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As some of you who may noticed (those who have widescreen panels and are into retro-gaming or play games at anything other than your desktop resolution), there's a bug in the ATI drivers for W7 (maybe Vista, don't know) that disables scaling and doesn't let you pick any scaling options. Thus we're stuck into Flattenedville any time the resolution is not widescreen.

Here's the fix:

- Set your resolution to anything below your usual resolution.
- Right-click your desktop, and go to the Catalyst Control Center. Set it to advanced mode if it's not already.
- At the top left, click the "Graphics" menu, and then "Desktops & Displays".
- For your desired display, click the little black triangle in the bottom part of the screen, on the LITTLE picture, not the BIG one, and click "Configure".
- The scaling options will now be selectable, check the "Enable GPU scaling" box and select "Maintain aspect ratio". Hit Apply.
- Set your old resolution back. Even though the forementioned scaling controls are greyed out and you can actually see "Scale image to full panel size" grey-selected, don't worry.
- Go play your games!

Tested under W7 RTM and Catalyst 9.8 and 9.12 drivers.

axeman wrote:

You deserve a cookie! That was irritating me, hopefully they will make it easier to set properly in the future.

It seems I am cursed with problems regarding scaling. Back when I moved from my 7800 to the 8800GTX, image scaling vanished and never came back. Then I moved to ATI and rejoice, scaling not only worked again but actually looked better to boot! Now W7 comes out and this time it's ATI dropping the ball. *sigh*

Thank you so much! This was bothering me for a long time and I didn't think I was going to find a solution until I read your post.

Unfortunately ATI has not released any Windows 7 drivers for their older DirectX9-based graphics cards/chipsets. For those devices, you have to install the old 9.x-series "legacy" Vista drivers and Catalyst Control Center onto Windows 7. Your instructions do not work with those "legacy" Vista drivers.

Here's how you get at the aspect ratio settings in the legacy Vista drivers (version 9.11 in my case) on Windows 7 on a laptop:

1. Launch ATI Catalyst Control Center.

2. If it's not already in "Basic" mode, switch it to "Basic" mode (via the "View -> Basic View" menu item at the top left).

3. Once you're in Basic mode, you will see these three tabs along the top:
- Easy Setup Wizards
- Quick Settings
- Information Center

4. Go to the "Quick Settings" tab, and you will see three settings in the left-hand side:
- 3D Quality
- Video Playback
- Notebook Panel Properties

5. Choose "Notebook Panel Properties", and then in the right-hand side you will see "Resize the desktop to fit the display panel".

6. Click on "Resize the desktop to fit the display panel" to select it, and then press the "Go >" button.

7. You will now be on the "Desktop Image for Notebook Displays" screen, where you can select from the following options:
- Do not resize
- Resize to fit the display panel
- Resize, but keep the image's original dimensions (aspect ratio)

8. Choose an option, and click the "Finish" button.


NOTE: The aspect ratio/scaling options are not exposed anywhere in the "Advanced" mode of the Catalyst Control Center.

Hi c0d3h4x0r, I've tried your solution as well as the one initially posted in this topic. Unfortunately when I use the Basic method it greys out "GO" and tells me to use the Advanced settings. When I use the Advanced method as described here, the scaling options are greyed out as well.

I'm running an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, on a Dell Inspiron 1545. I used an upgrade disc to install win 7. I've downloaded drivers from ATI and Dell, and am using the most up to date version of CCC.

I've spent countless hours trying to find a solution to this, this solution was the closest thing I've had to success so far. Any suggestions to where I can go from here? I'm considering phoning Dell or ATI to see why they've sold me a product that causes me this much of a headache.


Thanks for any help that you can lend!
Tom

Shizoku wrote:

Hi c0d3h4x0r, I've tried your solution as well as the one initially posted in this topic. Unfortunately when I use the Basic method it greys out "GO" and tells me to use the Advanced settings. When I use the Advanced method as described here, the scaling options are greyed out as well

Did you set your resolution to anything below your usual resolution before, and did you use the small arrow in the displays manager? I'm asking because I'm currently running the 9.12 Catalysts and I double-checked that it works correctly.

