amd GPU Driver disables aspect ratio setting of monitor

[IndianaIT]

Hello everyone, 

I have a Phillips 499P9 32:9 5120x1440p monitor.

For gaming I like to scale it down to 2560x1440p in the middle of the monitor with black space on the sides.

Up until now I had a GTX1070 and if there was a problem with the game scaling properly, I could go to the OSD Menu of the monitor and force an aspect ratio there.

I recently upgraded to XFX Swift RX6800 and the aspect ratio option in the monitor does not work. The menu item is still there but it is not active and cannot be selected.

This kinda sucks because I bought the GPU for 1440p gaming and if the game scaling does not work properly (e.g. like in Witcher 3) I am forced to use the whole monitor, requiring the GPU to push something like 80% of 4k.

I tried various combinations (both global and per-game) of scaling settings in the AMD adrenaline app but they seem to have no effect at all. 

 

Can anyone here advise, whether I should look for some specific setting that would give the aspect ratio control back to the monitor?

 

I'm starting to think that this whole foray to AMD was an error and that I should be a man and go back to nvidia.

Thank you.
 

 

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, IndianaIT said:

requiring the GPU to push something like 80% of 4k.

why are you not using resolution scaling , setting it to 50% and picking a target framerate...

forcing the display to use only the center of the monitor to make the resolution lower is a very 2004 solution to a modern problem.

[porina]

19 minutes ago, IndianaIT said:

I recently upgraded to XFX Swift RX6800 and the aspect ratio option in the monitor does not work. The menu item is still there but it is not active and cannot be selected.

If the display can't scale it, it sounds like the GPU is outputting a 5120x1440 container. Must be some scaling option in the drivers somewhere.

 

I'll have to let an AMD owner answer but I guess you need the equivalent to the following settings from Nvidia:

 

Done right you shouldn't need to touch the monitor setting at all. "aspect ratio" at the GPU means GPU takes care of it, "no scaling" means display takes care of it.

 

Until then, make sure games are running in exclusive fullscreen mode.

[Hellowpplz]

31 minutes ago, IndianaIT said:

I am forced to use the whole monitor

 

31 minutes ago, IndianaIT said:

I'm starting to think that this whole foray to AMD was an error and that I should be a man and go back to nvidia

SO because you can't game in windowed mode (btw always has given me WORSE performance than fullscreen), you think amd is worse. 

Also DDU old nvidia drivers and install newest AMD drivers
 

Edit: My bad misread

[porina]

20 minutes ago, emosun said:

why are you not using resolution scaling , setting it to 50% and picking a target framerate...

OP wants a 16:9 gaming experience and not waste resources drawing 2x the pixel count. Most games are optimised for 16:9, and few really benefit from going outside that. To be clear, that's not to say they can't draw wider, but if it doesn't enhance the gaming experience, it is a waste.

 

6800 should be plenty for native 2560x1440 rendering. FSR is definitely not my go-to option to resolve this.

 

3 minutes ago, Hellowpplz said:

SO because you can't game in windowed mode (btw always has given me WORSE performance than fullscreen), you think amd is worse. 

OP doesn't want windowed, they want a game to render at and display 2560x1440 pillarbox mode.

[Hellowpplz]

6 minutes ago, porina said:

OP doesn't want windowed, they want a game to render at and display 2560x1440 pillarbox mode.

Ah, mb 

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

OP wants a 16:9 gaming experience and not waste resources drawing 2x the pixel count.

so you don't know what resolution scaling is would be another way to type that. setting it to 50% is literally less pixels

7 minutes ago, porina said:

Most games are optimised for 16:9, and few really benefit from going outside that. To be clear, that's not to say they can't draw wider, but if it doesn't enhance the gaming experience, it is a waste.

then buy a 16:9 monitor. have the wide ratio monitor for pc use and the 16:9 monitor for playing games where hitting the window mode button is far too complicated. problem solved.

