"Stretched" Display in Fullscreen (with DirectX11)

[diceman]

When opening a Fullscreen application (DirectX 11-Subsystem), it will appear stretched on Widescreen Monitors, even though a resolution of 800x600 has been defined. Not 100% sure, tho, if this could be drivers issue, or indeed a bug?
It works fine in DirectX9 and OpenGL - the screen will be displayed with black borders left and right, as expected.

Snippet:

Code: Select all

EnableExplicit

InitSprite()
InitKeyboard()

#xRes= 800
#yRes = 600
OpenScreen(#xRes, #yRes, 32, "Fullscreen Bug with DirectX11")

Repeat
	ClearScreen(RGB(255,255,255))	;whiteBackground
	
	If StartDrawing(ScreenOutput())
		Circle(100, 100, 50, RGB(255,0,0))
		StopDrawing()
	EndIf
	FlipBuffers()
	
	ExamineKeyboard()
Until KeyboardReleased(#PB_Key_All)

End

[Fred]

Here it's the same for all 3 systems: it's stretched to fill the screen, so it seems to be driver dependant. It seems to be logical though because you are requesting a 800x600 screen, so unless the screen care about pixel ratio, it will just gives that. Can anybody else confirm ?

[miso]

Here is stretched (and it should be).

[Mijikai]

Whats the point of a stretched screen?
Scaling is one thing but streching makes it useless.

[Fred]

Just ask Microsoft...

[miso]

Whats the point of a stretched screen?

It's the normal behavior of a fullscreen exclusive mode. You have to open screen using a resolution that is corresponding with the display to keep aspect ratios. Then you can position your items as you please, and leave out the sides if you want. It's a pain in the a** for me too, but that's not just for PB. Everyone is struggling with this.

I keep track changes in the game industry. The old 5:4 "square" aspect ratio was straightforward, then came for a couple of years the 16:10 (and it was not a bad ratio for computation, the corresponding resolutions could be divided well), Some macbook still uses this, but for desktop PC-s they are not really manufactured anymore. 16:9 replaced it. This ratio comes from the movie industry, an can't be divided well. I mean, if you create 8x8 16x16 32x32 tiles, you cant fit it in your screen, as it was not designed for binary.

Still, Steam shows that the most common screen mode players use changed from 1024x768 to 1366x768, and it is for long years.
So, for a while, game developers started to optimize their games to be the best experience on the most common 16:9, and it does not seem to be changed yet.

The other thing is the fullscreen exclusive mode. In windowed mode, you have your desktop graphics in your VRAM, providing easy alt-tabbing.
In fullscren exclusive, there's only your app running. Alt tabbing crashes your app, if you do not manage it well. (and hell, there were good old commercial games that did not managed it well) Your benefit was more VRAM available.

Now the size of VRAM skyrocketed comparing to the old times, and fullscreen exclusive started to thin out.
A lot of recent games do not apply it. Though, as soon as gamers find this out, starts to comply why theres no fullscreen, only borderless windowed? Even creating reddit topics discussing why theres no fullscreen, how to hack it to be there?

In Blizzard's Hearthstone (Unity made) they just hid it from players to make them not to comply. Theres two mode, windowed and fullscreen.
(but fullscreen is a borderless windowed screen) (It's also a good design example, how they created the play area as 5:4 ratio, and having
a cool looking but gameplay-wise inactive border part displayed in 16:10 or on 16:9)

When I started to write tools in pb 5.73 I made fullscreened applications, but had to hassle with all the alt-tabbing.
Now I only develope for windowed borderless, optimizing for 16:9, mainly to 1366x768.

This post is just a report of my research. I respect all users here, and I know you all know what you are doing.
Also interested in the opinion of anyone who think's otherwise regarding screen modes and ratios.