Not sure if this is the right thread to post this in, but seems relevant.
For gamers with 16:10 monitors, it may be worth it for you to create--as an OPTION--a custom 16:9 resolution that otherwise matches your monitor's native horizontal resolution. You can easily switch back and forth between your 16:10 and 16:9 native resolutions as needed. You will get the black bars on top and bottom, yes, but for the majority of games you gain a greater horizontal FOV in the trade. This is especially important for RTS, isometric and FPS/competative games that were designed for 16:9 explicitly... which is almost of them these days.
The only game I personally own that benefits from 16:10 is The Witcher 2, which actually gives you more FOV (vertical) than 16:9. But it's definitely the exception to the rule.
There's a
website where you can look up games to see screenshot comparisons of how they handle different aspect ratios:
http://www.wsgf.org/
Bust out your windows calculator to find your custom 16:9 resolution =
(# of Native Res Vertical Pixels) times (.9)
Okay, so for me this means:
1680x1050 --> 1680x945, because 1050 times .9 is 945.
On Nvidia you can force games to use the 16:9 ratio of your custom resolution:
Display --> Adjust desktop size and position (then scaling mode = either aspect ratio or no scaling) --> (check the box for) override the scaling mode set by games and programs
And then remember to change the resolution setting in-game to match your new custom 16:9 resolution.
I have found that for some games this process is necessary in order to keep the black bars, thus keep the non-stretched 16:9 ratio that we want. Namely, Max Payne 3 and Just Cause 2 just wouldn't go into non-stretched 16:9 for me until I checked that box. But for all of my other games I just needed to change the resolution in-game and voilà.
Again, for a LOT of games the trade off is worth it IMO, even on my lower-than-1080p monitor. And then when I'm done gaming I just switch the resolution back to my 16:10 setting in the control panel.
Hope this helps some folks.
