Fix Aspect Ratio / letterbox

Hi guys,

Im really annoyed at the moment, i have a project i am working on but i need to use an old LCD screen and set it up with a very low resolution.
every time i do it it just scales up to fill the whole screen, and there is no way to fix the aspect ratio!

What i want is to only be using a smaller section of the screen and not the WHOLE thing,

anybody who can find a fix i will give you a gift via paypal....

thanks,
joe

No need for a gift via paypal

As for your problem though, have you gone into apple icon>system preferences>displays and played with the resolutions there?

yes,
but all of them get scaled to fit the whole screen. i just want it to the true fixed aspect ratio with black filling the rest.

also, im really stressed out by the fact i might have wasted a lot of money, paypal gift still stands!

As you may or may not know...LCD screens have a "native" resolution where they look best.

So it's this resolution where the text looks it's sharpest...and everything is in correct proportion.

So if you're using an older LCD screen with a 4:3 ratio screen...or any LCD screen...there is really only one resolution that looks best...and of course this specific resolution depends on the size of the monitor (15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 30").

Also...I don't think that a 4:3 ratio monitor can be "forced" to display a 16:9 letterbox format....it will just "scale" everything up...and fill the screen like you already have experienced.

If this answer should "qualify" for Paypal...not necessary!

- Nick

so there is nothing i can do? =/

on my old PC i could choose to fix the aspect ratio on the nvidia settings and it wouldn't scale anything, worked perfectly,

isn't there a hack or something to enable this for mac?

Monitors do not work like that.

The monitor will have a native resolution. When you use a smaller display resolution, monitors automatically scale it up to be displayed in the maximum number of pixels that it can use.

e.g. if you have a 4:3 monitor with a max resolution of 1920x1200, you can set the resolution to 800x600 and it's still going to fill the entire screen, just look like...

with a 16:9 monitor and you set it to any 16:9 setting, it's going to fill the whole screen

16:9 monitor and you use a 4:3 resolution, it's going to fill the entire height of the screen with black bars on the sides

4:3 monitor set to a 16:9 resolution will be displayed in the full width of the monitor with black bars on the top and bottom.

That's just the way it is.

Better, would be telling us what it is you're trying to do, and maybe get some help that way.