2 monitors, different resolutions, one not displaying proper circle

[car-nuts]

I formerly had 2 identical CRT displays attached to my WinXP system.

I now have 2 27" Samsung LED displays (one is a TV) both attached via VGA on a WinXP system. They have slightly different native resolutions. If the T27B350 TV is at it's max of 1920x1080, and the S27B350 display is set to 1920x1200, circles on the secondary (TV) are displayed correctly, but circles on the primary (display) are squashed vertically (approx 9:8 ratio).

If I change the setting on the display to 1920x1080 to match the TV, circles now are squashed even worse (but on the horizontal axis) and I lose 1.5 inches of screen on each side. There does not seem to be any way to use the display's controls to widen that picture, as could be done on an analog CRT.

I have tried Windows generic, and Samsung drivers.

Am I trying to achieve the impossible?

 

[WyomingKnott]

The two resolutions should be absolutely independent of each other; you should set each display to its native resolution and get round circles. Let me look up the native resolution of a Samsung S27B350... The native resolution is 1920 by 1280; you should see a true circle with that.

The displays should be completely independent of each other, but try an experiment: Disconnect the TV and use the monitor alone. Set things to the native resolution and see what happens.

OH - it just occurred to me. Do you have the displays set to be the same image, or two separate pages in an "extended" display? I've had all kinds of problems when using a projector and trying to get the same image on both displays, because it's trying to scale the same image to two different shapes.

 

[car-nuts]

UPDATE.... I SPOKE TOO SOON, SEE MY NEXT POST BELOW THIS ONE

Thanks for your reply.

Just a few moments ago I managed to get both displays (TV and display) working properly.

Hate to say it, but I'm not even sure how that happened. I noted that WinXP hardware manager showed 4 display positions (2 each on native MB plus add-on display adapter?) and that only the last one was showing the Samsung driver. I fooled around with trying to get the Samsung driver on the last 2 display positions but was unsuccessful (if I downloaded the driver install program again, it wanted to remove the driver, not install it to another display). I could not locate a loadable Samsung driver program on my computer... the one display that had it loaded showed it was in C:\Windows\System32\drivers, but the hardware manager would not install it from that folder.

So then I was playing around, swapping the cables between connectors to the display adapter to see how that affected the picture in each,, and switching the monitors in the Windows desktop properties, when suddenly I noticed that both monitors seemed to be displaying at 1920 x 1080, and the Samsung display (as opposed to the Samsung TV) did not have missing areas (black strips on each side). Sure enough, a circle was a circle on both displays. On checking, I found device manager now showed all 4 displays as Plug and Play Monitors, and desktop properties confirmed 1920x1080 on both displays..

I'll be darned if I understand what happened or why I was unable to use the Samsung driver on 2 monitors, but all is well now so I'm a happy camper and hoping it lasts across a reboot..

UPDATE: I SPOKE TOO SOON, SEE BELOW.

 

[car-nuts]

After a reboot, the Samsung display is again shown as a "SyncMaster SB350_S27B350H Analog on NVIDIA Quadro FX 1300" with screen resolution 1920x1200; if it is set to 1920x1080 with WinXP desktop properties>settings, the picture is even more distorted, the screen is squeezed in the horizontal (with black 1 1/2" strips down each side).

The user guide (and everything else I can find) says this display has a native resolution of 1920x1080, so why does it boot up as 1920x1200? I do not see any way to "stretch" the picture to the sides at 1920x1080 by using the hardware menu on the display or by using the NVIDIA display adapter's control panel.