PSO 2 Full screen problem

[boubikos]

Hello i have a problem with the full screen resolution.
I put the game in full screen and then i see black bars up down left and right.
When i changed into the window mode i don't see those bars.
If anyone knows how to fix this.

My graphics card is Sapphire HD 6850 Toxic

[DiMiTri]

Have you tried enabling VirtualFullScreen?

Go into documents/SEGA/PHANTASYSTARONLINE2 and open user_beta.pso2 in notepad
Windows = {
FullScreen = false,
Height3d = 480,
Height = 1080,
Width3d = 640,
Width = 1920,

Add VirtualFullScreen = true, so it looks like

Windows = {
FullScreen = false,
Height3d = 480,
Height = 1080,
VirtualFullScreen = true,
Width3d = 640,
Width = 1920,

The other values will be tailored to your particular setup, so don't just copy this.


-edit-

If that doesn't fix your problem, try this:

Spoiler!

TLDR: If you have black bars while playing games on Windows 7 and you have an ATI GPU then this is how you get rid of them.

First of all always download and install the latest STABLE drivers from amd.com, try your best not to download beta drivers or drivers from some random website, as the stability of these drivers is questionable.
You need to know what kind of GPU you have, in order to figure this out go to Windows control panel>hardware and sound>devices and printers, under devices and printers there should be an option to go to DEVICE MANAGER. You need to be the administrator to run this so make sure you are the administrator. Device manager will open up and will list all hardware that is installed on your PC. Click on display adapters and under it should be the name of your GPU (mine is called "ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics") and if you want to make sure this isn't the incomplete name of the GPU then right click on your display adapter and click properties, this should give you your device name which you can now use to go to the AMD website and get drivers for your GPU. You can also find out using catalyst if you have it, some versions of catalyst are different, but it should be under system info if you are familiar with catalyst and this will go into more detail than device manager.
Go to the AMD website and figure out which drivers are the right drivers for your GPU, it will ask you your OS, laptop or PC, your graphics card name. Then just click on the drivers and download tab and the latest drivers should be there ready for you to download catalyst is probably gonna be included in your latest install . Download and install, restart if you have to.
If you try to run games on Windows 7 now, you will see that there are still black bars on your games, regardless of your resolution(s), the drivers are merely to ensure that the drivers are not the problem. So now go to Catalyst Control Center (if you had an older version the newer version should differ slightly) configure everything to your liking, get to know the newer catalyst (that's what I did), and make sure you are in ADVANCED view, not basic, otherwise some options won't be visible.
Restart if you have made any changes, then open up catalyst control center, there should be a dropdown menu labeled "Graphics" click that and you'll see a few options. Click on "desktop and displays", select your display, right click on your display and click "configure..." the screen will change and you will see that there are 3 tabs here (keep in mind that different versions of catalyst differ in interface, so the options may be moved around, but they are all there), the scaling option should be under one of these. Congrats! you have found the scaling option, but (if you have the newer versions of catalyst) you can't do anything in the scaling option because it's all greyed out =(. So this is what you do.
Close catalyst control center, open up windows control panel, set your resolution to your desired resolution (if it is not already so mine is already at 1366x768 which is max on my laptop), save changes, now set your resolution to one that ISN'T your desired resolution, close windows control panel and open up your catalyst and go find the scaling option. The option should now no longer be greyed out and you should be able to change the scaling option now, if your scaling option is already set to "full screen" then change it to something else and then change it back to "full screen", if your scaling option wasn't originally full screen then go ahead and set it to "full screen". Save your changes in catalyst and then close it. Open up windows control panel, change your resolution back to your desired resolution (mine was 1366x76, save changes and close windows control panel, restart if you wish.
Run your games (I used Left for Dead 2) and there should now no longer be any black bars. Now go to the options and set your game resolution to whatever you want it (mine will be the lowest 800x600) and once the game resolution has changed, you will see that there are still no black bars. Go ahead and try it out on all of your other games. I did and WoW no longer had any black bars, neither Did Dawn of War 2 or Left 4 Dead 1, even when I changed their game resolutions.

**NOTE** If you have an external screen (like an LCD display with a desktop, or have hooked up another display to your laptop then the display may automatically stretch the image out when you start your games). This problem seems to be more of a laptop problem since laptops have displays that are their own while desktops have displays that are not their own (because they are external displays). But if you do have this problem on a desktop that is hooked up with an LCD or external display then please feel free to try this out, it may very well solve your problem, or it may not work at all, or it may work if you fool around with the display individually.

[terrell707]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is Virtual Fullscreen like a fake Fullscreen? In other words, a maximised window that has no borders.

