Vista - Widescreen gone in games after driver update

Hey guys,

I recently updated to the latest Catalyst drivers from ATI. I used the mobility modder to make them work on my laptop.

As for my problem, whenever I open a game, there are black edges on both sides of the screen because it won't run them widescreen. This wasn't the case before I updated. Is there a way I can force them to run widescreen again? Thanks a lot!

I know how to make it run on SOME games, (Mainly RTS) games, it just means you have to edit some files.

"Wide-screen monitors have been quite popular lately. However, BfME doesn't support wide-screen resolutions for displaying its graphics by default. In fact, the list of resolutions available to be selected with BfME is quite limited. With a simple file edit, however, you can have BfME use the native resolution of your monitor for the best-looking game experience. This tip explains how.

Find you BfME data folder, "C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\My Battle for Middle-earth Files." (This is the one that holds the "Replays" folder.) Open the file, "Options.ini." You'll find a line called "Resolution" which contains the resolution you had selected in the game options screen. Change this to the native resolution of you monitor. Save it, and you're done! For example, my monitor is a 1680x1050 wide-screen monitor. My setting now looks like this:

Resolution = 1680 1050

Simple enough, huh?

Note that, if you change the pixel ratio from the normal 4:3 ratio to a wide-screen ratio, a black elipse shows up around the circle where you select power points, and many other circles themselves turn somewhat eliptical. But if you can live with these graphical glitches, the rest of the graphics will look much, much better."

I hope that gives you a rough idea on how to change the files, thats how you sort it for Battle for Middle-Earth at least.

If you could tell me the game I'm sure I could find a guide somewhere though.

(Thanks to Grimbeorn at GameReplays.org for the guide).

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately some games like Diablo and Starcraft will not allow resolution to change from file or registry changes. I just find it extremely odd that before the driver update, every game i ran was widescreen, maybe it was stretched but it still filled the screen. Even WoW, when i chose a non-widescreen resolution, it still filled the screen but now it shows black bars on the sides. Maybe I should just download the older driver, it worked fine anyway. Anyone else know the problem? Maybe catalyst control center has an option?

Ahh, quite old games I see.

Starcraft's standard resolution is 640x480, this is also its only resolution (I THINK, I haven't played in oh so long). Which means its impossible to change the resolution through the .ini files (So what I posted earlier becomes useless :P).

It seems the further we develop from it, the more problems we get. So with each driver and update, you'll find something different each time. My only idea is to roll back a driver and go to your old 1, or change the desktop resolution and see if that helps (Very doubltful).

(Personally I'd rather play it with the border, that way its not all pixelated, although Starcraft's graphics do suck :P. Bring on SC2!).

Although, perhaps 1 of the experts on the forum could tell you different.