Author Topic: widescreen monitor question (Read 19,620 times)

kyrathaba · « **on:** March 03, 2007, 03:02 AM »

I recently acquired a 19" I-Inc TW191D LCD monitor. My children's 14" AlphaScan 411 CRT was just pathetic, and I didn't want to ruin their eyes, so I gave them my Princeton 17" LCD monitor, and got myself a 19" widescreen. Mistake? I'm not sure, yet. Brightness, sharpness, and all that are fine, and I love the extra space (especially because it obviates the need to break apart C# statements in my IDE editor). However, text appears slightly stretched horizontally. Now, I've read this is because you must set your computer's resolution to your LCD's default resolution (which for a 19" wide is what? 1400x900 ?) Anyway, my PC only has a substandard onboard video (32 mb), so my highest res is 1280x1024. I have it set at this res, and the results are quite acceptable, but not just the way I want them. Do I need to buy a dedicated graphics card? Would this permit me to achieve the optimum resolution for this particular monitor?

P.S. I also installed an additional 512 MB of SDRAM today

Nighted · « **Reply #1 on:** March 03, 2007, 08:04 AM »

Try updating your graphics drivers first...you may luck out and get updated support for widescreen, otherwise you can get a card for around 50 bucks that would do the trick.

nudone · « **Reply #2 on:** March 03, 2007, 08:09 AM »

the quick way would be to set the res at the highest it will possibly go to - this is assuming the options are only showing compatible resolutions that your monitor supports (i think this is the default way of doing it).

but, regardless of what you see in the options, whatever the numbers are for the native 'physical' resolution of your monitor - then that is what you need to set it at.

using the 'real' resolution of the pixels built into the monitor is the only way you'll acheive the sharpest text (or images). Yes, only this way. any other res isn't going to give you that crystal clear sharpness.

another thing is, have you got 'clear type' enabled? if so, turn it off when using the 'native' resolution if you want to see 'sharp' text.

i'm surprised that your graphics card only goes to 1280, are you sure this isn't the actual highest res that the monitor supports.

but the problem you mention of text being stretched horizontally should not occur if everything is set to the 'native' resolution - it wouldn't be a very good widescreen monitor if the physical pixels it has were stretched in such a way as to distort text.

have you perhaps been viewing things on your previous monitor in the 'wrong' resolution - so that the text was actually compressed slighty along the horizontal axis? perhaps you've simply got used to it and now seeing something that is 'correct' looks odd - i guess you'd have noticed such a thing already by looking at other peoples monitors anyway.

edit:

i see that your monitor's highest res is 1440 x 900. if your graphics doesn't support that then, yep, you definitely need a new one.

f0dder · « **Reply #3 on:** March 03, 2007, 09:14 AM »

You probably do need a graphics card, onboard tends to be limited. Shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg, though; if you get along fine with onboard graphics, you should be able to find a cheap card...

PS: you really should break apart statements, even though you no longer need to. Perhaps nobody else but you will ever look at your source, but Very long lines of text are less readable, and hint at code complexity as well. Personally I stay at around 80-100 columns for code.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #4 on:** March 03, 2007, 01:57 PM »

Good point, Fodder. I'll continue to break apart my long source code lines.

I was able to download an updated driver for my S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR integrated graphics, and it provided me with one additional resolution possibility I hadn't had before: 1280x768. I compared that to the 1440x900 native resolution of my widescreen monitor, and they're quite close: a ratio of 1.6 compared to 1.66. Changed to that res and things look good now. They didn't look "bad" before, but definitely an improvement.

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** March 03, 2007, 02:31 PM »

if the native resolution of monitor is 1440x900 i think i would buy a new graphics card that supported that resolution.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #6 on:** March 03, 2007, 02:48 PM »

The correct widescreen res would be 1280:800, kyrathaba. Also, you should definitelly find yourself a better graphics adapter, the extra screen space makes a HUGE difference. Also, because lcds are prepared for a "native" resolution, anything different from that resolution (which in yourcase is 1440:900) will be an interlaced resolution and look bad.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #7 on:** March 03, 2007, 03:39 PM »

Hmm, okay, I'll see what I can find. Do you have any recommendations for a graphics card purchase? I have a free PCI slot, and an available AGP. I guess I need something that supports 1440x900, but I don't want to spend a bundle. I was looking at the following card, that supports resolutions up to 2048x1536. It doesn't say specifically that it supports 1440x900, though:

http://www.xpertvision.com.tw/en/products/nv_agp_FX5200.html

f0dder · « **Reply #8 on:** March 03, 2007, 10:19 PM »

Hm, AGP and not PCI-E... might be a bit hard finding something decently priced :/

With your requirements, I'd probably go for something in the nvidia 6xxx family - it should be dirt cheap (otherwise, don't buy!), and there's still stuff available for AGP. The shop I use here in .dk has a GF6200/128meg for less than $50 - you won't be gaming anything recent with that, but it's cheap and specs say it goes up to 2048x1536 (doesn't specifically mention 1440x900 though, so you might have to inquire about that).

kyrathaba · « **Reply #9 on:** March 04, 2007, 02:51 AM »

I've been looking at this card:

FREETECH PX6200TD-128M GeForce 6200 128MB 128-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card

It's found here among other places:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122205

I can't seem to locate any specifics about individual resolutions it supports. It just states the max res. Does anyone know if it would support 1440x900 ?

