Resolution issue..

Hi Folks,

I play Path of Exile, have a QX9650 CPU with 6GB RAM (that I finished
building in 2009) running W7 64-bit and was using an HD5670 / 1GBDDR5.
However I was having to turn details down to keep a decent frame rate so
recently bought a lightly-used second-hand Sapphire HD7770.

I've been using CCC 13.12 for a while now with no problems. My monitor is an
oldie but a goodie - A Dell 4:3 20" UXGA (1600x1200) IPS. I don't like
short-screens for desktop use. However, when I play games I use 1600x900
resolution as games seem to be designed to work better in short-screen mode.
(They seem to set the size of the toon as a function of the vertical
resolution so to get a reasonable amount on-screen at any one time the wider
the better - within reason. This applies to the two games I play - Path of
Exile mainly but also a bit of Diablo III.) This was never a problem with
the HD5670, I'd just select 1600x900 / fullscreen in-game and away I went.
Nice crystal clear picture with small black bars above and below. (I like
playing full-screen mode and with the picture mapped pixel-to-pixel.)

However, with the same driver and the HD7770 I don't get an option of
1600x900 in Path of Exile (which is odd as wasn't that a fairly common
resolution for 19" short-screens?). I get the full 1600x1200 offered,
followed by 1280x720, 1280x768, 1280x800, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1360x768,
1360x1024, 1366x758 ad nauseam right down to 800x600. I can select any of
the lower res modes and have them blurry - or have it windowed and have it
clear but small.

When it's windowed I can drag the window out to the edges of the screen (or
duoble-click the titlebar) - but the biggest it goes is 1600x1178 (and has
(custom) after it) - it reserves the other 22 pixels for the window's
titlebar. However when I try to drop the vertical resolution down to 900 the
horizontal reduces to 1594!!!! (And it's still windowed which I'd rather not
have...)

Can anyone help please? At the moment it seems I have a choice of the old
HD5670 full-screen 1600x900 but with low details and frame-rate or the
HD7770 running much faster but either windowed or running an ugly
resolution.

Thanks in advance.
--
/Shaun

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1).