How Is True Htpc Gaming Possible???

Stick with monitors or projectors when hooking your PC into a display hardware. HDTV is not
made for PC, it made for movies, shows, console gaming, etc. But some HDTV still lack to
support console gaming without overscan or underscan.

Not all TV's have problems. While it took a fair bit of research I have no problems gaming 1:1 without overscan on my A10. Just takes some custom timings in powerstrip or the nvidia control panel. I believe as long as you can get 1:1 on your set, you can setup custom resolutions which get rid of the overscan.

I'm using the NVIDIA overscan tool for games and desktop. This solution easily results in 1:1 pixel mapping on my HLS6188W as it's a virtual resolutio within the native display resolution. Most games I've tried are able to use the custom resolution out of the box or with a .ini change.

The HLS6188W is a native 1080p display (1920x1080p@60hz) which is the physical resolution my video card is outputting at all times connected to my display. The 1920x1080p resolution output results in about 1-2% overscan on the display without any correction. I'm using 1920x1080p with no overscan correction for video playback to have one for one pixel mapping (aka 1:1) when playing back 1080 videos. This is a good soltution as the minimal overscan is much better than scaling the image down to avoid it.

I used the NVIDIA overscan tool to create a "virtual" resolution of 1882x1058 within the real 1920x1080 resultion the video card is outputing to my display for all non-video usage. When using the virtual resolution the desktop (and games) see the 1882x1058 and use that so that the overscan isn't an issue and you're still getting one for one pixel mapping as the images are not scaled unlike with video which has a fixed resolution.

You need to realize that is a virtual resolution and that the actual resolution of the video doesn't change. Think about you native 1920x1080 resolution having 1-2% black border around in with a usable 1882x1058 resolution available to the OS.

This works perfectly fine with most games I've tried that allow you to use a user defined resolution. I've even found that most games pickup the current desktop virtual resolution of 1882x1058 and allow that as an option without any specific .ini modifications. There have been a few expections of mixed results such as with FIFA 2007 where gameplay is using a user defined 1882x1058 virtual resolution but the menus only allow standard resolutions.

Here's an detailed explaination of 1:1 pixel mapping if you want to understand why this might be important to you: http://pixelmapping.wikispaces.com/P...ping+explained

>AND WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE OK WITH "1080p" HDTV's NOT BEING ABLE TO ACTUALLY DISPLAY A 1920x1080 IMAGE WITHOUT CUTTING OFF THE EDGES!!

I'm not ok with this. I've noticed it from the get go with my PJ. Hence forth, I will avoid all BenQ products. They are notorious for a high level, not just normal, a high level of cropping on their products.

I recently set up a HLS5088W and HTPC for a friend. When I used the Nvidia overscan tool, I was able to reduce the image so the horizontal resolution was perfect, but the vertical resolution was to short (black bars at top and bottom). Does one of the Nvidia drivers allow for scaling in both directions?

He plays Far Cry and it recognized the new resolution and plays fullscreen with no overscan.

That isn't 1:1, 1:1 means absolutely no overscan but rather each individual pixel in the signal is mapped to a single pixel on the display. Some TVs will allow you to achive 1:1 though the service menu if not though the user controls.

Many TV's have both optical and physical overscan. Those with optical overscan scale the picture to a larger size and through away the excess pixels.

On the Samsung HLSxx88W models, you can turn optical overcan off. However, there is still some physical overscan. In other words, part of the 1920x1080 display panel is physically hidden behind the bezel. In order to view the whole Windows screen, you must reduce its size within a 1920x1080 resolution. However, it is still a 1920x1080 resolution and all pixels are being sent and mapped 1:1 on the display.

You can use Nvidia's overscan feature to correct for both optical and physical overscan. When correcting for physical overscan, you are still getting 1:1 pixel mapping, but you can't actually see the pixels that are covered by the bezel.

That's correct, I failed to mention that I disabled software overscan on the HLS6188W but like stated there still is a small physical overscan. There is no doubt this results in 1:1 pixel mapping with a small percent of pixels hidden.

The end result is perfect 1:1 image quality with when displaying fullscreen video (with no NVIDIA overscan correction) which has been verified with a 1920x1080 test pattern. I also have perfect 1:1 pixel mapping on the desktop when running the overscan corrected resolution which has been verified with a 1:1 pixel mapping background image.

There is no doubt that an 100 inch 120Hz display with zero physical overscan would be better but the grass always looks greener on the other side, right? While we're at it 7.1 uncompresed PCM audio to my audio decoder would be great too but what can you do?

Funny you mention this as I recently noticed that with Forceware 93.24 the driver allowed independent horizontal and vertical adjustments but when I upgraded to93.71 the adjustments are now locked. I'm guessing they did this to maintain the aspect ratio which I suppose might be a good reason to lock the adjustments. I found the end result was titch off from the corrected virtual resolution I had with 93.24 and I have a few pixels of black on the top.

Set your hdtv to FULL PIXEL and make sure your video card is hooked up to the tv with a dvi to hdmi cable. As long as the game supports 1920x1080 youll have no overscan probs and you'll be gaming in 1080p.

Don't use VGA or component you might be able to get 1920 x 1080 but it will look like crap.

Doh, my bad, I though he was talking about an LCD rather than a DLP.

As many have said, there are quite a few tv's that don't use overscan (all Westinghouse 1080p displays, for example).

My LVM-42w2 displays every pixel 1:1, and it works great as a computer monitor.

I use DVI, but VGA looks fine too.

Make sure you set the settings on the TV to display all pixels. Not so sure if all lcds have this option but my bravia does.

I'm typing this right now on a 47" westy (tx47) in 1080p with perfect 1:1... 1:1 is accessible in the display menu options

snack tray + toilet

simple - get a 1080p panel that does 1:1 pixel and has no overscan. look at the 1080p westinghouse and sony models - i have had good experiences with both for ce and htpc uses.

btw - i hope your htpc is not gonna be the laptop you mentioned above

Projection and CRT tv's will inherently have overscan but they achieve this by projecting past the edges of the screen as opposed to stretching the image. You can get 1:1 on DLP/LCD-RP sets and then use the overscan adjustments in the video card drivers to get the desktop to fit in the visible area. Of course, as always, research sets individually as to how well the handle PC input.