Gfx drivers that allow non-scaled image centering?

[osRe]

Any idea what/if nVIDIA/ATI Win9x drivers allow to keep a (non-native) resolution centered and non-scaled or integer-scaled? (My CRT is starting to die more and I may have to consider an LCD for the Win98 computer. I want to be able to use non-native resolutions.)

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

You can use non-native resolutions for LCD screens. The screen will be stretched (or compressed) in either horizontal or vertical (or both) ways though. If your CRT is 4:3 aspect ratio, then there are a few 4:3 LCD monitors that are available that would render your question here moot. What are you currently driving your CRT monitor with (screen resolution) ?

And why is it so important that you keep that exact resolution if you move to an LCD screen?

[osRe]

I hate LCD scaling. I don't want scaled resolutions but centered with 1:1 mapping, or integer scaling depending on resolution (e.g., 640x480 -> 1280x960 centered inside 1680x1050). I know current gfx drivers allow you to do that (at least centering, not sure about integer scaling), but I don't know if the ones that run on Win98 supported it.

I won't necessarily keep on using the same desktop resolution but I want good 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 (and maybe 1280x1024/960) for various older games that run at fixed resolutions. For desktop it's less crucial although it's still a compromise as most LCDs are 100dpi natively and I prefer ~75 for non-scaled fonts (on my 19" I'd use 1152x864 if it didn't suck, instead I'm on 1024x768).

LCDs should be better once there's enough native pixels to map to each logic one but such higher res monitors aren't available yet. E.g., using 1024x768 on a common 1680x1050 would get you 1.37 native pixels per logical one (1050/768). I don't remember what exactly my CRT has for physical resolution but the height is something above 1600 and below 2048. Assuming the middle ground: 1824, it works out to be 768/1824 = 2.37.

Maybe improved monitor scaling algorithms could help too, but this is actually better left for the graphics card to do. I suspect the analog blur/fuzziness that results due to how images are stretched on CRTs is more pleasing than the bilinear filtering or whatever most LCDs use. But to be able to really tell I'd first have to see an LCD with enough pixels and a DPI comparable to CRTs and try to play with digital upscaling algorithms to see how it looks. Desktop LCD monitors are at around 100 DPI, 19" CRTs are 150-190. Notebook LCDs sometimes have higher DPI than desktop but they have other drawbacks and naturally aren't usable for desktop.