Resolution on new monitor

[forcemarker]

I've read about LCD screen sizes, resolution, etc. but admittedly, I don't quite get it! Changed from a CRT to a 24" LCD Flat Screen 16:10 with "proper resolution" (according to their table/chart) is to be 1920 X 1200 @ 60 Hz.

Initially I didn't alter any settings & desktop & icons, etc appeared "normal size" - i.e., proportional & readily readable. After a reboot however the taskbar & icons, etc were too tiny. This (apparently) was at 1920 X 1200 res so I changed the res to 1024 X 768 & now it looks about as it did initially - icons, taskbar, webpages, etc are about the right size for someone w/ 20/20 vision!

So,
a.) this seems "backwards" to me (I would've expected the reverse)
&
b.) is 1920 X 1200 just some maximum res? only used if needed for video or photos, etc? (NOT typical everyday internet usage, etc)

Sorry if this is a stupid question & there's something obvious that's just flying over my head!

 

[Guest]

1024x768 is a very low res for a screen of that size. Surely something between that and the upper figure you mention would be a better solution.

If it's any guide, I use 1280x1024 on a 19 inch old fashioned non-wide flatscreen.

 

[forcemarker]

Ye, I would think so.......as I move the the arrow from less to more the icons & taskbar get minute. Taskbar is barely 1/4" at 1920 X 1200 which a pop up from the monitor keeps saying is the "recommended setting"? 1,162 X 864 is about as high as I can w/o being too too small. (The desktop's picture/background never changes & looks fine - its just the icons, taskbar & webpages.

Kinda funky. The GPU or type of cable shouldn't make any difference should it?

 

[Guest]

Has your video card got its own utilities or are you relying on Windows ?

Check the screen maker's site for a driver, too.

Cable should not be an issue.

 

[forcemarker]

Has your video card got its own utilities or are you relying on Windows ?

Check the screen maker's site for a driver, too.

Cable should not be an issue.

Video card has no utilities (that i know of). Downloaded latest driver from HP site but same issue remains.

I've been researching online & found other people w/ this "issue" but there's never any clear or effective solutions offerred in the various forums.

 

[Guest]

You don't mention which brand but as it's a recent purchase I would definitely contact the dealer or the manufacturer.

 

[cjl]

Could you post a full screen screenshot of your desktop at 1920x1200?

Your monitor should definitely run at 1920x1200 for the best image quality, and (having owned several 1920x1200 24 inchers) it shouldn't look too small at that resolution. It could be that you're simply used to a low resolution, and as a result, you expect the icons and interface to be larger than native on a monitor like that, but a screenshot will show it for sure.

 

[rofl_my_waffle]

Icons in windows are 60 pixels by 60 pixels. A monitor with more pixels won't change the icon size unless the pixels were simply bigger. This is why higher resolution monitors have more desktop space (not a bigger image).

If you want bigger icons, you can either simply get a bigger monitor at the same resolution. Or tell windows to draw the icons at a bigger size. This can be done through control panel or just search for "text size" in windows.

 

[forcemarker]

Could you post a full screen screenshot of your desktop at 1920x1200?

Your monitor should definitely run at 1920x1200 for the best image quality, and (having owned several 1920x1200 24 inchers) it shouldn't look too small at that resolution. It could be that you're simply used to a low resolution, and as a result, you expect the icons and interface to be larger than native on a monitor like that, but a screenshot will show it for sure.

Wasn't sure how to post screenshots but hopefully this will work. The font on websites is VERY small - I can read it but 'it just don't seem right'. I've found references to the ZR24W not having 1:1 scaling. I don't claim to understand this but it definitely seems like a scaling issue. I did attempt to use "Custom settings" on the monitor itself & honestly I forgot what I changed it to but the problem was the same before & after so it didn't help. Now that setting is greyed out so I can't access it at all to test. My video card has no settings.

 

[cjl]

Those do work (they show up as the proper resolution to me), and to be honest, those look completely normal. I think you just aren't used to the high resolution displays. I know that I can certainly read everything in those images just fine, and my monitor actually has slightly higher PPI than a 24" 1920x1200.

