How to maximize screen space

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kevin
  • Start date Start date
K

Kevin

When I go to play both pinball-space cadet as well as
StarCraft, the screen resolution goes small and makes it
tough to see, maybe 800 by 600 or so. Anyways, when I
used to be running Win. mel. edition, I could fix the
problem by to go reduce my screen resolution, then expand
the screen out. How do you do this same thing with XP??
 
Hi Kevin,

There are 2 ways you can accomplish what you want to do:

1) Go to Control Panel / Display / Settings and choose 32 bit Color Quality,
and move the Screen Resolution slider to the resolution of your choice;

2) Right click the shortcut to the game, select Properties, and under the
Compatibility Tab check the box for "Run in 640x480 screen resolution".

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| When I go to play both pinball-space cadet as well as
| StarCraft, the screen resolution goes small and makes it
| tough to see, maybe 800 by 600 or so. Anyways, when I
| used to be running Win. mel. edition, I could fix the
| problem by to go reduce my screen resolution, then expand
| the screen out. How do you do this same thing with XP??
 
I can't say I expect a result from this reply, but this was the closest thread to my problem. I have a dell inspiron 1100 with pretty standard specs. When I try to run anything that's not 1024x768 resolution, it only takes part of the screen. Even when I set my screen resolution to 800x600, I get a smaller screen--with really thick black borders around the edges. I tried using what you said to help, but it was to no avail. I've been trying to play starcraft at a decent screen size, but I can't seem to figure it out. It's really annoying trying to play games like that when they're not full screen. Any help would be appreciated, thanks
----- Jimmy S. wrote: ----

Hi Kevin

There are 2 ways you can accomplish what you want to do

1) Go to Control Panel / Display / Settings and choose 32 bit Color Quality
and move the Screen Resolution slider to the resolution of your choice

2) Right click the shortcut to the game, select Properties, and under th
Compatibility Tab check the box for "Run in 640x480 screen resolution"

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / Use
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.co

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gm
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contac
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;to
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights
________________________________________________________

| When I go to play both pinball-space cadet as well a
| StarCraft, the screen resolution goes small and makes i
| tough to see, maybe 800 by 600 or so. Anyways, when
| used to be running Win. mel. edition, I could fix th
| problem by to go reduce my screen resolution, then expan
| the screen out. How do you do this same thing with XP?
 
Hi Erik,

Check your manual and see if they list instructions there as to
which BIOS setting or keyboard Fn key you can use to setup
"Fit to Screen" video mode. That's a common laptop feature.

Another thought that comes to mind is to see if you can start
the game in window mode using a switch (check the game's
readme file) and then maximize that window to Full Screen. ;-)

Please post back with your finding, and I'll add it to my KB. :-)

Cheers!
Jimmy.

| I can't say I expect a result from this reply, but this was the closest thread to my problem. I have a dell inspiron 1100 with
pretty standard specs. When I try to run anything that's not 1024x768 resolution, it only takes part of the screen. Even when I
set my screen resolution to 800x600, I get a smaller screen--with really thick black borders around the edges. I tried using what
you said to help, but it was to no avail. I've been trying to play starcraft at a decent screen size, but I can't seem to figure it
out. It's really annoying trying to play games like that when they're not full screen. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
| ----- Jimmy S. wrote: -----
|
| Hi Kevin,
|
| There are 2 ways you can accomplish what you want to do:
|
| 1) Go to Control Panel / Display / Settings and choose 32 bit Color Quality,
| and move the Screen Resolution slider to the resolution of your choice;
|
| 2) Right click the shortcut to the game, select Properties, and under the
| Compatibility Tab check the box for "Run in 640x480 screen resolution".
|
| --
| Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
| Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
|
| Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
| Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
| MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
| My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
| _________________________________________________________
|
| | | When I go to play both pinball-space cadet as well as
| | StarCraft, the screen resolution goes small and makes it
| | tough to see, maybe 800 by 600 or so. Anyways, when I
| | used to be running Win. mel. edition, I could fix the
| | problem by to go reduce my screen resolution, then expand
| | the screen out. How do you do this same thing with XP??
|
|
|
 
Erik said:
I can't say I expect a result from this reply, but this was the closest
thread to my problem. I have a dell inspiron 1100 with pretty standard
specs. When I try to run anything that's not 1024x768 resolution, it only
takes part of the screen. Even when I set my screen resolution to 800x600,
I get a smaller screen--with really thick black borders around the edges. I
tried using what you said to help, but it was to no avail. I've been trying
to play starcraft at a decent screen size, but I can't seem to figure it
out. It's really annoying trying to play games like that when they're not
full screen. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
Click to expand...

You have a TFT-panel with a resolution of 1024x768. This means that the
display consists of 1024x768 pixels that can be used to display an image. If
you select a higher resolution, your graphics card will produce an image
that consists of more pixels than the TFT has. This would mean, that one
pixel on the display would have to display multiple pixels from the image
that it is getting from the graphics card. This is however not possible.
Therefore you can usually scroll within the screen resulution you selected
and only see a 1024x786 pixel large part.
The other problem with TFTs is, selecting a resolution which is less than
the amount of pixels the TFT can display. This means that every pixel from
the grahics card must be streched to multiple pixels on the TFT, to allow
that the entire screen to be used. This always leeds to an unsharp image as
the result and is not supported by some TFT displays.
When a TFT does not support this, you will see a black border with the image
centered in the middle.
Sometimes stretching the image to the entire area of the TFT can be enabled
by an option in the graphics card driver.
 
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