Celestia Forums

One of the computers I use is attached to a 40" widescreen TV, which for some reason doesn't support a 6:9 VGA mode - while the screen resolution is actually 1366 x 768, the best VGA mode it offers is 1024 x 768, which is usually stretched horizontally to 1366 wide - in this stretched mode circular objects such as planets in Celestia are shown as ellipses.

The other main application I use on this computer, VLC media player, can be set to compensate for this by changing one of the advanced settings, Monitor Pixel Aspect Ratio. Is there any equivalent in Celestia?

Not directly, no.

However, have you looked to see what resolutions Celestia has available in the Render / Display Mode menu? One of its full-screen resolutions might be similar to the aspect ratio of your TV, even if the windowed mode is stretched.

I tried that, unfortunately no luck. It seems to be a limitation of the display, it just doesn't want to cope with any VGA signal that isn't in 4:3 aspect ratio, and unfortunately the computer doesn't have an HDMI output, which the monitor does understand.

I can set the screen to 4:3, but that wastes a few inches either side of the image - it's no big deal, except that I always seem to end up in the wrong mode the next time I want to watch a DVD or something, so I've got into the habit of leaving it set to 16:9 all the time.