 

[forcemarker]

You may be right but I think when those screenshots are doudle-clicked they "appear" larger than on screen. I can dual boot so here's another screenshot of desktop in Windows Me. I think it illustrates a bit better. The icons when on a CRT the icons went right up to the edges of the screen - that is, flush to left, right, top & bottom. On 24" at 1920X1200 they stay "arranged" as they were BUT obviously they only occupy the top left 1/4 of the LCD screen.



Also some writing on a white background webpage. I can read it but it is none too big.



Maybe it is just getting used to it...idk?

 

[jaguarskx]

Pictures looks normal to me.

If you low the resolution of the monitor the icons will be rearrange to fit the smaller desktop. If you then increase the resolution back to what it was before the position of the icon will not automatically revert back to there they were. There position remains where they were for the smaller resolution in relation to the higher resolution.

You need to realize that the higher the resolution the smaller icons and text will be since they have a set pixel size. So if you change your resolution down to 1680 x 1050, the icons and texts will appear a little larger because of the lower resolution.

Since you are using Windows XP, you can tweak the size of the icon and text by....

1. right click desktop
2. click Properties
3. click Appearance tab
4. click Advanced button

In the Advanced Properties window you can change many thing including the size of fonts, icon, menus. Make all the changes you want, click OK (which closes the window), then click Apply in the Display Properties window. This does not affect the text in an application though.

To change the size of text in IE or Firefox you need to do it within the browser. In Firefox it can be found in the menu under View, then Zoom. IE should have something similar.

 

[forcemarker]

Pictures looks normal to me.

Since you are using Windows XP, you can tweak the size of the icon and text by....

.....This does not affect the text in an application though.

To change the size of text in IE or Firefox you need to do it within the browser. In Firefox it can be found in the menu under View, then Zoom. IE should have something similar.

Yeah I understand about the icons "changed" location vis-a-vis the resolution change - I just referred to them attempting to illustrate their "too smallness". I did figure out the Zoom function (or Ctl +) for webpages too but I didn't think it "should"/would require zooming on every new webpage in order to render it's text more readable. Being new to LCD's I guess thats just something people have to do. I have 20/20 vision & can read the text on the screenshots for instance BUT it does seem a bit on the small side for comfort IMO. Especially the thinner the font is.

I'm assuming at this point that it's just me & not a scaling issue w/ the monitor itself. As I mentioned I read where the ZR24W didn't have 1:1 scaling but I still don't quite know what that is & it doesn't seem to be "the cause" of the sizing that I'm questioning. My graphics card has no way to "set" any scaling & I'm not sure if it is doing any scaling or not. The monitor itself has under "Custom scaling" 2 settings: "Fit to screen" or "Fit to Aspect Ratio" - neither of which seems to alter webpage text size much. The latter I believe just displays more space on the sides. Therefore even if a video card did have scaling settings I'm not sure what effect it would have.

I suspect I'll get used to it & probably look back & think (or realize?) that there wasn't an issue w/ it after all. In any event thanks for the replies & explanations!

EDIT:
Although the more I try to resize/"zoom" from one webpage to the next where often times it distorts them so bad its worse than being too small I find it hard to believe people do this on a regular basis. I guess I don't get what the extra screen space of 24" is worth if most webpages are only occupying 35% ish of that area?

Another thing I've noticed too is a youtube video will be clear as a bell at 1920 X 1200 BUT it is only 7" X 4" in actual size.....therefore too small to see worth a damn......yet if you go full screen to view it it's NOT clear anymore - too grainy. So, again I wonder: if it's not good for text (due to it being too small) AND not good at full screen mode what good is high res??

I'm not smart enough to figure it out but something ain't right.

