Lowering resolution while staying in fullscreen

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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Alice Quinn
Posts: 1
Joined: 29. Dec 2021, 21:12

Lowering resolution while staying in fullscreen

Post by Alice Quinn »

Hi everyone,

I post this anew, since my first post apperently was too marked and blinding. I am getting really desperate here. I am using Windows 7 as my virtual machine installed on Wndows 10, my physical machine. I have a 4K display, with max resolution 3840x2160. I can set my Windows 7 virtual screen to it without any problem with autoresize. In any other case, I would just go with it. The issue is, that since I SOMEHOW actully managed to do so with CMD prompt commands (because it didn't work with general settings in the menu at first, and I actually thought, that I wanted it.....), the autosize always sets my screen to 3840x2160 resolution when I switch to fullscreen. And now here is the point - not only is everything relatively small (but I can scale text and icons with 150% that's build in WIndows 7, plus there is still the option from the VBOX, so that's not a biggy), but my system also runs slower and stutters more since then. I regreted 100 times setting my screen to 3840x2160, as before I have done this, my screen was in about 1600xsomething filling the whole screen without stretching mode, and it worked well actually, very smooth, but looked not that sharp.

WHAT I NEED NOW: I want to set the max resolution of my Screen in virtual machine to 2560x1600 (as it is the second highest resolution option in my physical machine), and acutally use it in full screen, filling the whole monitor, WITHOUT using the stretch mode (since it's annoying always turn it off, and it isn't actually full screen, it's still windowed,etc). The other issue would be, that when I want to set my screen to 2560x1600, I have to do it with CMD, because the menu shows 1920x1440, and THEN JUMPS STRAIGHT TO 3840x2160, without even giving the option to set anything in between. But thats the small problem, as setting my screen to 2560x1600 with CMD does the trick, but the piicture lands in a box, and when I go to full screen, the autoresize mode deletes the 2560x1600 option from the menu, and sets the screen to 3840x2160.... The virtual machine is not breaking down at 3840x2160, it's just noticeably laggy and slows down, 2560x2160 would be the perfect balance between scale and performance. I know that it IS possible, since that's how it was per default, after I had installed Guest Editon. The resolution was under 2000 and the picture filled the whole screen. And as if it isn't enough - I SOMEHOW MANAGED TO SET THE RESOLUTION TO 2500xSOMETHING FILLING THE SCREEN IN THE PAST(there are always strange resolution numbers, I don't have them in my head), but since I wanted the max resolution at first, I ignored it and kept messing around with all possible settings to get 3840x2160, and I wish to travel in the past and kill myself for that!!! I mean - it works on our physical machines! We don't get a box, when we lower the resolution on our host OS... I just can't figure it out, used so many CMD commands already...

I really hope someone can come up with a solution, I just can't come up with more differnet search paraphrasing in google for this problem, and I searched in THREE languages. Thanks in advance to those, who might try to help me!
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Lowering resolution while staying in fullscreen

Post by scottgus1 »

Took a while to parse through all that... But I think if you set your VM OS to the 2560x1600 through your normal cmd-line methods, then set Virtualbox to Scaled Mode and maximize the Virtualbox window, then you'd get as much screen real estate as possible for the VM without going to FullScreen 3840x2160. You'd still have the Virtualbox window title bar, but that's the best you could get without going FullScreen.

Note that we couldn't know how you got a setup different than this to work well. So if your response is "but it wasn't that way earlier" then we'd need a screenshot of what you had before (posted through the forum's Upload Attachment tab) to see what you had.

Also, be sure the VM's video RAM is up to max, If you enable 3D acceleration in the VM then you can get 256MB video RAM max. Guest Additions in the VM are required for 3D acceleration.
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