External Display resolution and its compatibility with T42p

[ttan98]

Hi,

It has been a long time since I visited this website, the reason, I don't any questions to ask. Now I have a display question to ask which I hope one of you can answer it. This forum has been an enormous help to me in getting my Thinkpads up and running over the last few years.

I have an old T42p still working very well and am very happy with it. I normally connect it to an old 4:3 Viewsonic LCD monitor. The o/p resolution is 1280 by 1024. It works very well until recently. The max resolution I can change on my T42 graphic card is 2048 and 1536.

I like to upgrade to a new 16:9 model(most modern is has this format), the native resolution is 1920 x 1080.

Can I use my T42p with the new monitor? With it work? I suspect not any advise?

Thanks.

[jdhurst]

The T42 has only 4:3 video ratio. The presentation on a 16:9 monitor will look bad.

It is hard to get a 4:3 monitor lately, but when I foist the wrong resolution on clients, they resent it. ... JDH

[ttan98]

Can the T42p FireGL card runs 16:9 format? No?

[pianowizard]

I used to have a T42 (2373-B09) and its Radeon 9600 could drive a 2048x1152 16:9 monitor via VGA out. The T42p has a better graphics card, and so it should have no problem with 1920x1080.

[ttan98]

I used to have a T42 (2373-B09) and its Radeon 9600 could drive a 2048x1152 16:9 monitor via VGA out. The T42p has a better graphics card, and so it should have no problem with 1920x1080.

I am not familiar with resolutions capabilities of LCD and how it works, if my T42p cannot handle the native res, 1920*1080 then is the LCD be able to revert to other resolutions that the T42p can handle e.g. 2048*1152?

[dr_st]

The T42p can handle any resolution up to 2048x1536 (possibly also 2560x1600, not sure). And it can handle anything in between. It's just a matter of driver settings.

[ttan98]

The T42p can handle any resolution up to 2048x1536 (possibly also 2560x1600, not sure). And it can handle anything in between. It's just a matter of driver settings.

Many thanks

[Johan]

The T42p can handle any resolution up to 2048x1536 (possibly also 2560x1600, not sure). And it can handle anything in between. It's just a matter of driver settings.

In this post I included an excerpt from the original IBM T42/p announcement letter about the supported resolutions on T42/p's, being these:

Code: Select all

             TFT LCD
Resolution      Color depth
 
 640  x  480     256,     64K,     16M
 800  x  600     256,     64K,     16M
1024 x  768     256,     64K,     16M
1280 x 1024     256,     64K,     16M
1400 x 1050     256,     64K,     16M
1600 x 1200     256(14), 64K(14), 16M(14)
2048 x 1536     256(14), 64K(14), 16M(14)

These data are in agreement with the specifications in the ltwbook and does not mention anything about intermediate resolutions...

How about using the T42p in question in a docking station, and have a full PCI (discrete) graphics card in the docking station? Would this sugested solution enable various non-4:3 resolutions??

Johan

[pianowizard]

Like I said above, I already confirmed that the T42 supports 2048x1152, indicating that it supports 16:9. And since 1920x1080 is not only lower than 2048x1152 but also a much more common resolution, it will work.

[dr_st]

These data are in agreement with the specifications in the ltwbook and does not mention anything about intermediate resolutions...

These data are irrelevant. If a video card supports resolution X, it will support anything under it. It's just a matter of driver settings.

Pianowizard and yours truly are not the only ones that have successfully achieved various widescreen resolutions on their T42s, I can assure you that. I use the Omega drivers myself.

[pianowizard]

I use the Omega drivers myself.

I only needed IBM's latest driver to hook up my T42 to the above-mentioned 2048x1152 monitor. But with the Omega drivers, I bet that even a T40 can drive 2048x1152 (or 1920x1080). I had a Sony Z1A for a while, which had 16MB Radeon 7500 and Sony's driver only supported tallscreen resolutions. But after installing an Omega driver, it could drive my 1920x1200 monitors. The T40 has 32MB Radeon 7500.

BTW, while Samsung's and Dell's 23" 2048x1152 monitors have been discontinued (2343BWX and sp2309w respectively), they still pop up on eBay frequently. I highly recommend anyone who has enough room for a 23" monitor to get one of these instead of 1920x1080. The difference between these resolutions sounds small but in practice, 2048x1152 is much better.

[dr_st]

My experience has often been similar to yours, pianowizard. While some old/bad drivers absolutely refuse to specify anything rather than a set of standard resolutions, most newer/better ones will at least detect the correct resolution of the monitor attached to them, in addition to the standard ones. Then of course, the better customizable once may offer a whole set of resolutions, and they will also often allow creating custom ones.

BTW, I would prefer 24" with 1920x1200 to 23" with 2048x1152 (even though the latter has 2.4% more pixels overall), due to the aspect ratio which I deem more useful for work, and the availability of affordable IPS options.