LCD Native Resolutions??

[Tohokuben]

I plan on building a new system for my father - his PII 200 system is growing a little long in the tooth.

His eyes aren't what they used to be. He currently has a 19 inch CRT, and has the resolution set at 800 x 600 or so - he likes large icons and fonts.

As I understand it, LCD's have a "native" resolution that they operate best at. If I get him a 19, 20, or 24" monitor or so, am I stuck at their native resolutions (likely in the horizontal 1280 -1900 range) or can I expect to be able to select a lower resolution and still have decent display quality??

All advice and tips appreciated!


TB

 

[Dkcode]

LCD's scale better than they did before, but they are still far off perfect. The best thing to do would buy either a 19" or 21" LCD, due to the bigger dot pitch; icons and text will be much bigger than on a 17" and 20" using the same native resolutions.

 

[Dr J]

Hi, TB,

I'm probably your dad's age, or, at least, I have the same problem. I just bought an LG L203WT, a 20.1" LCD display, after 8 years with a 17'' Crt. The LCD?s native res is: 1680x1050, but I currently have it set at: 1152x864 and it looks good at this setting. The display?s manual also recommends refresh rates for various resolutions and at this current one, it's 75hz, as opposed to 60hz, in native (although I'm told this doesn't mean or matter much with an LCD). The point I'm trying to make here is that no, at least in my case, I don't have to run it in native to have it look good (especially since print, text quality and size are most important to me).

Also, if you do want to run a larger lcd display in native, there are ways to get around this problem. If you choose the "Display Properties Box," by right mouse clicking on the desktop and then choosing the "Appearance" tab, you have at least three ways to manipulate font/text and icon sizes through: "Font Size," "Effects," and "Advanced."

I?m told that the video/graphics card also influences the display?s performance and so I?m waiting for delivery of my new card before I set this display to native, with the alterations to font/text and icon sizes, as explained above.

Good luck with your choices and hope this helps.

John

 

[PingSpike]

Wouldn't all LCDs scale "perfect" if you set them to exactly half horizontal and vertical, resulting in 4 pixels in a square equaling one pixel?

 

[hennethannun]

LCDs generally scale decently at lower than native resolutions. if your father really needs larger fonts, then yeah, i think he will be fine using a downscaled LCD, but why bother paying a premium for a 20 or 24" LCD screen if he won't ever take advantage of the high resolutions that it offers?

I would just got a 19" LCD (native resolution 1280*1024) and running at 1024*768 or 800*600.

 

[Raduque]

Why not just let him keep his CRT?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Wouldn't all LCDs scale "perfect" if you set them to exactly half horizontal and vertical, resulting in 4 pixels in a square equaling one pixel?

I guess, but the dot pitch would be 4x as big and it would look really blocky. If you want to see for yourself, just use a linear resize in Photoshop. It doesn't look too good does it? Therefore they try to do some AA on it to make it look better.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: TohokubenAs I understand it, LCD's have a "native" resolution that they operate best at. If I get him a 19, 20, or 24" monitor or so, am I stuck at their native resolutions (likely in the horizontal 1280 -1900 range) or can I expect to be able to select a lower resolution and still have decent display quality??

For obvious reasons (discrete pixels!), LCDs can only display a fixed set of pixels. Input in other resolutions will be extrapolated to those.

Now, what options for vision-impaired people? As long as Windows still is too stupid to scale everything to your liking (Vista will change that), a good plan is what PingSpike suggested - get a 20" 1600x1200 panel and run it 800x600. No other combination will get you as little scaling artefacts as this one.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Wouldn't all LCDs scale "perfect" if you set them to exactly half horizontal and vertical, resulting in 4 pixels in a square equaling one pixel?

I guess, but the dot pitch would be 4x as big and it would look really blocky. If you want to see for yourself, just use a linear resize in Photoshop. It doesn't look too good does it? Therefore they try to do some AA on it to make it look better.

Well, getting really big pixels is the point of this exercise, isn't it? On a CRT, you just get free blurring because CRTs inherently can't display a pixel precisely as a lit square.

