Solved Window not stretching to fit screen at lower resolutions.

[Wyatt]

Basically, my laptop has a dense native resolution of 3200x1800, meaning there is literally no way I can expect to run games at my native resolution without horrible lag.

But when I try to run the game at a lower resolution (in fullscreen) it doesn't stretch the image, but rather just leaves a tiny rectangle among a massive black border.

Dark Souls II specifically, will stretch, and fit beautifully.
Dragon Age: Inquisition, however, doesn't.




Also, its worth noting some programs act like this as well.
For example, Steam renders appropriately (although fuzzy), but origin renders 'to-scale', and looks tiny.

 

[theveterans]

On some games/programs , you must use 100% scaling and low res, e.g. 720p to get rid of the black boxes around since those programs don't support scaling.

 

[Wyatt]

Can you elaborate on that some?
I don't mess with this stuff, and I've never had this problem before, so I'm kind of flying blind here.

What exactly am I doing to fix the issue?
Like, how do I affect scaling and all that?

 

[Berton]

Some monitors have a setting for filling the screen. But your System Specs gives nothing about the computer's hardware.

 

[Wyatt]

Its a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro running windows 8.1

8 Gigs of ram, 64 bit OS, with an i7 processor.

 

[Berton]

Since it's a Notebook/Laptop there's fewer choices than with a Desktop with its separate monitor.

 

[Wyatt]

Yeah, I'm not that new, I obviously know that there are fewer options, but that doesn't contribute to the issue at all.


If you don't know exactly how to help me, that's fine, I get it, but I asked for information.
I'm sorry if I come off crass, and I don't mean to sound rude, but I would just like some actual help. This is bothering me a lot, because as I said, there are clearly exceptions, and I want to know what's causing this and how it works, that way I can figure out how best to deal with it.
There is clearly a system that renders certain things at a different scale to make up for the density of my screen, which is small in size, but has a very high resolution. Can someone tell me about that? Because i'll bet that has something to do with my problem.

 

[Berton]

Revisiting my response shows it isn't all there, salients points in the second paragraph are missing and your 'crass' may be called for based upon what is visible, or not.

 

[Wyatt]

Do you want to explain this to me or not?
I just want to understand why these programs behave this way.

 

[sygnus21]

I don't have a full explanation which solves your issue, but as you noted, your issue is the extreme resolution here 3200x1800. Most programs today aren't quite ready for such high resolutions and will behave strangely, especially games. If you Google your resolution you will notice posts where people have issues at that res. Here's a thread here regarding gaming at that res - Problems Gaming at 3200x1800 (New Razer Blade 14)

As to your solution, the obvious thing is to try and find a resolution that works best for you in the meantime. As one poster in the thread I linked to suggested, you may have to downgrade your resolution for gaming purposes.

Sorry if there is no easy answer but these extreme resolutions on these new monitors are going to be problematic until programmers account for them on a regular basis.

With regards to Dragon Age: Inquisition, which I have, it appears the highest "native" resolution of the game is 1900 x 1200. However this article here may be of some interest - Dragon Age: Inquisition 5k screenshot gallery.

Aside from trying that tweak you could try figuring out what the aspect ratio (the proportional relationship between a monitor's height and width) of your monitor is and choose a lower resolution in that range through your video card settings that might suit all your gaming needs.

Good luck.

 

[Wyatt]

Thanks for the advice sygnus, but I actually just solved the issue.

Turns out the problem was DPI. My laptop defaults at 250% DPI to compensate for the large resolution. Some programs apparently are only set to run at 100% and so don't compensate for it.

All I have to do is turn down the DPI when I want to play certain games and it fills the screen perfectly.

 

[Hopachi]

I see it's solved. DPI hmmm...

You can also try to disable DPI only for the particular game/program through compatibility mode:



That way you won't need to disable and restore 250% DPI, if it looks good for the rest.

Also, if your main (on cpu) graphics is Intel, you can enable scaling/stretching in the graphics options:



Applies to lower than native resolutions.

 

[sygnus21]

Thanks for the advice sygnus, but I actually just solved the issue.

Turns out the problem was DPI. My laptop defaults at 250% DPI to compensate for the large resolution. Some programs apparently are only set to run at 100% and so don't compensate for it.

All I have to do is turn down the DPI when I want to play certain games and it fills the screen perfectly.

Yeah I should have mentioned DPI as I saw that in another post I was reading regarding high res screens. Anyway glad you got your issue resolved.

Looks like this is something I'll have to add to my gaming guide here: Tips on Troubleshooting Game Issues.

Peace

 

[Wyatt]

Unfortunately, this still doesn't work on Dragon Age.
The other games are fixed, but the issue still persists on just that one.

 

[sygnus21]

Did you look through the like I provided for DA:I? I though I saw a tweak you could try through the game's command console.

On a side note, this is one gorgeous looking game. I can only imagine what it looks like on a high res monitor. And I'm not even running it in DX11, but AMD's Mantle instead, and the game runs and looks absolutely amazing.

Anyway hope you get your issue sorted.

Peace

 

[Wyatt]

I've found some pretty simple work arounds actually.

There is apparently an option that I never gave much thought to in Dragon Age itself that allows you to change the resolution it renders at without modifying the actual screen resolution. I forgot exactly what it was called, but its very useful for this.

Alternatively I found that decreasing the computer's resolution along with the DPI setting also gets the game to properly use fullscreen at any resolution I want.

Obviously, the game will look muddier, since its not native resolution, but I can still play it well enough to enjoy it.
It doesn't have to be perfect, that's why I have a desktop. I just wanted to be able to play it on the go, since its such a huge game.

 

[theveterans]

On some games/programs , you must use 100% scaling and low res, e.g. 720p to get rid of the black boxes around since those programs don't support scaling.

I mentioned this 4 days ago. Sorry if I didn't elaborate but 100 % scaling is 96 DPI and 720p is 1280 x 720 resolution. That's what you have to do when running low res games on high settings.