That's very strange, should I try a different resolution? I'm currently at my standard and highest resolution.

Here's a couple pics, perhaps you can see if I'm doing something wrong.
This is of the basic view: http://img85.imageshack.us/i/basic.png/
This is of the advanced: http://img706.imageshack.us/i/advanced.png/

Thanks so much for your help and Merry Christmas!
Tom

- Change to any resolution that's below your standard/native one. 1024x768, for example
- Change to Advanced mode
- On top-left, click on the Graphics menu, then select Desktops and Displays.
- Then follow the original instructions in the first post.

Oh wow, thank you so so so so much. I've probably been searching for this solution for at least 12 hours now. Finally I can play starcraft and tf2 with the proper widescreen.

You know that euphoric feeling that you get when you finally have your problem fixed, yeah I have that.

You guys are great, thanks so much. Merry Christmas!
Tom

Shizoku wrote:

Finally I can play starcraft and tf2 with the proper widescreen.

If by "TF2" you mean Team Fortress 2, then you should play it at your native resolution, as it has proper widescreen support. The only "gotcha" is that when selecting the resolution in the game, you have to pick the aspect ratio first, and only then the resolution. At least it used to be this way. But it supports any resolution available, nevertheless.

Shizoku wrote:

Hi c0d3h4x0r, I've tried your solution as well as the one initially posted in this topic. Unfortunately when I use the Basic method it greys out "GO" and tells me to use the Advanced settings. When I use the Advanced method as described here, the scaling options are greyed out as well.

I'm running an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, on a Dell Inspiron 1545.

My instructions were ONLY for DX9-based ATI cards that use the "legacy" DX9-based ATI drivers.

Your card is a DX10-based card that uses the newer non-"legacy" DX10-based ATI drivers.

The legacy and non-legacy drivers have different layout/UI/options in the CCC and do not work the same way. So my instructions will not work for you.

Hey c0d3h4x0r, I'm having this issue on my notebook, and it seems as if I'm not alone in this. TONS of people are having this problem, and it'd be nice to have a good, quick, but effective fix from AMD. But in the meantime, your workaround doesn't work for me. Like, Windows scales to fill my screen... but when I start Borderlands, I'm back to centered timings again. :/

My Notebook: (An Alienware Area-51 m5790)

1. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (build 7600, got this free from a school program for CS students -- is 7600 the same as the RC?) And if so, do you by any chance know how to disable the "Test Mode" text in the bottom right hand corner of my desktop?)
2. Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 (Merom-core, 2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2)
3. Realtek ALC880 HD Audio
4. ATI Mobility Radeon X1900 (PCIe, 256 MB GDDR3, 400 MHz/400 MHz core/mem)
5. Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 ABG wireless adapter
6. Realtek RTL8167 Gigabit Ethernet adapter
7. 4 GB DDR2-667 (2 x 2 GB)
8. 740 GB RAID 0 Array (VIA VT6421 SATA/RAID Controller - 320 GB 5400 RPM SATA HDD + 400 GB 5400 RPM SATA HDD)
9. 17.1" Glossy LCD Display (25ms, 1920x1200)

c0d3h4x0r

Much thanks for your solution for the 9.11 legacy drivers (i have to use them with my X1400 Mobility card through mobilitymodder) because dell, one of the largest computer companies, refuses to provide support for their older hardware...

its funny how ATI, another large company, responsible for millions of end users, can't get such simple things right in a final driver release.

edit: i guess i spoke too soon. i finally saw that scaling options in the basic mode that i had so missed...well it did let me enable it but then when i open WoW its back to the tiny screen with black borders...and 1680x1050 is way too high-res for my little laptop.

Yes, it appears that my workaround instructions (for the 9.11 legacy drivers on Windows 7) don't really work very well. As soon as you launch a program that switches to a different resolution mode than your current desktop resolution, the driver reverts back to the default behavior (big black margins around a tiny viewable rectangle).

