FX 5200: Turn off Scaling for Wide Screen?

[kerumbo]

I have an FX 5200 PCI card, currently with a standard-width CRT, and it's time for a new monitor. Of course most now are flat panel, wide-screen displays, with high native resolutions.. I like a relatively low resolution (800 x 600, or 1024 x 768), and would like to be able to view such resolutions, as well as content that has "standard" aspect, letterboxed and without horizontal stretching.

nVidia Control Panel Help (and Google) tell me I can turn off scaling by going to "Display > Change Display (flat opanel monitor) scaling > Do not scale". However, in nVidia Control Panel I do NOT see, under Display, any option to change flat panel scaling. Is this just because I am not currently hooked-up to a wide-screen or flat panel monitor? Will this option appear for me if I do buy and connect a wide-screen, flat panel monitor?

Or, is "do not scale" a function described in the driver's Help but not actually available for the FX 5200?

Thanks for any help with this!

[XDanger]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fx5...ient=firefox-a
Google says nothing but problems.

Apart from this guy who used VGA
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t25551.html

Time for a new graphics card not monitor.

You dont "Like" 800x600 ,you are limited to it by the fx5200.

Anything that low will look terrible on a TFT, Much worse than a CRT.
Do you have an AGP port?
X1950 XT agp if you do have

2400Pro 256MB pci if you dont<< Then you'd still have cash for a monitor

[kerumbo]

Thanks for responding, XDanger. Actually I do like lower resolutions, because it helps me to see everything larger, including graphics, although you may be right that I won't like those resolutions anymore on an LCD monitor. Nope, no AGP or PCI-E slot, so it's hard (or not cost-effective) to get a much better card that works for me -- but the card I have does go up to 2048 X 1536, if I wanted that. Also, while I'm concerned about res size, I'm more interested in whether the card will let me choose the aspect ratio, and whether my card will let me turn off scaling.

[XDanger]

2400Pro 256MB pci is relatively cheap and more useful

All fx5200's should rot in hell but try powerstrip if no joy.

[kerumbo]

Thanks again, FDanger, for your time and advice.

If anybody else needs to know, it turns out that: No, the FX 5200 does NOT allow "turn off scaling" (even when connected to a wide-screen flat panel), but, the effect that I wanted can achieved, with a wide panel monitor, by setting the FX 5200 resolution to either 960 X 600 (which, as XDanger predicted, looks pretty crappy, although I've seen other cards that do worse jobs with this), or 1280 X 720, which I find to be a good compromise. At least, this is what I found with my new monitor.

[Medion]

If you're interested, I'll be selling my monitor sometime this week. It's a Samsung 940b 19in LCD, native 1280x1024. Your FX5200 can drive that just fine, even with older games.

[kerumbo]

I've now realized that I posted my conclusions too soon, because I do not have a DVI-D cable, and so have only tested this card/monitor combination in Analog mode. I have ordered the cable, and will supplement this thread with my findings after I have tested what the card can do with a digital connection, with the right cable. Thanks to both of you who kindly offered alternatives -- I will keep this advice in mind!

[XDanger]

http://www.playtool.com/pages/dvitro...vitrouble.html
Heres a nice site if you run into trubble.

[=assassin=]

Originally Posted by kerumbo

Thanks for responding, XDanger. Actually I do like lower resolutions, because it helps me to see everything larger,

Why don't you just increase the desktop text sizes? Means you can run a higher res without straining to see stuff.