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Hack #93. Play Video Games in Custom Resolutions on HDTVs

If possible, you can have a killer gaming experience by using higher, custom resolutions for playing video games.

Tip

This section also applies to HDTV sets that weren't originally designed for computer use [Hack #90] .

Although some recent video games such as DOOM3 support custom computer resolutions, many video games require standard computer resolutions. First, try to figure out if the video game can support custom resolutions. Test with your desktop computer monitor first, trying to get the video game to start in a custom computer resolution.

If not, you need PowerStrip [Hack #91] to create custom timings out of standard 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1280 x 960, or 1280 x 1024 resolutions. To fill the whole screen properly, I recommend sticking to 640 x 480, or going all the way up to 1280 x 960 or 1280 x 1024. Once you get that running, here are several tips to further optimize performance and display.

Force the Games to Run at 60 Hz

You need to make sure your video games always run at 60 Hz. Stick to Windows video games that use recent versions of DirectX because PowerStrip has direct control over them. One of the ways to force the video games to run at 60 Hz is to use a monitor .inf file of a monitor that doesn't support anything beyond 60 Hz.

Tip

As mentioned in the section on resolutions, you might have to specify in PowerStrip to run as 30-Hz vertical refresh if you're using an interlaced format; Windows effectively treats ...