Everyone who is having this problem with a DX9-based ATI graphics chipset using the 9.11 legacy drivers on Windows 7, please send feedback about this problem to ATI using this link: http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D27E29B0E3

If enough users start complaining about the same thing directly to ATI, maybe they will finally wake up and do something about it.

I wonder if this would fix the issue im having with my laptop... Win 7 (native 1440x900 17") with a HD 2600 running 9.11..... If i go into Borderlands, running the game at my native makes for some horrible performance. So I lower my res, it will keep me in the same aspect ratio but use only PART of the screen.

Morphine...... lol "CATCHA RIDE..... You can paint it all kind of purty colors to BOOT!" I am going to call you Scooter from now on .

*PS* I used your link there to post the issue to AMD.... I'd recommend everyone else take the 1 minute to do so also. This thread has been submitted for AMDs reference.

Welch wrote:

Morphine...... lol "CATCHA RIDE..... You can paint it all kind of purty colors to BOOT!" I am going to call you Scooter from now on .

Heh, great game

Welch wrote:

*PS* I used your link there to post the issue to AMD.... I'd recommend everyone else take the 1 minute to do so also. This thread has been submitted for AMDs reference.

I did that as well myself. It's appreciated, and I hope ATI takes notice of this. Especially now in the digital sales age, more and more old games are coming out, and those usually don't even have resolution options. A fix for proper aspect ratio scaling is more necessary than ever.

Ok guys, Please help me out with this if you can. I too have been spending hours on trying to get this to work.

I have just installed Windows 7 (64bit) on a Gateway T-1631 Laptop. I've downloaded the latest legacy drivers for my ATI Radeon x1270 graphics card. I have been using the catalyst control center in basic mode in order to get to the notebook panel properties screen. I also have lowered my resolution. When I try to "resize the desktop" in the CCC, the screen flashes a few times and then goes back to the previous screen without changing anything. In other words, the black boarders are not going away. I really would like to find a solution for this, just can't stand playing older games in a small window. I also would like to be able to adjust the desktop resolution without having black boarders. Bty, I have used the previous link to complain to ATI. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Tom

This fix will not help you in legacy drivers, it only applies to recent Catalyst versions. You should use Mobility Modder and the latest drivers to first get a much updated driver, then second get the scaling working

morphine wrote:

This fix will not help you in legacy drivers, it only applies to recent Catalyst versions. You should use Mobility Modder and the latest drivers to first get a much updated driver, then second get the scaling working

Well no, he is on the latest drivers. Starting with Catalyst 9.3, all DX9 and lower cards have been moved out of the regular Catalyst drivers and into the Legacy Catalyst drivers, which AMD promised would receive quarterly updates, but has failed utterly at delivering. Us legacy card owners use Mobility Modder on the legacy drivers, not the regular drivers, and we have the previous UI, but with scaling options missing in Advanced View.

I don't believe they have failed at delivering the quarterly updates they promised... they just didn't fix a few of the large issues like this that they should have. They released 9.12 in December of this last year. The next update would be April, but im hoping they will come to their senses and add a quick hotfix for this issue before then, they might not though.

Welch wrote:

I don't believe they have failed at delivering the quarterly updates they promised... they just didn't fix a few of the large issues like this that they should have. They released 9.12 in December of this last year. The next update would be April, but im hoping they will come to their senses and add a quick hotfix for this issue before then, they might not though.

9.12 is NOT THE DX9-BASED LEGACY DRIVER. It is the newer DX10-based NON-legacy driver.

The latest LEGACY driver, which is what you MUST use for DX9-based ATI products, is 9.11.

I installed mobility modder, followed the instructions to a T. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I'm stuck in 1280x800 resolution. If I go into a lower resolution, I'll get the black boarders. Thanks for everyone's quick response. If you have any other ideas, please send them my way.

I stand corrected, i thought we were talking about legacy drivers PERIOD. I'm using a HD2600 Mobility card hence my DX10 Legacy drivers.

