Despite all the good things Microsoft brings to the table, it doesn’t give a perfect experience. You see, from time to time, folks may come across black bars when playing their favorite video games.
Remove Black Bars from Games on Windows 11/10
If you are seeing Black Bars in the middle, bottom or on the side of your screen or monitor, when playing games in Windows 10/8/7, then you need to update NVIDIA drivers, check your graphics settings, run the Troubleshooter, use windows full-screen mode, use native resolution, etc. It’s a strange problem, but there are ways to rectify this issue without having to reinstall Windows 10.
1] Use native resolution
(Windows 11) Video games and other content may show a black bar if your computer is not set to its native resolution and screen format. If you want to check if you’re on the right track, go to Settings > Display, and choose the recommended resolution and orientation. Bear in mind for most cases; the orientation should be set to Landscape.
(Windows 10) Finally, restart your computer and check if the issue has been fixed. In most situations, there should be no need to restart the computer.
2] Update your graphics card driver
Many video game-related problems are easily fixed with an update of the graphics card or the game itself. You need to update your graphics driver. You could also venture off to the graphics card manufacturer’s website to see if there’s a new update, and download it. Next, check if there’s a newer version of the game, download, and install. These practices are tedious for sure, but it is what it is in the world of PC gaming.
3] Have a look at the graphics settings
Most of the time, issues with a video game have much to do with the graphics card or the graphics settings. For this problem, we recommend checking the graphics settings from within the game. What you want to do is make sure that the screen orientation and resolution settings are similar to that of the system settings. That should usually do the trick, but if it fails to work, the following might help.
4] Windowed Full-screen mode
Bear in mind that with this method, users are required to revert the changes back to their original setting after every play session. To jump into the windowed full-screen mode, simply travel to the Control Panel, select your graphic card software, and change the resolution to 4:3 resolution. Now, just the start the game with the black bar issue, go the video settings and change it to windowed mode.
5] Press Ctrl+Alt+F11
We’ve come to find out that pressing Ctrl+Alt+F11 during a game will remove all black bars. However, doing this changes the resolution on the entire system and not just the game. It means when you’re done playing, press Ctrl+Alt+F11 again to revert to the normal resolution.
6] Run Troubleshooter
From the Winx Menu, open the Run box and execute the following command: The Hardware Troubleshooter will open. Run it. It troubleshoots problems related to hardware and access devices connected to the computer. Hope something here helps you!
