compositors and editors use a "title safe" zone which is even only 80 % of the screen. this just for information as i am working in the tv business...