[rescue] q on G4 "Digital Audio" and screen res

[Peter Corlett]

On 24 Aug 2006, at 16:55, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
[...]
> Something I'm curious about though, is how it handles software which
> expects a square format.

If you consider that the Dock defaults to being at the bottom of the  
display, the useful screen estate on a 4:3 display is already  
distorted. Moving it to the left or right on a widescreen display  
gives you roughly the same aspect ratio.

> For example, what happens when you run a game that can only do square
> resolutions?
> It would suck if the widescreen display spread that out to fit...

Depends on the game, I guess. Warcrack understands the PowerBook's  
14:9-ish display, other apps may well ignore the widescreen modes and  
select a 4:3 display. You seem to get the option between stretched or  
pillarbox display for the main screen, although whether an  
application picks the inappropriate variant depends on how broken it is.

> Also, how do you figure out if your video card can do it?  From what
> I've read, it isn't just a matter of having the bandwidth, some of  
> them
> don't seem to like creating the widescreen resolutions.

That's a driver rather than a hardware issue. Try selecting the mode  
you are interested in on your existing monitor and see if something  
comes up. It'll look stretched because the pixels are no longer  
square, but if that's the only "problem", you're good to go on a  
widescreen display.