Stretched panel on new montor

**eytan** · 06-20-2012, 01:33 AM

Hi,
For years I've used two monitors- one 20", the other a 19" 4:3 size.
The 19" died on me and I replaced it with a MAG 22" LED H2201L monitor as the main scrreen.
Now things appear very different, and frankly, not what I expected.

The panels are stretched sideways, with the gauges compressed to ellipses, not like the round shapes before. It looks awful.
Even the square display screns such as the ND look squashed.

Now I know monitors come in wide mode nowadays but the result for FS is not optimal.
The only plus is watching movies which look great on my new monitor.

Any suggestons?
Or is it a question of getting used to the new look.

Eytan

***loki*** · 06-20-2012, 02:24 AM

The problem is that 2D panels are created as bitmaps at a specific size, and they do not scale well. On a widescreen monitor the sim will stretch the bitmap to fit the screen. Your options are:

a) Live with the stretched panels.

b) Switch to using the VC as these will be rendered properly.

c) Search for widescreen panels for the planes you fly. The file library here has some. Enter something like "widescreen panel" into the search box.

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/conten...8-Basic-Search

**eytan** · 06-20-2012, 05:55 AM

I think I'll use the older 20" monitor as the main one, so the gauges will show right. i actually prefer using the 2D panel.
The new monitor will be used as a display for undocked sub-panels and FSCommander

BTW The only plus with the wide monitor is that spot view looks great!

So is everyone with a wide screen experiencing this phenomenon?

Eytan

**jgf** · 06-20-2012, 06:21 AM

The effect seems to vary with the panel, most aren't too bad... and I've gotten accustomed to it. A worse problem than slightly elongated gauges, to my eyes, is the loss of resolution on the stretched bmps; for some aircraft I've reworked the panel bmp to my native resolution and adjusted the gauge positioning. But taking a 1024x768 image to 1680x1050 is beyond the limits of acceptable enlarging and the result involves quite a bit of editing to look decent.

An alternative is to set your monitor to use the program's resolution rather than filling the screen; you'll have a vertical letterbox effect - a black band down each side of the monitor with the normal 4:3 image centered there.

**alanmerry** · 06-20-2012, 08:13 AM

Like you eytan, I have replaced a dead 19"monitor with a wide screen monitor, in may case a 32" TV. The scenery outside the cockpit is stunning and you can get much more immersed!
But, as you say, the panels are stretched horizontally I find that this is more noticeable on some panels than others.
I am gradually adjusting the panels of the aircraft that I fly most frequently. This involves some work with a picture editing program to extend the background and then much adjusting of the panel.cfg file to put the gauges in the right places. I have used the opportunity to add some gauges which didn't fit on the screen before. It takes at least 3 or 4 hours for each panel and as I have several aircraft, I have a life time's work in front of me.
Eventually I will probably upload some of them to flightsim.com, but I will need to check with the original builders, which in some cases are copyright payware materials.

**abrussell** · 06-20-2012, 02:42 PM

In the Fsx.cfg file under [Display] change WideViewAspect=False to WideViewAspect=True.
This should help.
Bruce

**pfflyers** · 06-20-2012, 03:27 PM

I know a lot of people still use 2D alot, for me it's almost exclusively vc (I fly mostly GA/warbirds/helicopters, almost always vfr) so the new aspect ratio is not a problem for me, in fact I find it a big improvement.

For those aircraft that I fly a lot that don't have a nice vc I am resizing my panels to fit the new format.

**eytan** · 06-21-2012, 01:39 PM

My favourite payware a/c are the B737 by PMDG, LevlD B767, Just Flight Dash-8. If you could work on these and get the panels to appear normal that would be great!

Eytan