 

[ssddx]

let me see if i can explain it a little more clearly:

every lcd monitor has a native resolution. this is however many pixels by pixels the screen physically is. since your monitor wants to default to 1920x1200 this is most likely its native resolution. check your manual to double check.

lcd screens should be ran at this native resolution. any other resolution will stretch/distort the image to fit which will reduce quality. text sizes can be adjusted within windows for your desktop/web. these settings will save and always load as such.

screen resolutions will also be more easily readable on different size monitors. for example a 1920x1080 22" monitor will show text/everything as smaller than a 1920x1080 24" monitor. how far you place your monitor from where you sit also has an effect on this as well. you can try moving your monitor closer by 1-2" as this can make a difference!

youtube videos that are not HD will look more blurry in fullscreen view as the quality is not there. for higher resolution videos that play better in fullscreen mode try the HD content. the reason why it looks more blurry when you use your native resolution is the video is stretching from whatever its native size is to your a size relative to your desktop. think about stretching a photo from 4x3" to 6x4.5" or 8x6" of course the larger size will show more grain/lower quality. the same is true when you stretch a video to a larger screen resolution.

my vision is less than 20/20 and 1600x1200 resolution on a 20", and 1280x1024 resolution on a 20" are both fine. i've always ran webpages at no more than 120% zoom on the 1600x1200. most larger websites will stretch to the width of your browser window. most older/smaller websites use a width of 1024-ish to accomodate older monitors. if you are running 1920x then this will take up 53% of your screen or 64% at 120%zoom.

no, most of us do NOT adjust zoom for every website. we just roll with one text magnifier (typically medium) as most fonts on the web are fairly close in size.

 

[rofl_my_waffle]

A monitor has pixels. Imagine drawing an image by making many many dots on a piece of paper. LCD monitors have very small pixels to, 1920x1080 has around 2 million pixels. For that amount of pixels to fit, they are very very small.

Text, images, icons, everything on your computer occupies a set number of pixel (not something like inches). So a display like a TV which is equippted with larger pixels would draw everything larger.

If resolution is reduced by 50%, this way the monitor can use 2 pixels to display something it normally does with 1 so everything looks bigger. (I don't recommend this because an image would always have blur or gain. 1680x1050 for example is 13% smaller than 1920x1080. To display an image sharply the monitor must represent every pixel using 1.13. Obviously the monitor can't change the color of 0.13 of a pixel so it must use 1 in some areas or 2 in some others. A solid color would look fine but text and color gradients would look less sharp. The same principal applies when enlarging a low resolution image.

Standard pixel size for LCD monitors is 0.25mm. LCD TVs have much larger pixel size.

I personally don't use magnifier at all, I just place my monitor closer. It has the same effect of getting a bigger monitor.

 

[forcemarker]

no, most of us do NOT adjust zoom for every website. we just roll with one text magnifier (typically medium) as most fonts on the web are fairly close in size.

"text magnifier"? do you mean something other than Ctrl and the "+" key OR the zoom function under View on a browser?

I guess this is "normal" but at 1920x1200 (to me) - nothing looks "optimum". It's difficult to find a "sweet-spot" to view non-HD youtube content (other than zooming to the best trade-off level). Apparently most people deal w/ tiny text & everything else on webpages better than I do (the right scroll bar is 1/8" - as is a capital letter font). I have normal vision but am pretty much manually zooming on every webpage I visit just for comfort. Works better on some than others - some it distorts their layout too much. I moved it physically closer to my eyes but unless its a foot from my eyes as if I was reading off a piece of paper it doesn't make much difference & seems like no one is that close to their monitor. The text as I write this is equivalent to me holding a font size 12 letter at arms length. I can read the letter (or monitor) from twice that far but who does that? I'm shocked that this would be typical but apparently it is.

I do appreciate the explanations.

 

[ssddx]

as for the text magnifier, that is what I am talking about. most internet fonts are fairly standard being between 10-14 for normal text. so, picking one that is comfortable should scale well between websites.

the zoom function in win7 seems to be far superior than winxp as it scales the entire webpage without distortion usually.

you might just not be used to a larger resolution. it is quite a step up from what you were at. keep in mind that not having good contrast/brightness settings can make viewing a monitor less than ideal.

"font size 12 letter at arms length. I can read the letter (or monitor) from twice that far but who does that? I'm shocked that this would be typical but apparently it is."
- all the text i view on the internet is about that size or a bit smaller. i have less than 20/20 and it doesnt seem to bother me. again, maybe you are just used to ultra-huge letters on the screen.

 

[forcemarker]

Best answer selected by forcemarker.