After hearing about how Red Dead Redemption 2 uses a custom resolution of 3840x1080 and stretching it to fill the screen, I wanted to do something similar on PC. I like having a high framerate while at least keeping the resolution somewhat high on my 4K monitor.

I tried to do this in The Witcher 3 (with Custom Resolution Utility) using both 3840x1080 and 1920x2160 but the results I got were funky. Is there a way I can stretch either axis so it looks like a standard 16:9 resolution?3840x1080 1920x2160 Note: The resolution looked more abnormal on my monitor when I was in-game.

  • Where did you find the Red Dead Redemption 2 resolution information? The sources I saw said it would run at full 4k (3840x2160) on Xbox. – Roijan Eskor Nov 17 '18 at 7:12
  • @RoijanEskor I got it from John Linnemean of Digital Foundry, a division of Eurogamer. eurogamer.net/articles/… – Camouflaged Cow Nov 18 '18 at 22:39
  • 1
    "At the top of the stack sits Xbox One X, rendering natively on ultra HD displays and looking magnificent. Taking the runner-up position here is PlayStation 4 Pro, which uses a reconstruction technique - likely checkerboarding - to take a native 1920x2160 framebuffer up to 4K." I don't know Sony is doing that. If you want to run the Witcher 3 at a lower resolution, you can just set it to something with 16:9 aspect ratio that is lower than 4k. Here is a list of such resolutions. pacoup.com/2011/06/12/list-of-true-169-resolutions – Roijan Eskor Nov 19 '18 at 7:24

This isn't very easy to do and may not work for certain games at all.

The first step would be to change your desktop monitor resolution to the desired one. This can be done with specialized tools(e.g. Custom Resolution Utility) or possibly the GPU tool (eg Nvidia control panel). You need to select a custom resolution. This will result in black bars.

Second step is to stretch this resolution to full panel, which can be done using the GPU tool. Look for full scaling or "Adjust desktop size and position".

You've now changed your native resolution to a scaled/stretched 3840x1080 or 1920x2160. The moment of truth is next. Launch the game, you should now be able to select the resolution you just set your monitor to and it should behave exactly the same. If not, the game doesn't support wonky resolutions at all. If yes, it may be possible, that the game saves this resolution and you can revert to standard on your desktop without it affecting the game.

However, I'd still advise to pick a lower native resolution than going for a wonky stretched one. The standard resolution 2560x1440, which is supported by every game is about 89% the pixels of your proposed stretched ones and will likely look better, as doing a horizontal or vertical stretch just isn't as good as a native 16:9 resolution.

Your Answer

