I have the same issue with my XP machine also running nVidia drivers.

On my modern Windows 10 system, there are driver settings to control how the GPU performs scaling. But on Windows XP, there don't appear to be any options available.

If there is such a way to override scaling under XP, I'd also love to know how.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-24, 22:21:

I have the same issue with my XP machine also running nVidia drivers.

On my modern Windows 10 system, there are driver settings to control how the GPU performs scaling. But on Windows XP, there don't appear to be any options available.

If there is such a way to override scaling under XP, I'd also love to know how.

This is a well known Nvidia XP driver problem. The last XP driver that has working GPU scaling option is 355.98. Also you should use VGA or DVI instead of HDMI. More info:
Re: Adventures in Windows XP Ultrawide

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-02-24, 22:32:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-24, 22:21:

I have the same issue with my XP machine also running nVidia drivers.

On my modern Windows 10 system, there are driver settings to control how the GPU performs scaling. But on Windows XP, there don't appear to be any options available.

If there is such a way to override scaling under XP, I'd also love to know how.

This is a well known Nvidia XP driver problem. The last XP driver that has working GPU scaling option is 355.98. Also you should use VGA or DVI instead of HDMI. More info:
Re: Adventures in Windows XP Ultrawide

I did read that thread. I don't have 355.98 installed but I looked at the control panel quick start guide.
I highlighted the areas in question below.
It states that the scaling options (#2) are only available on Windows Vista and later.
The area I highlighted as #1 shows a flat panel scaling feature and it does have a no scaling option but I'm not sure exactly what this means?
From my understanding, #2 won't be available using Win XP and I don't think #1 will give the same result as #2.

It appears myself and Shponglefan have the same problem. We need games capable of running at the native monitor resolution or the game won't be sharp and/or the correct aspect ratio.
If my understanding is wrong please let me know. I don't wish to trial 355.98 unless necessary as my current driver works really well with all my games I have installed on my Win XP system.

wide2tele wrote on 2023-02-25, 01:00:

It appears myself and Shponglefan have the same problem. We need games capable of running at the native monitor resolution or the game won't be sharp and/or the correct aspect ratio.

I should probably clarify, I don't have an issue running games at my monitor's native resolution or with correct aspect ratio.

I'm using an Asus ProArt 24" monitor which has a native resolution of 1920x1200 (16:10 aspect ratio). This monitor features native 4:3 support in addition to 16:10 support. It will automatically change the aspect ratio depending on the signal provided. It even will do this if the game switches between 4:3 and 16:10 aspect ratio. This often occurs with full-screen video in older games recorded in 4:3 aspect ratio.

The main issue I did have was trying to get this aspect ratio switching to work while also running the monitor @ 75Hz. Ultimately I had to resort to running it through a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter. Straight HDMI or DisplayPort didn't work.

The other issue I'm left with is that the nVidia drivers detect my monitor as a television set for some reason.

I just wanted to confirm that in looking at the nVidia drivers, I did not see any scaling options available at the GPU level unlike on my Windows 10 machine, which does.

Part of what I would like is a way to scale 800x600 via the GPU without any image processing (e.g. straight pixel doubling). This would give me a better image at that resolution as opposed to when the monitor scales. The monitor does apply image processing which unfortunately makes resolutions other than 1920x1200 or 1600x1200 less than ideal.

wide2tele wrote on 2023-02-25, 01:00:

.... It states that the scaling options (#2) are only available on Windows Vista and later. The area I highlighted as #1 shows a […]
Show full quote

....
It states that the scaling options (#2) are only available on Windows Vista and later.
The area I highlighted as #1 shows a flat panel scaling feature and it does have a no scaling option but I'm not sure exactly what this means?
From my understanding, #2 won't be available using Win XP and I don't think #1 will give the same result as #2.

It appears myself and Shponglefan have the same problem. We need games capable of running at the native monitor resolution or the game won't be sharp and/or the correct aspect ratio.
If my understanding is wrong please let me know. I don't wish to trial 355.98 unless necessary as my current driver works really well with all my games I have installed on my Win XP system.

I do not understand exactly what you want to achieve so instead I show you what is possible with the available options in (older) Nvidia XP drivers.

Important! Under XP do not use HDMI since:
1. You will not get scaling options.
2. You cannot set the dynamic range to Full RGB so you will always get limited RGB. This results in incorrect black levels in case of PC monitors.

Anyway, these are the scaling options available in Nvidia XP drivers.
Important! In order to get these options you have to switch to a PC or non-native based resolution. After you selected the desired option it also applies to native based resolutions or non-PC resolutions.
(The below examples show what is possible with DVI)

1. Use Nvidia scaling:
In this case the display always stays in its native resolution but no aspect ratio correction is applied by the GPU so you will always get a full screen image. This case is trivial so I do not attach a screenshot.

2. Use Nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio:
In this case the display always stays in its native resolution but the GPU also applies aspect ratio correction:

3. Use my displays built-in scaling:
In this case the display is switched for the given resolution and no aspect ratio adjustment is applied by the GPU. Your display has to correct aspect ratio either automatically or manually.

4. Do not scale:
In this case the display always stays in its native resolution but the GPU not only corrects aspect ratio but draws a centered pixel perfect screen inside the native resolution (so in case of smaller resolutions you can get a tiny image)

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-25, 01:27:

The other issue I'm left with is that the nVidia drivers detect my monitor as a television set for some reason.

Use active VGA to HDMI/DP adapter to bypass this issue (or ATI/AMD GPU 😉).
In some cases you may be forced to use it to get standard resolutions back (and/or higher refresh rates for those modes).

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-02-25, 08:31:

I do not understand exactly what you want to achieve so instead I show you what is possible with the available options in (older) Nvidia XP drivers.

Thank you! Yes, I have it working now. The drivers I was using didn't give me the scaling options. Your post prompted me to uninstall the newer drivers and go with the older versions. Now I can scale.

I don't know if I understood the problem correctly, but if it can help you, there would be the alternative of running the game in a window, using the DXWnd program. Program that also has several other functions

Haki26 wrote on 2023-02-26, 21:34:

I don't know if I understood the problem correctly, but if it can help you, there would be the alternative of running the game in a window, using the DXWnd program. Program that also has several other functions

Thanks. Yes, I was already planning to explore that option if I couldn't get scaling working. Now that scaling works, I can just use the Nvidia driver.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-25, 01:27:

The other issue I'm left with is that the nVidia drivers detect my monitor as a television set for some reason.

Had the same issue and apparently "use driver 352.86 or earlier" was the solution I dug up.