Welch wrote:

I stand corrected, i thought we were talking about legacy drivers PERIOD. I'm using a HD2600 Mobility card hence my DX10 Legacy drivers.

DX10 devices require DX10 drivers, which are the NON-LEGACY drivers. Latest release of these is 9.12.
DX9 devices require DX9 drivers, which are the LEGACY drivers. Latest release of these is 9.11.

Catalyst 9.11 NON-LEGACY is NOT the same thing as Catalyst 9.11 LEGACY. They are both called Catalyst version 9.11, but they are two entirely different drivers.

Because you have a DX10-based device, you have to be using the NON-LEGACY drivers. You cannot possibly be using the LEGACY driver with a DX10 devices. You can't even install the LEGACY driver onto a DX10 device.

And yes, this is all very confusing. AMD has done a terrible job of making this clear. They should have completely renamed the legacy drivers to something else entirely, and given it an entirely different version numbering scheme, to make it clear that they are two entirely different driver series.

I would suggest they rename the "legacy Catalyst" drivers to "Catalyst for DX9 Devices", and leave the major version number as "9.xx"
Then they should rename the "non-legacy Catalyst" drivers to "Catalyst for DX10 Devices" and change the major version number to "10.xx".
Then it would all be much clearer.

I agree... with it labeled at 9.xx its also indicating that it supports up to their DX9 cards... where as the 10.xx drivers would indicate support for those. But... it seems that would only set them up for failure down the road as they don't really split their driver support up based on the cards supported DX version. The fact that their mobility cards and desktop cards are so close in driver version yet different, ones legacy while the other isnt in the same series confuses the **** outta me.

I'm even more mixed up since i've been installing drivers for XP/Vista/Win7 for my Mobility 2600, my girlfriends AGP x1650Pro and then her AGP x3850Pro..... All different series, AGP to confuse it more and different DX versions.

Welch wrote:

they don't really split their driver support up based on the cards supported DX version.

Actually, that is exactly what they do currently. That's my entire point.

DX9-based cards are all "legacy" and use the legacy driver series.
DX10-based cards are all "non-legacy" and use the non-legacy driver series.
But they confusingly call both driver series "Catalyst", and use the same version numbering scheme (9.xx) for both, even though they are completely different drivers.

c0d3h4x0r wrote:

I would suggest they rename the "legacy Catalyst" drivers to "Catalyst for DX9 Devices", and leave the major version number as "9.xx"
Then they should rename the "non-legacy Catalyst" drivers to "Catalyst for DX10 Devices" and change the major version number to "10.xx".
Then it would all be much clearer.

I agree with the name change, but not the versioning. The versioning is based on year and month, which I think is pretty easy to follow. It's just that keeping both the legacy and non-legacy drivers named Catalyst causes undue confusion for everyone, exacerbated by AMDs terrible website organization. If you don't follow tech news or check AMD GAME forum stickies, I have no idea how AMD expects users to realize that legacy products have been shifted to a different driver and that you have to obtain these drivers on the AMD Support site, not the AMD GAME site.

Welch wrote:

I'm even more mixed up since i've been installing drivers for XP/Vista/Win7 for my Mobility 2600, my girlfriends AGP x1650Pro and then her AGP x3850Pro..... All different series, AGP to confuse it more and different DX versions.

Yup, AMD's graphics driver structure is a goddamned mess at this point. AGP users need to use separate AGP hotfix drivers as regular Catalyst drivers don't officially support AGP cards past the HD2600 series. Mobility drivers are non-existent for Vista and later and XP users need to download and run the verification utility, and only if you are using a laptop from one of the supported vendors are you allowed to download a 10-month old driver. On the desktop, driver support has been fragmented between DX9 and DX10+ cards, with DX9 cards starting with X1k series and going back being put on the so-called Legacy drivers. This also means that laptop users with mobility versions of the DX9 cards need to run Mobility Modder on the legacy Catalysts, NOT the regular Catalysts on the AMD GAME site. And then, bizarrely enough, AMD puts their chipset and RAID drivers in the Motherboard/IGP Catalyst section, despite having a separate AMD Chipset Drivers section.