[emosun]

Or they can go back to nvidia and conclude that them running their monitor at the wrong resolution is AMDs fault rather than their own , so plenty of options.

[porina]

6 minutes ago, emosun said:

so you don't know what resolution scaling is would be another way to type that. setting it to 50% is literally less pixels

Read again. You'd need to upscale. On AMD you'd have to use FSR with the problems it brings. Well, maybe XeSS if an option runs better. I have even used that on nvidia over DLSS, but it is game dependant.

 

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

Or they can go back to nvidia and conclude that them running their monitor at the wrong resolution is AMDs fault rather than their own , so plenty of options.

Why the hostility? Chances are an AMD user can come in, point at the appropriate driver setting (like those I showed for nvidia) and problem solved.

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

Why the hostility? Chances are an AMD user can come in, point at the appropriate driver setting (like those I showed for nvidia) and problem solved.

yeah gee if only an AMD user who has the exact same gpu came in and said exactly what to do in the very first reply , wouldn't that be something.

9 minutes ago, porina said:

Read again. You'd need to upscale. On AMD you'd have to use FSR with the problems it brings. Well, maybe XeSS if an option runs better. I have even used that on nvidia over DLSS, but it is game dependant.

mk , so again you can just type "i don't know how resolution scaling works"

[IndianaIT]

52 minutes ago, emosun said:

id yeah gee if only an AMD user who has the exact same gpu came in and said exactly what to do in the very first reply , wouldn't that be something.

mk , so again you can just type "i don't know how resolution scaling works"

Thank you for your input. I did try to set the scaling using Adrenaline app as per my original post:
"I tried various combinations (both global and per-game) of scaling settings in the AMD adrenaline app but they seem to have no effect at all. "

 

As I originally wrote, this does not seem to have any effect at all. Also I did reinstall windows just to be on the safe side. They had it coming anyway. 

I am asking here because my last AMD GPU was Radeon 7950 so I am not really up to date with regard to capabilities and pitfalls of modern AMD drivers. I spent two days going through the AMD Adrenaline settings, various fora and FAQ sites and still cannot safely get the pillarbox I want.

I was able to get it in Horizon Zero Dawn and Subnautica throuhg the in game settings,so parts of the issue is apparently also the way the games implement the resolution output (who would have thought).

 

You of course are correct, that forcing the aspect ratio through the display settings is janky and I was not using it for every game. It was an option that worked when everything else failed though.

 

Also I'm not saying it worked flawlessly with Nvidia. I just had higher success rate setting the proper scaling there and it did not switch off my last resort option.

I was never able to get e.g. Civ 6 to scale properly. I just did not bother with the monitor there as that game is not really fast-paced action.

 

 

[porina]

55 minutes ago, emosun said:

yeah gee if only an AMD user who has the exact same gpu came in and said exactly what to do in the very first reply , wouldn't that be something.

mk , so again you can just type "i don't know how resolution scaling works"

If you are using some AMD terminology then I would be ignorant. As written I have tried to interpret it as best I could in an nvidia/generic sense.

 

11 minutes ago, IndianaIT said:

"I tried various combinations (both global and per-game) of scaling settings in the AMD adrenaline app but they seem to have no effect at all. "

I tried looking around a bit and found this screenshot. Does the scaling mode option there work at all? Probably want to use either "preserve aspect ratio" or "center". In game should be set to exclusive full screen and 2560x1440.

[emosun]

30 minutes ago, IndianaIT said:

 

can you try window mode as that will also yield a very similar result to just running the monitor at a more narrow resolution. The 2d desktop doesn't require any gpu power to render so the performance wouldn't be any different.

[IndianaIT]

On 3/20/2024 at 3:38 PM, emosun said:

can you try window mode as that will also yield a very similar result to just running the monitor at a more narrow resolution. The 2d desktop doesn't require any gpu power to render so the performance wouldn't be any different.

Well I got to running the games in 2560x1440 borderless window and killing explorer.exe for the duration of the session.
About the same amount of jank like switching aspect ratio throuhg the monitor.