Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V

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Fix black bars in cutscenes and aspect ratio issues with 4K/UHD TVs on PC (GTA V, Deus Ex...)
By Sylwahan
Using a 4K/UHD TV for games like GTA V or Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on PC may lead to problems with black bars in cutscenes or a distorted aspect ratio. This guide will show how to fix the problem on a system level, so should work for all affected games. With some modification and careful exploration the guide can probably be applied to other displays with the same issue as well.
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Affected Games and TVs
Games that are known to have this issue:
GTA V
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Assassin's Creed Syndicate
Watch Dogs 2

The guide has been confirmed as applicable for these TVs so far:
Samsung
LG
Sony

Please post if you know of other affected games or if you find the guide works for other TVs too, and I'll add them to the list.
The Problem
When using a 4K/UHD TV to play games like GTA V or Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in fullscreen mode you may have black bars appearing in cutscenes and videos like so:


Or you may have noticed a distorted aspect ratio in-game, where the image looks squished horizontally. If you look at the circular object in the following screenshot you can tell it's not perfectly round in the left one, the right screenshot is how it should look:


The problem here is that despite being 3840x2160 (16:9 ratio) displays, they actually have support for an input resolution higher than that at 4096x2160 (~17:9 ratio). Your list of desktop resolutions might look something like this:


As you can tell from the image above 3840x2160 has been correctly identified as the native resolution. However some games don't do this but rather look for the maximum supported resolution—in this case 4096x2160—and assume that is the proper resolution and aspect ratio for the display.

So what happens is the game either renders a 17:9 image which is then squished to fit in a 16:9 resolution, or in the case of the GTA V cutscenes the game adds black bars on the sides as it mistakenly thinks that's what it should do to make the image 16:9.


The Solution
So the fix for this issue is to simply remove support for that 4096x2160 resolution, which is completely pointless anyway, so that any game that looks for the max resolution will find the proper 3840x2160 one (obviously if you do need that resolution for some odd reason then this won't work.) We can do this by creating an EDID override.

The EDID is basically a bit of data the display sends to the connected device (PC in this case) that describes its various capabilities and supported resolutions and refresh rates and so on. In Windows there is a functionality to override the EDID by adding entries to the registry, so when the display driver looks for supported resolutions it will look first and foremost in the registry and not the display directly.

What you will need is an application called Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) which you can get from here:
https://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU

Many thanks to ToastyX for creating it. It would probably be good to read through that page and like it says familiarize yourself with booting into safe mode in case something goes horribly wrong, though if you're careful it shouldn't.

Steps to creating the override
What we will do is go through the EDID and remove any references to the 4096x2160 resolution. I'm not sure how closely these steps will match other displays, but the idea should basically be the same: carefully look through all the various data blocks and delete any entries for resolutions that are higher than the native resolution of the display.

Start CRU and make sure the display you want to modify is selected in the top box. If it's connected and in use it will be marked as (active). In the Extension blocks box, select the CEA-861 entry and press Edit.


Select the TV resolutions entry and press Edit.


One by one, select all the 4096x2160 entries and press Delete. Press OK when you're done.


Select the HDMI support entry and press Edit.


Select any 4096x2160 entries and press Delete.


When you're done press OK on all the windows to return to the main application window. Press OK there which will save the changes to the registry and close the application.

Run restart64/restart to re-initialize the display driver, and you're done!

Final notes
If everything worked correctly there should no longer be any options for 4096x2160 if you look through the desktop resolutions, and games like GTA V and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided should behave properly without any other tweaks.

If you wish to undo the modifications simply run reset-all which will clear the registry of any EDID overrides.

Generally the overrides stick even when updating drivers, switching HDMI ports etc. but if the 4096x2160 resolution reappears it's probably because the display was detected as a new device for some reason, in which case simply follow the guide again.

Thanks for reading!

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90 Comments
Sebo1020 Mar 11 @ 9:50am 
Maybe the way works on TVs, but when it comes to monitors plugged into displayport, not so much
steppenwolf81 Feb 28 @ 3:39am 
You are my hero! Big thanks! I've had those black bars after I switched to Nvidia Image Scaling to upscale the image when playing on a LG OLED TV. Followed your guide and it workes perfectly. Your guide is a few years old, but I can confirm it still works in 2024 (Win11, RTX 4060).

Just for all who are as dumb as I am... The "restart" function to reset the graphics driver is in the same download folder as the CRU program. Just click on the exe file and enjoy. You don't need to type this command in any prompt or so.
MelvinSmiley Feb 4 @ 12:00pm 
My sony X90J TV has toggles for optimized mode (normal non VRR) and VRR mode. If I use this fix in optimized mode the G-Sync option in Nvidia control panel disappears and you can't switch to VRR mode with the TV. If I use this fix in VRR mode it works and G-sync option remains but I can't switch to optimized mode anymore on PC which sucks. So this fix only partially works, nvidia still needs to deal with this problem in a proper way.
AlconburyBlues Jan 4 @ 12:12pm 
Thank you for this amazing guide! You got my Assassins's Creed Syndicate to work in 2560x1080@75Hz Fullscreen without stretching! Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Although the high resolutions I had were different, but I got the point. I had to delete 3840x2160 as you had stated. But then it kept trying to force 2560x1440 with black bars on the sides. So I deleted those as well. (Really I just deleted anything above 2560x1080)

I noticed right away when the game launched. The logo was correct aspect. And then when the menu loaded, Jacob Frye looked normal. And of course, finally loading into the game. Awesome!!!
shalimmonzon13 Dec 7, 2023 @ 8:00pm 
what is that
DarkLurkerWario Dec 7, 2023 @ 10:26am 
Works but when restarting I can't see most of the settings in Nvidia control panel, making the fix somewhat permanent and I would be unable to change anything else until a fresh driver install. If someone knows how to get the settings back I'm all ears.
DarkLurkerWario Dec 7, 2023 @ 10:25am 
Works but when restarting I can't see most of the settings in Nvidia control panel, making the fix somewhat permanent and I would be unable to change anything else. If someone knows how to get the settings back I'm all ears.
VitorMD Oct 28, 2023 @ 11:11am 
thank you!
Afevis Solmunko Oct 26, 2023 @ 7:50am 
I know this is an ancient guide, but Metal Gear Master Collection is also affected by this issue and the fix does apply to it as well. :)
SteepOrpheus09 Oct 7, 2023 @ 12:38pm 
Thank you man. I was suffering this problem on my 2k ultrawide monitor and it has worked like charm.