Nighted · « **Reply #10 on:** March 04, 2007, 05:32 AM »

I'd stay away from PCI-e, considering you have an AGP slot.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #11 on:** March 04, 2007, 04:42 PM »

Well, I'm assuming I have an AGP slot, based on what I saw when I opened the case to install the 512 Mb SDRAM DIMM. I looked like I had two PCI-E slots remaining, and there was another shorter slot nearby that I assume was the AGP slot. Can you recommend any low-end AGP cards that would support 1440x900 ?

f0dder · « **Reply #12 on:** March 04, 2007, 04:46 PM »

If you have AGP, you (almost) certainly don't have PCI-E, but regular PCI slots.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #13 on:** March 04, 2007, 07:23 PM »

I guess they're PCI slots then. I guess I could take a photo of my PC's innards and let some of you hardware-knowledgeable folks ID it for me

Nighted · « **Reply #14 on:** March 06, 2007, 03:26 AM »

Yeah, and if you are still using SD-RAM then you definitely don't have a PCI express slot.

Take a good look at this, it will show you exactly what you have and then you'll know what kind of card to go buy. Let me know before you install a new card though as it's best to backup and then remove all your old video drivers before installing the new hardware and drivers.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #15 on:** March 07, 2007, 05:42 PM »

Yeah, I have pretty much that same layout. I have a slot that looks just like the AGP shown in this picture.

I mistakenly said, earlier, that my PC has SDRAM. I was thinking of my old Dell. My current computer uses PC3200 DDR memory modules.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #16 on:** March 14, 2007, 03:49 PM »

ISSUE RESOLVED: My new PC supports my widescreen LCD monitor's native 1440x900 resolution -- sweet!

f0dder · « **Reply #17 on:** March 14, 2007, 04:02 PM »

Got a new PC instead of a graphics card? Well, that's a way to handle it too. Congrats!

kyrathaba · « **Reply #18 on:** March 14, 2007, 04:25 PM »

Yeah, my other PC's motherboard went south, so I just upgraded: faster CPU, more RAM, better graphics. Pulled the hard drive out of my old PC and put it in an enclosure, so now I have an 80 GB external USB drive hooked up to my new PC

Also, transplanted a firewire PCI card from my old PC into my children's PC. Wondering if I could use a firewire cable to connect their PC to mine. If not, I suppose I could go with something like this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/8199/

f0dder · « **Reply #19 on:** March 14, 2007, 11:18 PM »

pc->pc firewire should be possible, but I'd do a little research before just plugging in a cable - iirc the voltages are pretty high, so you might damage something. There were a few glitches with the first pc->pc usb cables, and those don't push as much juice as firewire afaik.

iphigenie · « **Reply #20 on:** March 15, 2007, 09:35 AM »

how do you find out before you buy it what the "native" resolution is?

nudone · « **Reply #21 on:** March 15, 2007, 09:42 AM »

the native resolution should be whatever is stated for the maximum resolution or even just the single resolution figures that they provide for specification details.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #22 on:** March 15, 2007, 01:15 PM »

Yeah, a lot of times they'll list the native resolution as part of the specs. In my case, though, they didn't. In fact, hardly anything came with the monitor: one pdf file about how to use its settings. But I'm not complaining. I got a good price on it, and it works well. Text and graphics do look much better on it now that I have hardware supporting the 1440 x 900 resolution.

As for connecting two PCs together, I wasn't aware of the voltage danger with firewire. Thanks for the heads-up. Would such a connection only allow file transfers and directory navigations, or would it also permit printer-sharing, opening apps on the other PC, etc? I'm assuming you'd need to actually have the PCs "networked" for that...

f0dder · « **Reply #23 on:** March 15, 2007, 01:22 PM »

Hm, I actually have some vague recollection of connecting two PCs via firewire and getting decent transfer speeds (at relatively high CPU usage though), but can't remember how exactly it worked - it's some years ago, and I only did it once.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #24 on:** March 25, 2007, 04:03 AM »

Hmm, strange behavior with new monitor. My Gateway GT5026E uses a 19" widescreen I-Inc flatpanel monitor, and seems to support its native 1,440 x 900 resolution. However, when I return to my computer after being gone for awhile, the resolution is at 1400 x 1050. I notice when this occurs that I have to move my mouser pointer toward the bottom of the screen to bring the taskbar into view. And if my webbrowser is open, I have to move my mouse toward the top of the screen to bring the browser's titlebar into view. Any ideas what may be causing this? Resolution stays the same after I set it to 1440x900, for the remainder of the worksession. I've disabled screensaver and set power-down monitor to 2 hours. Could it be related to wireless mouse/keyboard?