Quality of Non-Native Resolution on LCDs

[MikeD2k3]

Hello

I remember in the past you could not use lower resolutions on an LCD screen than it was rated for without getting nasty jaggies and image degradation. For example, 1024X768 looked bad in a 1600X1200 display. Does this rule still apply? I was reading about the ATI Radeon 9000 Mobile chipset and it talked about a ratiometric scaler feature (http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1692&p=3). Can anyone with this chipset comment whether it's effective? I'm asking because I'm interested in a Dell 600m with a SXGA+ (1400X1050) on a 14.1" display. This resolution should be okay for me, but another (older) user might want to lower the resolution to make it easier to read. Is this going to be a problem?

Thanks
MikeD

 

[JLA824]

Yes, this is still an issue. My firm bought a Latitude C640 with the same display and graphics adapter. When the display was run at any resolution other than it's native state, it became fuzzy. I spent 2 weeks on the phone with Dell and Microsoft trying to make the display clearer to no avail. Dell changes the size of the icons and text to make things more readable, but that wasn't acceptable to the partner that was using the laptop. I ended up having to return the laptop and exchange it for the same model with an XGA display with a native res. at 1024x768.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

one word, horrible horrible blurry blurry muck.

 

[Antoneo]

My boss' laptop has a native 1600x1200 resolution on a 15 inch LCD with a GF4 Go with 64MB RAM and because he has trouble reading small text, he set the resolution down to 1024x768. The emulation is readily apparent on text as the edges are blurred too much and the colors are often washed out. Sorry I know its not a Radeon 9000 mobility but I think its safe to say that nothing beats native resolution on an LCD. BTW, 1600x1200 is unfit even for a 15 LCD screen. The text is microscopic at that resolution and 1400x1050 on a 14.1 display might be a similar experience.

 

[MikeD2k3]

Thanks for the comments. I was curious about the numbers so I ran some calculations. Here are the results for whether text/images would be smaller on a 1600x1200 on a 15" or 1400X1050 on a 14.1".

1400x1050 on a 14.1" display
1,470,000 pixels
95.4288 in^2 screen area
15,404 pixels/in^2

1600x1200 on a 15" display
1,920,000 pixels
108 in^2 screen area
17,777 pixels/in^2


Looks like 1600X1200 on 15" has about 15% more pixels per in^2.