I tell my computer to go full screen. It cheats. How do I make it behave?

BTP

To make a long story short, I've been reunited with one of my first computers that I could call my own, and there's a little quirk about it that I could never understand and fix. And I've never seen it anywhere else, so no one has been able to figure out what's wrong. I'm hoping someone here can help me out.

The quickest and simplest example I can give you is this. It's running XP, and has Space Cadet pinball. Starting that game up normally has it in window mode where it appears at the center of the screen. You go into "Options" and point and click on "Full Screen". The game then does its thing to go into full screen mode.

Only the game ends up exactly the same size as window mode, and everything else around it is black.

It's as if the game's image isn't being magnified to fit the whole screen, or the monitor isn't changing its resolution to match the game, or something like that.

It's like this with anything I'd want to put in full screen mode. It's not limited to pinball. Actually, it's like this during bootup too. You know the part when you see the Windows logo and the little green bar is moving across, and you have "{Copyright symbol} Microsoft Corporation" in the corner? That's supposed to be in full screen, but even then it's only doing "window mode size in the center + everywhere else is black".

I have no idea how to fix this. Does anyone have any ideas?

kpeezy

Maybe it's your video card scaling options? Sounds like you might have your video card set to output video with fixed aspect ratio which locks the size at what it's supposed to be because some people (me) don't like stretching things.

BTP

I'd gladly check that out if I knew where to look for it. Got an idea for where I check? :oops: (e.g. All Programs, Control Panel, etc. I really do suck at this sort of thing.)

kpeezy

Um... depends on your video card and drivers. If you have it, look in the nvidia control panel or the ATI catalyst center or whatever. On my laptop at work with an nvidia card it's under the Display portion of the menu and then under "change flat panel scaling."

BTP

SUCCESS (perhaps) !

Control Panel -> System -> Hardware Tab -> Device Manager
THIS is what I needed. I was looking everywhere for something like that. At least to figure out the video card.

From that, led me to troubleshooting, which led me back to the Display settings, and then to the Advanced part of the multiple monitor settings (which is what didn't make sense to me, so that was probably my problem).

Once I checked out the Advanced settings, a "Flat Panel" tab panel appeared similar to what you described showed up. And all it has is "Display Stretch: Checkmark/No Checkmark" with a nice little picture to describe what happens.

How I missed this tab in the first place earlier today I don't know, because I know I saw all the other tabs that are there. I don't think I was in the multiple monitor settings though, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Going to test now, but this should be the fix I needed. Crossing fingers time!

BTP

Oh computer, you silly SOB.

I checkmark Display Stretch. Click Apply. Click Ok. The settings in the General Tab are set up to accept the changes without needing to reset the computer. Click Ok on the Display settings. I should be good to go. Pinball -> F4...............WTF IT'S STILL NOT WORKING!

I go back to Display Stretch and it is not checkmarked. So I re-checkmark it. Click Apply and OK. Then I immediately click back on Advanced to get back to the Flat Panel Tab and it is not checkmarked again!

So the problem is the checkmark just won't stay there!

I even tried going to fullscreen on pinball immediately after clicking "Apply" to the checkmark, and it still doesn't do it.

What in the world.......?

Cronus

BTP wrote: »

Oh computer, you silly SOB.

I checkmark Display Stretch. Click Apply. Click Ok. The settings in the General Tab are set up to accept the changes without needing to reset the computer. Click Ok on the Display settings. I should be good to go. Pinball -> F4...............WTF IT'S STILL NOT WORKING!

I go back to Display Stretch and it is not checkmarked. So I re-checkmark it. Click Apply and OK. Then I immediately click back on Advanced to get back to the Flat Panel Tab and it is not checkmarked again!

So the problem is the checkmark just won't stay there!

I even tried going to fullscreen on pinball immediately after clicking "Apply" to the checkmark, and it still doesn't do it.

What in the world.......?

