Same old question, new relevance for me. I bought a HP laptop with AMD Radeon GPU and I can't find an option to change the aspect ratio for 4:3 games in the AMD Catalyst Control Center. The scaling options are only fullscreen and centered, and irritatingly enough, I can only change these scaling option when using a lower than the native resolution, otherwise the're greyed out, but even then there is no option for maintaining aspect ratio ... And I can't change the monitor's setting since I'm on a laptop.

Any ideas?

Looking at Properties, under My Built-In Displays, it has all three and I can use them. However, another thing you can use is hotkeys: top-right, under Preferences, open Hotkeys and edit in a combination for "Toggle internal panel scaling modes". It's usually a very convenient combo to know on laptops, though in this case I've been avoiding it, since it resized any open windows and folders.

Hi!

I don't understand what you want to do. Does the games auto-stretch into 16:9 format when you play it, and you want to maintain the 4:3, even if two black bars will appear in the screen? Where are those options? Can't find it.

Sounds good, but so far I didn't get it to work. I activated a hotkey for this, but when I press it nothing happens. :/ Yes. I want games with a lower resolution than 1366*766 to scale in a way that they stretch all the way to the top and bottom of the screen but not stretch disproportionally horizontally. I'm fine with black bars to the side, I just don't want the image distorted (stretched fullscreen) or too small (centered).

Oh, strange... I hate those black bars hahahaha. Well, lucky for you I may have the answer.

That auto strech happens because the native HP drivers worked that way. Sometimes even erasing it will not work to avoid the driver auto streching the games. AMD Catalyst does not have a proper option either or I haven't found it, so I guess that auto stretch is somewhere in the Windows Registry.

If I were you, I will make a clean Windows install, then seek manually for updated drivers to all the computer components, either in HP website or the manufacturer. Of course, do NOT install the video drivers provide by HP. Instead of those, use the AMD official version, even the Beta, your choice. Both versions can be found in Guru 3D Forums and those are the ones I use:
AMD - ATI Drivers Section

If you don't want to perform a Windows clean install (I will understand you), download the AMD driver I provide you and then play your games.
NOTE: I don't know your laptop, but mine uses USB 3.0 and HDMI trought AMD drivers, and the beta/Guru 3D AMD drivers will work only for the video card. In order to get the complete package for video/HDMI/USB if you need it, you may either move the packages from the AMD install folder, or download the latest stable version in AMD website.

If performing a full AMD Catalyst uninstall does not work, a Windows registry may be left over. If so, you may need a proper tool to fully erase the AMD drivers. I personally use Windows 7 Manager, but it is a pay program. In Guru 3D seems to have a free tool that does specially that, swap any leftover. Read more (Especially the instructions) here:
Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

If you have any questions go ahead and ask; I have done all that several times with my A8 3510 APU hahaha.


EDIT: To make things clear. Official HP drivers are specially created for the laptop screen, that's why the auto stretch happen. On the other side, the official AMD drivers are created to be universal with all AMD components, so it will not auto stretch your games.

It should only work in a game with fullscreen non-native resolution. When you press the combination, the screen should flicker and change between non-scaled centered box, scaled-to-fit box, and stretched-to-fill regimes. If it doesn't work... I don't know what the problem is.

Is this for Dosbox games? It might be easier to just edit the configuration files to use fullresolution=1280x960.

Ah, I see. Sadly that doesn't work either. :( No, it's for all kinds of low resolution games. The one I tried is Fallout, and I also know there are high resolution patches, but I'm looking for a general solution for all games. I don't want to depend on individual fixes. Still, thanks for the advice on Dosbox games!

A laptop should still allow you to change the resolution, if not through the GPU's drivers, then through the Screen Resolution setting of Windows. Quite a few versions of the GPU's drivers will only display the scaling part in non-native resolution, so see if you can change the resolution first, then find the scaling tab.

I have no laptop with AMD GPU on hand, but in the Catalyst Center it should be something like My Digital/VGA displays (under Common Display tasks). There it should be a sub-menu Image scaling where you can enable or disable the GPU scaling (by default it's off).

1] ATI GPU scaling fix for windows 7
https://www.xgamingstudio.com/forum/showthread.php?122-RELEASE-ATI-GPU-Scaling-Fix-for-Windows-7

2] from AMD Catalyst Control Center

>in AMD Catalyst Control Center / advanced
a) in "Desktop Management" select set lower resolution -> Desktop Area 1024x768
b) in "My Built-in Displays" / Properties select Full Screen
c) change back to native resolution in "Desktop Management" tab

//note :
if you have multiple monitors / extend displays (will not work) but disabling the second monitor then scaling will work

Thanks for the replies! The problem is that I know where the scaling options should be, there just isn't an option for maintaining aspect ratio. In the native resolution, I only see Fullscreen and Centered, both greyed out, and while I get access to both of these options when lowering the resolution, it still doesn't add the Maintain Aspect Ratio option. That one isn't just greyed out, it's absent, regardless of resolution.

I might try uninstalling the GPU drivers and installing the recommended Catalyst Center from the official AMD website, to see whether that makes a difference, or I will try to look for a scaling option in Windows' control panel, but I have no clue where it could be. On the other hand, I'm finding more and more things that bother me about this laptop, so maybe I'll just return it and make a mental note to avoid HP laptops and AMD GPU on my next try.

The place to go in CCC is called "My digital flat panels" on a desktop, not sure what it's called on a laptop but it's the menu selection just above "Video" on the left side - go to "Scaling options" and uncheck the box that says "Use the scaling values instead of the customized settings when the resolution does not match your monitor resolution" or somesuch - this should fix it.

At least, it does what you're asking on a desktop, at any rate.

That's the place where I looked, but like I said, it's not there. The installed CCC version doesn't even have any long sentences like that or any other fine-tuning options, it's very very basic, just resolution, Fullscreen and Centered. No idea if the one from AMD's homepage will be different, I don't have the time to test it atm, but thanks for the reply!

I read "penis" instead of "panels". I'm tired.