What I don't understand is what changed in Windows 7 to suddenly break scaling for both nVidia and ATI (I wonder if Intel is affected). I hope the vendors get this fixed. I'd honestly prefer it if vendors would have a few driver revisions periodically dedicated solely to bug fixes.

Zoomastigophora wrote:

I agree with the name change, but not the versioning. The versioning is based on year and month, which I think is pretty easy to follow.

That's very non-obvious; I never realized that was there scheme. If they want it to be clear that's the versioning system, then they ought to change the versioning to "YYYY.MM.DD", e.g. "2009.11.25".

Zommastigophora wrote:

It's just that keeping both the legacy and non-legacy drivers named Catalyst causes undue confusion for everyone, exacerbated by AMDs terrible website organization.

100% agree here. Their driver organization on their website is an absolute train wreck. Terribly confusing to find what you really need.

Zommastigophora wrote:

Yup, AMD's graphics driver structure is a goddamned mess at this point. AGP users need to use separate AGP hotfix drivers as regular Catalyst drivers don't officially support AGP cards past the HD2600 series. Mobility drivers are non-existent for Vista and later and XP users need to download and run the verification utility, and only if you are using a laptop from one of the supported vendors are you allowed to download a 10-month old driver. On the desktop, driver support has been fragmented between DX9 and DX10+ cards, with DX9 cards starting with X1k series and going back being put on the so-called Legacy drivers. This also means that laptop users with mobility versions of the DX9 cards need to run Mobility Modder on the legacy Catalysts, NOT the regular Catalysts on the AMD GAME site. And then, bizarrely enough, AMD puts their chipset and RAID drivers in the Motherboard/IGP Catalyst section, despite having a separate AMD Chipset Drivers section.

Yes, for all these reasons, and all the driver bugs I've hit like this scaling/stretching options bug, I'm really regretting my Radeon 4890 HD purchase a couple months ago. It doesn't matter if the hardware is solid and high-performance if the drivers are a buggy chaotic mess and don't get fixed or updated frequently enough.

Zommastigophora wrote:

What I don't understand is what changed in Windows 7 to suddenly break scaling for both nVidia and ATI (I wonder if Intel is affected). I hope the vendors get this fixed. I'd honestly prefer it if vendors would have a few driver revisions periodically dedicated solely to bug fixes.

There ought to be monthly driver releases on a regular schedule, to make sure no bug ever drives customers nuts longer than a month.
To get a Microsoft WHQL certification for a video card or driver, a vendor should have to be contractually obligated to Microsoft to provide driver updates directly to end-users (not indirectly through laptop manufacturers) monthly.

c0d3h4x0r wrote:

That's very non-obvious; I never realized that was there scheme. If they want it to be clear that's the versioning system, then they ought to change the versioning to "YYYY.MM.DD", e.g. "2009.11.25".

It's actually been this way since ATI adopted a unified driver architecture and called it Catalyst. The leading digit is the last digit of the current year, and the following digits denote what month the driver was released in. Occasionally, there are .13 drivers released; these are usually performance improving drivers that are released close to the end of the year.

c0d3h4x0r wrote:

There ought to be monthly driver releases on a regular schedule, to make sure no bug ever drives customers nuts longer than a month.
To get a Microsoft WHQL certification for a video card or driver, a vendor should have to be contractually obligated to Microsoft to provide driver updates directly to end-users (not indirectly through laptop manufacturers) monthly.

AMD currently releases drivers monthly for the regular Catalyst. The legacy drivers are on a quarterly update schedule, but AMD hasn't been very consistent with that so far. We'll see if February brings a new driver for legacy. It's also unreasonable to dictate a release schedule for WHQL certification as WHQL is not just for graphics drivers and is also not the goal of the program (and not every hardware vendor has the resources to develop and test drivers monthly). It's also not mandatory for hardware vendors to participate in it.

Just thought I would pop in and say thanks for the fix!
This has been an annoyance for a couple machines that play older games.