It sounds like your video card or the drivers aren't capable of doing the stretching. Or at least that's what they are reporting to Windows. You could also try making sure Windows recognizes your monitor as the proper model and not "Standard VGA".

Ego

Check your monitor controls (on the display itself, probably through a 'menu' button,) all of my LCDs have their own scaling settings and it could be a simple fix if yours does too.

BTP

Sorry, I thought I mentioned this before. This is a laptop, Toshiba brand.

I don't have any other monitor hooked up to it, but for some reason there seems to be 3 things in the "monitors" section of the Device Manager: "Default monitor", "Generic Television", and "Toshiba Internal 1024x768 Panel". I haven't really seen any way to make sure the computer is using only the laptop's screen and not trying to output to another screen that's not there except for the extra tabs in the Advanced section from Display Properties.. At least I know multiple monitors are disabled.

If it helps, the brand of the video card seems to be "Trident".

FyreWulff

From the OP I knew you had a laptop.

Look for a button on the laptop (or just take a pic and I can find it for you) that looks like a monitor, or a box inside of a box.

Press Fn + that button (It's usually one of the F## keys) will make it switch between 1:1 and stretch mode. You can do this in-game.

BTP

Looks like Fn + F5 to me, as the picture on the button has a tiny little computer, then a "/", then a rounded box that looks like a screen. So {computer / rounded box} is how the picture would look.

And I tried that already.

kpeezy

FyreWulff wrote: »

From the OP I knew you had a laptop.

Hooow

FyreWulff

kpeezy wrote: »

FyreWulff wrote: »

From the OP I knew you had a laptop.

Hooow

Because this is about the 1,593rd post on this same exact subject and it's always people trying to get the image to stretch on their laptop monitors

kpeezy

FyreWulff wrote: »

kpeezy wrote: »

FyreWulff wrote: »

From the OP I knew you had a laptop.

Hooow

Because this is about the 1,593rd post on this same exact subject and it's always people trying to get the image to stretch on their laptop monitors

Okay, so you didn't really know. I thought I missed something.

ronya

To the OP:

It would be a lot easier to help you if you gave us your laptop model number and video driver name.

If you don't know it: Windows > Run > msinfo32. System Summary > System Model will give your model number. Components > Display > Name will give the video driver name.

tsmvengy

BTP wrote: »

Looks like Fn + F5 to me, as the picture on the button has a tiny little computer, then a "/", then a rounded box that looks like a screen. So {computer / rounded box} is how the picture would look.

And I tried that already.

That's for switching display mode to the external monitor. There should be another one that does what you want it to do.

BTP

Holy crap, I forgot about this thread! Sorry for the bump.

ronya wrote: »

To the OP:

It would be a lot easier to help you if you gave us your laptop model number and video driver name.

If you don't know it: Windows > Run > msinfo32. System Summary > System Model will give your model number. Components > Display > Name will give the video driver name.

System Model: Satellite 1800
Video Driver Name: Trident Video Accelerator CyberBlade XP Ai1 v6.4020.22ICD

NailbunnyPD

Older laptops handled this in the BIOS. Check there for some video settings.

BTP

NailbunnyPD wrote: »

Older laptops handled this in the BIOS. Check there for some video settings.

How do I go about doing this? Since it's BIOS we're talking, I figure it's before the Windows part actually starts to load up, but all I'm seeing is a brief moment to hit F12 to choose from where I want to boot up (unless this really is it and I'm just being legitimately stupid).

Frem

It's either Esc or F1. I vaguely remember something about Ctrl on my old Toshiba. Try each of them, then mash them in various combos until it lets you in.

BTP

Sorry for the late reply. Just wanted to say that the "Esc or F1" is what did the trick. It brought up a simple menu and the LCD stretching was indeed disabled. A couple of arrow keys later and it was all set.

Now if only the computer could run the few freeware games I have (like Cho Ren Sha) at normal speed, all would be swell, but that's another problem.

Thanks a lot, everyone!