 

[xtknight]

Whether the LCD will just do a linear resize is dependent on the scaler. It may still try to do some blurring stuff (2:1 or not). But that's the best you'll get because it's the same aspect ratio.

 

[Fox5]

If an LCD has a high enough resolution, the scaling will come out pretty good. Still fixed pixels, but the more you have the more it approximates not having a fixed number of pixels. (I'd imagine a 4k x 4k res LCD would have nearly perfect scaling with pretty much all currenly used resolutions)

 

[cockeyed]

I would suggest getting him a 20" LCD that has a native resolution of 1400 X 1050 instead of the standard 20" with 1600 x 1200 native. This would provide larger font size and a bigger screen. Also, the 20" - 1400 x 1050's are inexpensive.

If needed, set the DPI in display properties to "custom" 105%-110% range to make things bigger and still have a nice picture.

 

[kmmatney]

Originally posted by: cockeyed
I would suggest getting him a 20" LCD that has a native resolution of 1400 X 1050 instead of the standard 20" with 1600 x 1200 native. This would provide larger font size and a bigger screen. Also, the 20" - 1400 x 1050's are inexpensive.

If needed, set the DPI in display properties to "custom" 105%-110% range to make things bigger and still have a nice picture.

QFT!!!

I just bought the Viewsonic VG2021m, a 20" 4:3 LCD with 1400 x 1050 resolution. I'm 35 years old, but have an eye condition that limits my vision to 20/25 to 20/30. Not bad, but my previous 20" widescreen (BenQ FPW202) made everything just a little too small to see. The VG2021m has larger pixels (looks to be slightly smaller than a 19" LCD) and I have no problem at native resolution. It was also only $210 after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116008

I would highly recommend this LCD. I really like the 4:3 aspect ratio, as it works best for most stuff I do. Widescreen movies still look fine (black bars on top/bottom), and my old games scale well. My video card can also handle Oblivion at native resolution. Response time is very good as well.

I also have two standard 19" LCDs at home, and one 19" widescreen, and this one was not only lower cost, but MUCH better. There really is no reason at all to buy any sort of 19" LCD over this 20", unless you can notice the difference between an 8 ms and a 2 ms response time.

 

[Tohokuben]

Thanks all for all the input. Some responces to points made:

- my father's current monitor is on it's last legs and has strong color casts; time for something new.

- his vision isn't abnormally bad, he just prefers larger fonts/icons.

- I competely overlooked the idea of of inceasing the font and icon sizes to large at a native resolution - I'll have to give this a try on some potential displays.

From your replies it looks like there are some options to the "native resolution" - I'll give some a look.

Thanks!


TB

 

[kmmatney]

Make sure when you increase the fiont sizes, you do it by changing the DPI settings in the "advanced" dialog of the windows display properties. There is an option to change font size on the "Appearance" tab, but this is much less effective than changing the DPI.

As I gauge to my eyes, I had to run my 19" CRT at 1024 x 768.

 

[cockeyed]

I would second the suggested "Viewsonic VG2021m", I saw one at the Tiger Direct store and it looked real good. The print was easy to read.

 

[HomeyFoos]

One thing that I did not read suggested was delving into an HDTV with a DSub or DVI in. Reason being, it can be an HDTV or a monitor and the native resolution would always be 1366x768 or 1280x720. You kinda get exactly what you are looking for. The desktop is not abnormally large (besides it being a larger screen to begin with) and the icons and type on the screen are very readable from maybe even 2 feet away.

I currently have a Viewsonic N2750 27" HDTV as my monitor and I will be replacing it soon for something with more resolution. Your father and I have the opposite problem, it would seem. This monitor would be perfect for him. Also, he can run his cable box into this thing and use the Picture-in-Picture to have TV in the bottom right corner of the screen (about the size of a note-card but not invasive as this display is quite large). Most lcd hdtv's do. The 32" have fallen below $900 so you can find the 26, 27, or 23" displays between $500-700.

Just a suggestion.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

don;t worry about it. i sometimes use my bros 19" lcd at 800x600 and it lookds great (this is some cheapo norcent one he got a year ago for 150). get aqs large a screen as you can afford and then set the res to 1028x768 (needed standard these says) or 800x600 and enjoy.