Aspect Ratio Scaling With ATI Graphics Cards

[steam4me]

I've just installed MSTS on a new PC running Windows 7 and containing an ATI HD 5570 video card. A problem I ran into was that it seemed impossible to "scale" MSTS so that it wouldn't be stretched across a widescreen monitor.

It is in fact possible to achieve GPU scaling - it's just not intuitive, so once I'd worked out how to achieve it, I prepared this illustrated guide to help you achieve correct MSTS scaling.

See http://msts.steam4me.net/tutorials/ati_scaling.html.

[SDtrains]

Hi everybody,

Thanks to Uri for a very clear tutorial.

I have only one comment to make about this, not negative I hope, but I use an ATI card with a 24" monitor running at maximum resolution, and the 'greying out' problem did not occur. Perhaps the reason for this happening is due to the display driver rather than anything to do with the ATI catalyst control centre, so perhaps it is an idea to check that you are running with the correct and latest display driver for your monitor, and some display manufacturers may update their drivers due to notification of this problem.

regards

[slipperman12]

Hi Uri,
Thanks for the tutorial.

I had the same problem when I first got my new widescreen monitor (they don't seem to make 'square' ones any more!) and used exactly the same procedure as you have shown, although, for me, it was more by trial and error!

By the way, I was, and still am, using the latest ATI/AMD drivers

Cheers,
Ged

[steam4me]

Sigh......... my name is YURI (as in my signature).

The catalyst drivers are dated 13 Dec 2010 and appear to be the latest. In fact, it's only in the last few months that ATI have changed their interface: it used to look like this and scaling was possible at max resolution:

[slipperman12]

Hi Yuri,
I apologise, mate - put it down to finger trouble! My keyboard thinks it knows better!

Cheers,
Ged

[dkightley]

What Yuri has described is not something that had changed recently.

I remember someone encountering this very same "grayed out" tick box scenario a few years ago....and the solution was exactly as Yuri has described. And I can remember having suggested this very solution at least once on the forum since then!

[steam4me]

What Yuri has described is not something that had changed recently.

It was the first time I'd run across the problem and I've a variety of ATI cards ranging back to x1950 in my various desktops.

I'd not recalled seeing the issue mentioned, nor had anyone ever sent me a tutorial or "bug fix" for it.

My tutorial on widescreen MSTS shows an older version of Catalyst which did do aspect ratio scaling "out of the box", so I figured ATI had broken something when upgrading their software (a not uncommon problem with many software designers).