Arch Linux

UFOKatarn

Member

Registered: 2010-08-29

Posts: 30

black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

Dear fellow Arch users!

I have a laptop with intel x3100 graphics chipset. Therefore, I cannot run any kind of a modern game on my full native resolution (1024x768).

I have however gotten Quake3, Openarena and Unreal Tournament 2004 running quite well on 320x240.

Nonetheless, for any resolution below 640x480, I get a black frame around the rendered game, so that the game itself appears very small on the screen.

An identical problem has already been discused on the Archforum, and even on other forums across the web, but only concerning nVidia and Ati video cards. Here are some links to such topics:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=92904
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=48768

How can I tell the system to stretch the image across the entire screen?

Thank you very much for any advice you can give me.

Sincerely,
UFOKatarn

UFOKatarn

Member

Registered: 2010-08-29

Posts: 30

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

Just wordering:

Could getting rid of the black frame be done by stretching the central portion of the screen with xrandr?

Does anyone know the appropriate command for it? Does xrandr even support such a thing?

Thank you once again,
UFOKatarn

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

You can start a separate X and set it to desired resolution

xrandr -s 320x240

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xor … _X_session

Also, check if you're running the game fullscreen.

Last edited by karol (2010-09-01 19:55:35)

UFOKatarn

Member

Registered: 2010-08-29

Posts: 30

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

karol :D. Thanks for the suggestion, however solely resizing screen resolution doesn't seem to do the trick.

No matter whether the screen resolution in X is, if it is set 640x480 or below, games render their output at 640x480, showing the actual game output in the center of the screen, about 1.5-times scaled, so a game resolution of 320x240 actually physically appears on the screen as about 400x300.

Here's a screenshot of Unreal Tournament 2004 running on 320x240 at fullscreen settings. (And yes, I did check, thank you for reminding me though :D - the game settings ARE set to fullscreen.)

Also, the following commands (found here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Int … ling_mode) at subchapter 6.2 - "Setting Scaling Mode" - seem to do nothing about it:

xrandr --output LVDS1 --set "scaling mode" param
where param is one of "Full" or "Full aspect".

Does anyone have any more suggestions ^.^?

Thanks,
UFOKatarn

Last edited by UFOKatarn (2010-09-19 22:50:50)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

I still have my UT2k4, so I'll check after lunch if I can do that on my nvidia.
What happens if you set your X resolution to 640x480 and game resolution to 640x480? Does it run albeit sluggishly?

Edit: I do have lower resolution settings available in the menu, but I get a warning saying the selected resolution is lower that the minimal menu resolution (and indeed, at 320x240 text and menus seem to outgrow the screen) and it seems it reverts to lowest possible - 640x480 - so I have to set it to lower resolutions every time. But it is playable fullscreen at 320x240.

Now, for science's sake, I'll play a couple DMs at some higher resolutions ;P

Last edited by karol (2010-09-02 13:43:37)

UFOKatarn

Member

Registered: 2010-08-29

Posts: 30

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

Hmm, thank you for trying karol :D! Appreciate it.

And about the performance when X screen resolution is set to 640x480:
It just doesn't matter what the X resolution is. The performance is the same whether the screen resolution be 640x480 or 1024x768.

Oh and yeah. It is playable, but the framerate is nowehere near close enough to effectively play against real people online. Against bots - sure, cause they're so predictable, but people ^^.

Hmm, let me try something else. Will edit this post later :D.

Edit:
I tried adding the 320x240 resolution to the Screen section in xorg.conf. Like this:

Modes     "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "320x240"

But xrandr still didn't recognize 320x240.

Could this be the problem. That the system thinks that a resolution below 640x480 isn't possible at all?

I thought so, so I added a new screen resolution mode to xrandr using these instructions:

Run cvt and give resolution as params:

$ cvt 1280 1024

Cvt prints out mode line for xorg.conf. Paste this line as an argument for xrandr:

$ xrandr --newmode "1280x1024_60.00" 109.00 1280 1368 1496 1712 1024 1027 1034 1063 -hsync +vsync

Add new mode to list of available modes:

$ xrandr --verbose --addmode VGA1 "1280x1024_60.00"

Set new mode for appropriate output:

$ xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024_60.00

The resolution in X changed indeed and xrandr did recognize the new mode, but the game still rendered its output in 640x480 with a black frame :/.

Does anyone (karol ^.^) have any other ideas?"

Tnx once again,
UFOKatarn

Last edited by UFOKatarn (2010-09-19 22:52:07)

UFOKatarn

Member

Registered: 2010-08-29

Posts: 30

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

Could it be a libgl issue?

MilosC

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-06-04

Posts: 79

Re: black frame in fullscreen on resolutions below 640x480

You should have a setting in BIOS which determines how to display resolutions below native resolution, whether it shold be streched to fullscreen or displayed in natural size. Is the picture streched to fullscreen when set to 800x600 and 640x480? If it's not, then I think the problem is in BIOS, not in OS.