Create a custom resolution?

if that is a LCD monitor then it should ahve a native which will look best. you will never get better than a natvie res.

Its a Westinghouse 42" LCD.
1920x1080 is what it should run in, but this rez cuts off the windows bar at the bottom of the screen.

hmm, thats odd. that shouldn't happen. if you have it set to your native res it should be fine. what scaling settings do you use in your monitors OSD and also your gfx card settings.

Well I've got it hooked up through VGA now and the resolution is fine, I set it to 1920x1080 and it auto-adjusted to fit perfectly. So this monitor was definitely designed to be used with a PC through VGA, however there is 2 DVI inputs on it and I feel they are somewhat wasted if I am just using the VGA. The color and sharpness are noticeably better through the DVI, so ideally I'd like to find a way to tweak the settings to fit perfectly through there.

I've got a Radeon 9700 Pro, and this thing is still nice but limited, so I think it would be a good idea to get a new card. I'm looking at the Radeon X1600 512MB (AGP mind you, I haven't upgraded yet), but I'm wondering if these 'newer' cards have a lot more performance tweaking and customizable settings available? Or if they are simply using same old Catalyst Control Center or menu's that the older ones use?

If you know of any video card that specifically has a lot of tweaking and customizable settings available I'd love to know about it.

it is the same CCC on all the cards. there are some differences between AGP and PCI-e but nothing much AFAIK.

you shouldn't need to adjust anything with dvi or at least i don't. i have a comp with a 9700pro and it ran my dell2405fps monitor fine enough or at least in 2d apps.

i can't think of a reason why the dvi wouldn't work right tbh. i'll go have a look at my old comp and see if i come up with anything. sorry i can't be of more help.

No no, it's fine, I appreciate your looking into it for me to. I am just experimenting with some possibilities here and seeing what will work.

I went and picked up a radeon x1600 from future shop, gonna install that and see if things are nicer with DVI-D, also downloaded Powerstrip I will play with that later tonight.

One question maybe you could help me with though, I can't find a way to get the ATI Control Center to display different resolutions on different displays. I picked up a temporary 20" LCD, and will buy a permenant 20" or 21" for my text work. I want to have one resolution on the smaler one, and then 1920x1080 on my 42". Do you know how I would do this per chance?

My X1800XL card can do different resolutions, but only if it's running in extended desktop mode (as opposed to clone mode). You can configure that through CCC. Since you want to do text work on one screen and HDTV on the other, extended might be a better config for you anyway.

Also, my CCC has an option to force-allow 720p and 1080i resolutions. I don't know exactly where it is, but I do think it ties in with the graphics card. So you might see this option with the X1600.

If anyone knows how to configure clone mode so that the secondary display has a different resolution but a scaled image of the primary display, please let me know.

sorry my experience of doing that is limited. i have connected a laptop up to a tv before and i believe it will let you have one resolution on one monitor and one on the other. when you connect them up it should display some sort of multiple diplay manager screen.

also look into the extended desktop options to see if that has anything. if you get really stuck i have other monitors i can connect up to test anything out.

ATI must have to use powerstrip software.
nVidia can adjust by itself.

======

sorry for my english... edit


ATI, you can set with powerstrip software. or maybe try 3rd party drivers + tools.

nVidia, you can set in their driver.

The issue is not your video card; you don't need to go out and buy a new one.

You can setup a custom resolution somewhere in the setttings and/or graphics card driver settings (if the driver allows that). I suggest asking in a forum that is for video cards and/or in an ATI specific forum for exact instructions on how to do that. Also, a google search might tell you how to do that with the ATI drivers.

According to taotoon, you can't do that with the ATI drivers, but you need to use another program. Anyways, the issue is still all software; it's not a hardware problem; so you can solve it with some software.

as far as custom res's go, kevinAr18 is right. under digital panel properties in HDtv support it allows you to creat custom res's. sorry i did not post that before but it should work.

EDIT: took out an insult to taotoon. might have been a bit harsh considering his wording.