[Xenobia]

Virtual Fullscreen is currently the only stuff which seems to work proper for Radeon GPUs under any conditions. Most users however might either be using Geforce or they got a machine using such a crappy resolution that they do not notice such flaws. The affected users for this lack of compatibility are mainly HD-TV users such as me who are running on special settings (Catalyst adjusted) so that the screen is fully matching. The game seems to be unable to take over those settings, something which most games seems capable of. Sega probably is running theyr stuff on small PC screens, and didnt even consider Radeon powered HD-TV users** (using a JAPANESE HD-TV from Panasonic)... it seems.

The Launcher is pretty much a screwup.

**Besides: Running it on a Pana Plasma does probably offer the best quality PSO2 could be run with. Thats why i find the graphics that great, while other users kinda lack the enthusiasm for. Could be a matter of forbidden hardware. I didnt say that the art-count is great, but the tech-count is a whole new level.



The Virtual Fullscreen is not a fake in term of visual abilitys, it got same resolution and engine such as the real fullscreen and no boarders. The performance of virtual fullscreen in my tests seems to be close to the same performance of a real fullscreen, just about 5% difference, which is close to nothing.

The difference is mainly how the frame is handled. While a real fullscreen is a own application separated from the desktop, the virtual fullscreen is kinda running in a separated frame-box, thus the desktop and the game can be opened at the same time without the need to close down the screen, which would make it easyer to switch between. However, in reality the virtual fullscreen is kinda buggy and will need improvements, although its able to work. At least it can deliver a clean fullscreen mode for Radeon (and HDTV) users, thats all we need.

The real fullscreen is the real bug for Radeon users, it just can totaly screw up with scaling settings and then it just will create black boarders. Segas tuning regarding those GPUs is rather worse,.... because Nvidia is meant to be played and JP devs are loyal people. Just wonder what they gonna say when all 3 consoles of next generation are running on Radeon GPUs... then the devs cant anymore avoid the matter.

[DiMiTri]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is Virtual Fullscreen like a fake Fullscreen? In other words, a maximised window that has no borders.

Yes, that's correct.

[terrell707]

Virtual Fullscreen is currently the only stuff which seems to work proper for Radeon GPUs under any conditions. Most users however might either be using Geforce or they got a machine using such a crappy resolution that they do not notice such flaws. The affected users for this lack of compatibility are mainly HD-TV users such as me who are running on special settings (Catalyst adjusted) so that the screen is fully matching. The game seems to be unable to take over those settings, something which most games seems capable of.

The Launcher is pretty much a screwup.



The Virtual Fullscreen is not a fake in term of visual abilitys, it got same resolution and engine such as the real fullscreen and no boarders. The performance of virtual fullscreen in my tests seems to be close to the same performance of a real fullscreen, just about 5% difference, which is close to nothing.

The difference is mainly how the frame is handled. While a real fullscreen is a own application separated from the desktop, the virtual fullscreen is kinda running in a separated frame-box, thus the desktop and the game can be opened at the same time without the need to close down the screen, which would make it easyer to switch between. However, in reality the virtual fullscreen is kinda buggy and will need improvements, although its able to work. At least it can deliver a clean fullscreen mode for Radeon users, thats all we need.

The real fullscreen is the real bug for Radeon users, it just can totaly screw up with scaling settings and then it just will create black boarders. Segas tuning regarding those GPUs is rather worse,.... because Nvidia is meant to be played and JP devs are loyal people. Just wonder what they gonna say when all 3 consoles of next generation are running on Radeon GPUs... then the devs cant anymore avoid the matter.

Yes, that's correct.

AH. ok Thanks you two.

[boubikos]

Thank you DiMiTri. The second solution in Spoiler it works for me.

[Xenobia]

That doesnt work for me. The joke is that PSO2 is the only game having black bars, and even does randomly freeze, a issue i still was unable to get ride of. In term i use the newest Afterburner, everytime i capture movie, it does freeze, no matter what drive. When i use the old beta build, it doesnt freeze (at capturing), but random freeze still does appear. Its a mess. Have to be clearly said, no other game got that issue so far. When i was running Tera i never had any freeze... on the same sytem, same hardware and what else...

Its extremely random, maybe 1 time every 3-6h. Im not able to find out whats responsible for. Hardware load is pretty hilarious compared to other games. The GPU runs at 50% and the CPU at 15%... there is no stress, i never had a game of todays age using so less hardware at max setting. But generally, running junk such as Gameguard while having a Antivirus at highest security mode doesnt help the matter, and then combined with a unstable beta build of a software... that could be to much.

[boubikos]

Try to reinstall the drivers and after that go to ATI control center and search for properties (digital flat-panel) and check enable GPU scaling.

[Engeline]

At least your full screen works, mine keeps giving me this error