Widescreen LCD's: Possible to play games in 4:3 letterbox w/ no stretching?

[jeeka]

I have always wondered this.

I use a 22" CRT monitor now, but am in the market for a huge high quality LCD Monitor...but:

If I have a widescreen LCD monitor, something that displays a "higher" resolution than 1280x1024 (like 1400x900 or whatever), and I have a video card (in my case an 8800GT overclocked to 770 core, 1840 Shaders) that runs really smooth on the games I play at 1280x1024, would it be possible to run games in 4:3 modes as opposed to 16:9 modes, thus getting 'black bars' on the sides?

I am concerned that if I get an LCD monitor with a high resolution, my 8800GT will have trouble shooting out smooth frames at the LCD monitor's higher native res.....

What to you guys run in a situation like this?

Thanks!
jeeka.

[alexio]

I have Forceware in Dutch installed now but it should be something like this: Nvidia Control panel->Display->Change flat display scale->don't scale

Think this works in-game too.

[Smokin_Joe]

I've been wondering about this as well. I play MVP05 once in a while and the game looks terrible with the widescreen patch, it's all stretched and the aliasing cannot be fixed. I'll give this a try alexio, thanks!

[Sparky]

Depends on the monitor too. That is the one downside of mine, it automatically stretches so even though the driver doesn't the monitor does.

[Tonucci]

An program named PowerStrip alows you to do that too.

[Soulburner]

It depends on the monitor, but yes you can. You need a 1:1 mode to not stretch the content to fill the screen.

Regardless, you won't have problems anyway. I run 1920x1200 24/7 and I wouldn't have it any other way. It will handle any Source engine game with ease, (like Dark Messiah) AA/AF included. Call of Duty 4 runs at 60fps (Vsync) at this res with 4xAA + AF. Bioshock runs at this res with 4x AA. Oblivion as well. I run all games on high details, nothing sacrificed.

Crysis? Runs great but AA: forget about it.