CIH friendly video games

Kids [24 & 20] are playing the new XBOX Call of Duty game in 2.37:1.

PJ is set to 16:9 and the lens just slides in front and bada bing bada boom

I'm not a gamer but it is pretty bad ass.

That is pretty cool, tried it for a few games in the past. I wish they'd make scope games, would be awesome. They always seem to make the intro scenes and other bits between levels in scope, why not the whole game!

COD (MW at least) has the ability to adjust the screen height and width. If you adjust the screen height down enough, you might be able to avoid loss of the health bars etc when performing the verical stretch.

Most not made for it but if I can get away with it I will zoom stretch for 2.40 as long as all the info is there.

What I would like to see is perhaps 2 projectors edge blended and games to go with it. Wrap around screens putting you right in the middle of the action, oh in 3D would be nice too, add some actuator Dbox style system to the floor for effects. I'll keep dreaming

Oh it's out there google racing pod. It's a projection screen pod that you sit in and have full field of view around you with full Dbox motion seat. I built a version for a buddies system no pod but he has 3 monitors racing seat and shifter we incorporated a real master cylinder for braking pressure. Helmet cam moves your view with your head it's pretty incredible.

Forza Motorsport 3, incar view...very intence in 2.35. Not sure if the HUD is cut off as I shut it all off anyway.

I have been playing scope games on and off for a couple of years now. The only way to play games in scope , as far as i know, is PC gaming. With any of the current graphics cards for PC's you can totally customize your resolution. I have the res set at about 1920 x 814 and let the lens do the rest. It's really an amazing experience!

For games that allow windowed mode you can get a similar effect by making the game window screen width (before the lens is used). then turn on your scaler (again pre lens) and drag the window height to fill the screen.

Add the lens and you are all set. (this works for me since my ATI card and HDMI connection never allow custom resolutions via powerstrip, for some reason my projector wont sync to non standard resolutions)

The more I think about it, some programs let you specify window size in the properties of the exe icon .... ill have to try setting 1920 x 814 and see what I get.

I have my HTPC set to use a custom resolution of 1920x817 and quite a few games recognize this resolution. Most, if not all, Source engine games support custom resolutions, e.g. 1920x817. I've tested Crysis, Half-Life 2, Portal, World of Warcraft, Mass Effect 2 (this one's tricky to get working), and Star Craft 2 at 2.35:1 without losing any HUD/info.

Widescreen gaming forum has a list of games, along with guides, on how to configure certain games to use custom resolutions to fit our aspect ratio requirements.

Now I've just gotta find some PC racing games that'll work good on the PJ.

Has anyone had any experience playing xbox or ps3 games in 2.35:1 format?

Sadly, I haven't found any games that are 2.35:1 on consoles. I wish they'd have a letterbox setting on games.


If your laptop has an AMD (ATI) or Nvidia card, you definitely should be able to create a custom resolution using the graphics card control panel. The best thing to do would be updating to the latest video card drivers on your laptop.

Are you connecting directly to your projector or using a receiver and then going to your projector? The reason I'm asking is because your receiver might be able to scale the custom resolution to 1920x1080 (allowing your projector to accept the signal) and the image will still appear letterbox'd on your projector because it hasn't been stretched yet.

On another note, why are you using Powerstrip instead of the Catalyst Control Center to create resolutions?

Under Desktops & Displays, right click on your display at the bottom (not the one in the middle of the screen) and then choose configure. Once you're on that page, click Add down at the bottom to add a custom resolution. I'm not sure if a DVI or HDMI connection is required to get to this screen or not. If you're unable to do this, I'd try using the program called Powerstrip, which is mentioned earlier in this thread.

Also, when adding a custom resolution for 2.35:1, be sure to uncheck "maintain aspect ratio" when using the sliders to adjust the image.

Here's where it's located on the new Catalyst Control Center.

I know this is an older thread, but I'm bumping this hoping to get a few suggestions. I've seen a number of people in this thread recommend resolutions like 1920*814 and 1920*817 and such. I have an Optoma HD7100 which is actually a 720p projector. I was going to set my resolution to 1280*540, but in another thread DarkLordJames recommended that I use 1280*640 because he said most 1st person and 3rd person games look better at 2:1, rather than 2:35:1.

Now, although my projector is 720p, it can accept a 1080p signal. I'm not sure if it will sync with 1920 x 814 or 1920 x 817, but I could try it. Which resolution would be the best for me, in terms of not sacrificing too much picture quality?

Actually, I'm still having problems getting it to work right. I've tried a number of games, but I can't seem to get any of them to actually have that widescreen look. I'm probably doing something wrong, just not sure yet.


I use a regular Blu Ray player to watch my 2:35.1 movies on my 2:35.1 screen. When I first start up the movie, it's letterboxed. I can see black bars above and below the movie. Then I use the Poor Man's Zoom trick, to zoom out the projector as far as possible, and now the black bars are splashed onto my all black wall (around the screen). So, I don't notice anything, except for the 2:35.1 movie on my super-wide screen. I also have to play with the horizontal shift, to get the picture centered right. But basically, the concept, is that you start with a letterboxed image, and then you zoom that image out to take up the entirety of the 2:35.1 area of your screen.

I've yet to actually get this to happen with ANY game yet. The closest I got was with Portal. With Portal, I was able to find the 1280 x 540 resolution in the settings. I choose it from a list. Still, until I checked the "windowed mode" box, it didn't look letterbox. When I checked the "run in windowed mode" box, then the game itself was in a letterboxed ratio, and I was able to zoom it out to fill the 2:35.1 area of my screen (technically, I think my screen ratio is closer to 2:37.1). The problem is, there wasn't black bars above and below the game. Instead, it was my desktop. I could see the Windows icons and such being splashed onto my black wall that surrounds the screen. It was pretty distracting, and hard not to notice.

The vast majority of games that I've tried, didn't have any resolutions in the resolution list that I could select for 1280 X 540 or anything like that. They only had 1280 x 720, and other normal resolutions. Sometimes those games would "pop" into a weird look, that looked very tall and skinny. Like it needed the anamorphic lens or whatever, to fix the image. I'm not using any kind of lens, I'm just using the Poor Man's Zoom trick.

I have heard that games that use the Soucre engine have it built a certain way to use these kinds of custom ratio's and that's why Portal showed a 1280 x 540 option when I went into that game. Still not sure why I had to run it in windowed mode to get that 2:35.1 look.




Anyways, sorry to ramble on... I've read your suggestions above, and I'm going to try messing with it some more. I will try the 1920 x 816, and I'll also try set the timings to manual. Maybe that's my big problem.

Ok, so when I click on "timings", and then select manual, it opens up another area where I can adjust the resolution. Which area should I change it to 1920 x 816? The very top area (above where it says "timings"). Or the lower area, below "timings". I'm a bit confused as to which one should be set to what...

YES ! I finally got it working thanks to your help. The key was 1920 x 816,and also setting the timings to manual. I tried it out on a bunch of games tonite,and was pretty blown away by the results. I can't believe that I've had this 2:35.1 screen for such a long time, but have never used it for gaming. What a dingleberry I am.... Man.... This looks amazing. Right now, I'm looking at Dead Space in 2:35.1 and I'm mezmerized by it. Same thing with Assassin's Creed 2 and Bulletstorm. Even sports games look amazing. I tried it on a Fifa 12 demo,as well as NBA 2K11. Looked awesome.

This is like a whole new world has been exposed to me. I knew that 2:35.1 movies would look amazing on a super widescreen screen, but had no idea that it could also do wonders for games. How amazing !