run 1024*768 on an LCD?

[dbarton]

I want to get a 19 or 20" LCD monitor to replace my CRT. Native res seems to be 1280x1024 on most of these.

Does anyone knw of a monitor that still looks very good if I run it scaled to at 1024x768?

No games, mostly web, text and photo editing. I want to run all the time at 1024x768, so looking good is vital.

I just have a basic video card (AGP?)

thanks!

 

[Monotaur]

I'll give my experience before this thread is locked for being off topic. I have dual 20" LCD, each running natively at 1600x1200 (Dell 2000FPs; yeah, they are old school). This works out very nicely for me. If I have a game or something that I can't quite run at 1600x1200, I'll kick it down to (ugh) 800x600 since that doesn't distort anything. Otherwise, 1600x1200 is great; I'm sure most 20" will do at least 1024x768, although I'm not sure if there are any that have such a native resolution.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

You can run all kinds of res on a 19 or 20. Just trot down to BB and play with the settings. Arguably, the cheaper you go the more likely you will find a monitor that runs 1024x768 native. Most good 19/20 are 1600 or 1920.

 

[FleshLight]

If your gfx supports fixed aspect ratio scaling, you could run 1024x768 on any monitor. I don't know why you would want to do that though.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
You can run all kinds of res on a 19 or 20. Just trot down to BB and play with the settings. Arguably, the cheaper you go the more likely you will find a monitor that runs 1024x768 native. Most good 19/20 are 1600 or 1920.

i've never seen a 19" LCD that runs 1600x1200, and i'm reasonably certain that there aren't any 20" 1920 LCDs either.


for the OP: about the closest you'll get is 1280x1024 on a 19" LCD, which shouldn't be terribly different than 1024x768. honestly, though, unless you're sitting really far away (across the room) you might want to consider seeing an optometrist if you have problems with 1280x1024 on a 19" LCD.

 

[dbarton]

Just as a test I'm trying 1280*1024 on my 17 CRT and the text is *small*!

I need to wear my glasses to read it and I'd very much prefer not to, which is where my original question comes in... and why I want 1024*768 on a 19 LCD.

Maybe the better way is to get a 20 and run 1280*1024?? But is that bigger effective text than a 17" running 1024*768????

Anyone know?

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: dbarton

Just as a test I'm trying 1280*1024 on my 17 CRT and the text is *small*!

I need to wear my glasses to read it and I'd very much prefer not to, which is where my original question comes in... and why I want 1024*768 on a 19 LCD.

Maybe the better way is to get a 20 and run 1280*1024?? But is that bigger effective text than a 17" running 1024*768????

Anyone know?

a 17" crt vs. a 19" lcd is a difference of about 3" viewable diagonally. keep the native resolution on the 19" lcd and increase font size in your applications this way keeping everything else sharp. also more screen real estate to work with.

 

[moonboy403]

on my 2005fpw....you can change resolution without suffering from pixelating by setting the scaling to 1:1 ratio from the monitor

but the viewable area would get smaller as you decrease the resolution

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: dbarton

Just as a test I'm trying 1280*1024 on my 17 CRT and the text is *small*!

A 19" LCD is significantly larger than a 17" CRT in terms of viewable area. If you're okay with 1024x768 on your 17" CRT, you should be fine with 1280x1024 on a 19" LCD.

As suggested, run 1280x1024 and scale up the font sizes if you need bigger text (although it should be about the same absolute size as 1024x768 on a 17" CRT). Running a non-native resolution on an LCD monitor will make everything slightly fuzzy, which is probably worse than having it really sharp but a little smaller.

17" CRT (assumed 16" diagonal viewable, 4:3 AR): viewable area is about 12.8" x 9.6". That's about 80dpi at 1024x768.

19" LCD (19" viewable, 4:3 AR): viewable area is ~15.2" x 11.4". At 1280x1024, that's about 84dpi, just a hair smaller than 10x7 on a 17" CRT (but sharpness will be much better, since most 17" CRTs are simply awful overall for PQ).

 

[dbarton]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

19" LCD (19" viewable, 4:3 AR): viewable area is ~15.2" x 11.4". At 1280x1024, that's about 84dpi, just a hair smaller than 10x7 on a 17" CRT (but sharpness will be much better, since most 17" CRTs are simply awful overall for PQ).

Aha! Ever so slighty smaller text then, but more real estate.

How about a 20"? What's the DPI there? This is getting close to the actual answer i'm after!

.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

The correct answer is "Go to a store and try it out."

And especially if you're going to be looking at text and editing photos, you want to stick with the native resolution of the display. If you can't handle that, then just buy a jumbo CRT.

- M4H

 

[dbarton]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
The correct answer is "Go to a store and try it out."

And especially if you're going to be looking at text and editing photos, you want to stick with the native resolution of the display. If you can't handle that, then just buy a jumbo CRT.

- M4H

If a 19 or 20" lcd at 1280 has the same absolute size as a 17" CRT at 1024, then I'm happy.

It's all in the math..

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: dbarton

Originally posted by: Matthias99

19" LCD (19" viewable, 4:3 AR): viewable area is ~15.2" x 11.4". At 1280x1024, that's about 84dpi, just a hair smaller than 10x7 on a 17" CRT (but sharpness will be much better, since most 17" CRTs are simply awful overall for PQ).

Aha! Ever so slighty smaller text then, but more real estate.

How about a 20"? What's the DPI there? This is getting close to the actual answer i'm after!

.

20" LCDs only seem to come in 1600x1200 or 1680x1050. dpi is about 100 iirc. that is a lot smaller than what you're used to on the 17" CRT. the 19" should be perfect for you

 

[kmmatney]

If your like me, the thing to look at is pixel size. The absolute smallest pixel size I can handle is 0.27 mm, but I prefer larger. A 19" LCD has a 0.294 mm pixel size, and will be a lot better for you.

In my opinion, a 19" LCD at 1280x1024 is much easier to see than a 17" CRT at 1024 x 768. Go for a 19" - it will be perfect without having to scale to 1024 x 768. You'll appreciate the extra desktop space as well.

Edit - A 19" LCD wil give you the largest "text" size, with their 0.294 mm pixel size. The only way I know to go larger is to get a LCD "TV" and use it as a monitor.

 

[hans007]

standard panel resolutions. you cannot get a panel that is out of these resolutions since the lcd panel manufacturing plants only make them in these. there are only maybe 4-5 lcd panel companies out there (regardless of how many brands of monitors there are)

so basically you are down to

19" widescreen 1440x900
19" 4:3 1280x1024
20" widescreen 1680x1050
20" 4:3 1600x1200


now... usually the newer the monitor the better the scaler hardware is, so you could probably run 1024x768 on a 20" monitor and it would look ok. in past years (well like 2-3 years ago) if you ran say 800x600 on a 1024x768 panel it would look horrible, but interpolation hardware is a lot better now (That an with the size of pixels on a 1600x1200 panel, you just wont notice as much)