High Resolution / Native Resolution

[jdhurst]

I got a T42 for an acquaintance and I am setting it up. There are not many T4x's left, but I was wary of a T60 until I see more unemotional commentary in here that: they work; they don't overheat or get hot; and they don't cause problems. Also the T42 was inexpensive (end of line) and has a three-year commercial warranty.

It is running well. No hardware problems; no noise; no heat; no software problems; no bloat; nice machine.

Issue: It is a 1400x105 resolution 14 inch screen and the font on the screen, while workable, is really too small.

Is there any way to lower the resolution (therefore non-native on an LCD) and still get good appearance using XP? Does anyone know of any smoothing application that will assist?

Thanks. ... JD Hurst

[meshua]

Go this way: pump up the DPI value in the enhanced display settings dialogue. As a default val you should read "96dpi" - just increase the value to a new one that's suitable enough for your eyes. But don't lower your display resolution - that's the wrong way.

Brgds, Torsten.

[pianowizard]

Go this way: pump up the DPI value in the enhanced display settings dialogue.

I am pretty sure JD knew about changing the DPI, but he wants to know whether there are ways to lower the resolution without causing the screen to look fuzzy.

[jdhurst]

Changing the DPI setting works, but the overall effect is not good. The system tray icons do not resize, for example, and the icon spacing on the screen changes. Some of this can be fixed, of course. ... JD Hurst

Note: Actually 1280 x 1024 doesn't look too bad. A wee, wee bit fuzzy in some applications, but not bad. I'll do some further testing and then give the owner the options.

[meshua]

Go this way: pump up the DPI value in the enhanced display settings dialogue.

I am pretty sure JD knew about changing the DPI, but he wants to know whether there are ways to lower the resolution without causing the screen to look fuzzy.

Ok, but I don't know any way to get the screen not looking fuzzy without driving it beyond the native resolution. Hmm- maybe my sentence sounds kinda fuzzy too There're good and bad algorithm to interpolate pixels but no one can compare to the crispness of native.

Brgds, Torsten

[Ken Fox]

Changing the DPI setting works, but the overall effect is not good. The system tray icons do not resize, for example, and the icon spacing on the screen changes. Some of this can be fixed, of course. ... JD Hurst

Note: Actually 1280 x 1024 doesn't look too bad. A wee, wee bit fuzzy in some applications, but not bad. I'll do some further testing and then give the owner the options.

I'm dealing with the same issue on my new 14" SXGA+ T43; my prior 15" SXGA+ T42 was not such a problem since the screen was larger with the same resolution.

Try this: right click on a vacant part of the screen, choose "properties," appearance tab, then the bottom "font size" choice change to "large."

Then, you will need to go into individual programs and change what can be changed. So far, I've found that both Firefox and Outlook Express have easy ways to change display fonts.

[jdhurst]

<snip>
Try this: right click on a vacant part of the screen, choose "properties," appearance tab, then the bottom "font size" choice change to "large."

Then, you will need to go into individual programs and change what can be changed. So far, I've found that both Firefox and Outlook Express have easy ways to change display fonts.

I had either forgotten about that setting or never noticed it before. Thank you. The Font setting does a much better job than the DPI setting. I set the T42 to large and it looks vastly better.

I still like my 1024x768 as a general purpose screen
... JD Hurst

[Cache]

I have an SXGA+ screen and, after playing with all of the different text settings for hours, ended up just using XGA resolution so that I could read everything comfortably. To me, the screen isn't fuzzy at all, it makes it easier to use external monitors, and everything looks right in programs like firefox, matlab, etc. My only regret is that I spent the extra money to get the higher resolution screen and don't take advantage of it.

[meshua]

[...]My only regret is that I spent the extra money to get the higher resolution screen and don't take advantage of it.

Hi,

Vista is supposed to solve that "problem". I'm really getting along with SXGA+ but this is a personal decission everytime.

Brgds, Torsten.

[pianowizard]

Vista is supposed to solve that "problem". I'm really getting along with SXGA+ but this is a personal decission everytime.

Now that's a good reason to upgrade to Vista!

[meshua]

Vista is supposed to solve that "problem". I'm really getting along with SXGA+ but this is a personal decission everytime.

Now that's a good reason to upgrade to Vista!

Do I detect a bit sarcasm? I haven't ran Vista yet. But them already did it reported leakage in battery performance. I'm pretty sure Aeroglass is the one who does evil and it would be quit interesting what the battery gauge will show us w/o it .

So far I gonna stick w/ XP next months - it seems really matured, no crashes or BSODs or other weird things happened so far.

Brgds, Torsten.

[pianowizard]

Do I detect a bit sarcasm?

I was indeed suggesting that what I had been told about Vista (mainly through this forum) didn't impress me much, but being able to reduce the resolution of LCD displays without making them look crappy is really a nice feature. I have played with Vista on three computers but didn't try changing the display resolution.

[meshua]

Do I detect a bit sarcasm?

I was indeed suggesting that what I had been told about Vista (mainly through this forum) didn't impress me much, but being able to reduce the resolution of LCD displays without making them look crappy is really a nice feature. I have played with Vista on three computers but didn't try changing the display resolution.

That's your next mission... But I mean that XGA downsized on a SXGA+ Panel still doesn't look that crappy while the edges of characters benefit from the more of display dots - kinda antialiasing.

Brgds, TOrsten.

[tomh009]

Vista is supposed to solve that "problem". I'm really getting along with SXGA+ but this is a personal decission everytime.

And indeed it does. I played around with this Vista feature, and it allows you to interactively select what is effectively the DPI, and then scales all the system elements to match. Quite impressive.

The only downside is that not all applications honour the Windows DPI settings (especially as until now they have not been used very much) and thus may not scale their display elements automatically. I expect that this will improve over the next year or so, though, as Vista become ubiquitous and new applications are released.

[tomh009]

I was indeed suggesting that what I had been told about Vista (mainly through this forum) didn't impress me much, but being able to reduce the resolution of LCD displays without making them look crappy is really a nice feature. I have played with Vista on three computers but didn't try changing the display resolution.

There are indeed a number of nice things under the covers in Vista that are getting much less air time than things like Aero (which really is just eye candy). I think things like the DPI adjustments, security and ReadyBoost will come more to the forefront as the initial Aero buzz/complaints die down.