PC Games at HDTV Resolutions

Updated 11.14.2005

A couple months ago I bought a nice 50" HDTV that I hooked up to a HTCP running Windows Media Center Edition 2005. The set up works pretty well but I'm starting to get really frustrated with game companies not including custom resolutions or, like EA, only allowing the game menus to run at 640x480 or 800x600. Normally this isn't a big problem but unless I run my games at 1840x1036 (I'm compisating for overscan) I get huge black bars around the edges of the screen and the menu and or game is too small to play. Most monitors will stretch the image from the computer to fit the screen but not always on a TV. I'm stuck with a really small screen that takes up about one ninth of my screen and is surrounded by a lot of black. I don't expect older games to be able to do such high resolutions at a 16x9 aspect ratio but even some of the newest games on the market seem to lack this ability.

So far I have been able to get the following games working perfect:

Doom 3
Quake 4
Call of Duty 2
World of Warcraft
StepMania
TrackMania Sunrise
The Movies

The following games have been a headache for me:

X-Men Legends II (I changed the resolution in alchemy.ini but it did nothing)
Tony Hawk's Underground II
Need for Speed II: Hot Pursuit
Need for Speed Underground
Need for Speed Porche Unleashed
Bejeweled II
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (the game is hard coded to run only at 800x600)

If any one know how to get any of the above working at 1840x1036 drop me a note in the comments and if I can get it working I'll move it tothe working list.

If anyone is wondering I'm using a BFG gForce 6600 GT connected to my TV through component cables. I tried using the VGA input on the TV and it gave me a small black border at the suggest 1280x768 resolution. I have not tried using the HDMI input on the TV since I don't have a DVI to HDMI cable.