Image on screen stretched horizontally

**Dr Bob** · 02-08-2010, 07:05 PM

Recently, in all views, the image is stretched our horizontally, eg my gauges are ovals, the plane is longer and skinnier. It can't be my wide screen Samsung, because I've used that monitor for months (Samsung) and never experienced this before. I've tried turning down the settings on my moderately high end computer with no improvement.
Bob

***JSkorna*** · 02-08-2010, 07:26 PM

Hi,

Is the wide view turned On in the FSX.cfg file?

**Skelly** · 02-08-2010, 07:52 PM

might try a diffrent resolution

**napamule2** · 02-09-2010, 02:42 AM

I believe Jim is refering to this line in FSX cfg's (Display) section: 'WideViewAspect=True' . If it's not there, and you can locate fsx.cfg, you can add that line, then save fsx.cfg, and see it that will fix the problem. Sansung is a top notch brand. But it (apparently) needs for FSX to tell it what to do. Thus the need for the line in fsx.cfg. Your OS sends the 'info' via the 'settings' values (ie: resolution).

Which reminds me about how it is agreed that setting the FSX res to the SAME res as what you use for your desktop makes 'things' work 'more better' (for your video card, anyway).
CB
Napamule

**ScatterbrainKid** · 02-09-2010, 04:14 AM

Finding the right reso is a chore, I worked through the l-o-o-n-g list of ingame reso settings before I found two which fill my 28" widescreen without any stretching- 1680x1050 and 1280x800.

That works fine for my external view, ie aircraft wheels are perfectly circular, but on some aircraft the internal panel dials are stretched, so it seems there's no one reso that works for external and internal views with ALL aircraft, it's a question of trial and error.

**napamule2** · 02-09-2010, 06:49 AM

Well have you tried 1280x1024x32 and 1024x768x32? Those 2 is the ones that work best for my 17" wide screen LCD monitor, as far as things not being 'oval'. Just wondering.
CB
Napamule

**McFlysky** · 02-09-2010, 07:13 AM

Originally Posted by Dr Bob

Recently, in all views, the image is stretched our horizontally, eg my gauges are ovals, the plane is longer and skinnier. It can't be my wide screen Samsung, because I've used that monitor for months (Samsung) and never experienced this before. I've tried turning down the settings on my moderately high end computer with no improvement.
Bob

What model Samsung monitor do you have? Is it 16:9 or 16:10?
You should be able to use the native resolution of the monitor.
Did you change anything in the monitor's OSD?
Did you change anything in Windows or the video card's driver control panel?
Is the system usng the correct monitor driver?

**ScatterbrainKid** · 02-09-2010, 08:06 AM

Incidentally, I booted up to begin an FSX session once but found my screen reso had changed itself (squashed with black bands) for some unknown reason and I had to re-adjust the settings.
I posted about it in this forum as apparently FSX has a habit of doing things like that behind our backs, as other people have also found assorted changes in their various settings and options from time to time for no reason.
I wouldn't call FSX 'unstable' but it's certainly very touchy, because if you do something elsewhere on your PC, FSX senses it and might throw a tantrum.

**Mark Hurst** · 02-09-2010, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by ScatterbrainKid

Finding the right reso is a chore

It is not a chore - you simply need to know the monitor's native resolution and set FSX to use that full-screen resolution under the display settings. The WideViewAspect flag is not relevant here and has no effect on the image aspect ratio. FSX displays the 3D image in the aspect ratio you set in the Display settings page, regardless of the setting of that flag. If your guages are not round it's because you have incorrectly set FSX to run in a resolution that does not have the same aspect ratio as your monitor. (This does not apply to 2D guages, which are designed for a specific resolution and will appear stretched.)

The Display settings will list all the resolutions your monitor is capable of, but only one of these is its actual (native) resolution. Some of the listed resolutions are for backwards-compatibility with other applications and will not have the same physical aspect ratio as your screen, which means you will get black bands or a stetched/squashed display.

The WideViewAspect flag alters the range over which the 3D image can be zoomed in and out. It is only required for really wide displays, such as those generated by the Matrox TripleHead2Go (3840x1024 and 5040x1050). Again, FSX always displays the 3D image correctly (round guages) on these displays (aspect ratios 4:1 and 16:3, respectively), but the virtual cockpit will typically not be usable with the default zoom behaviour.