Worse Not to Run LCD at Native Resolution?

[DaCurryman]

I was told today by an IT staff member at one of my clients that it's bad to not run an LCD monitor at it's Native Resolution.

I have a Dell 1901FP (19") LCD monitor. I use to run my previous 15" Dell LCD at 1024x768. The 1901FP's native resolution is 1280x1024. The transition was too big for me and I would have to get closer to the monitor to read things. For that reason, I'm currently running it at 1152x864 to keep the same aspect ratio as my previous setting while having the font/icon size somewhere in the middle of my old setting and what will eventually become my new setting.

Now my concern is that am I harming the LCD by not running it as it's native resolution of 1280x1024 like the IT person told me? I wanted to know because I paid $500+ for this thing and I don't want to damage it. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Matthias99]

What? Where do people come up with this stuff?

Have your client fire that idiot. No, you're not harming your monitor by running it at a non-native resolution. It just looks blurrier because of the scaling.

However:

I have a Dell 1901FP (19") LCD monitor. I use to run my previous 15" Dell LCD at 1024x768. The 1901FP's native resolution is 1280x1024. The transition was too big for me and I would have to get closer to the monitor to read things.

Huh? This makes no sense. I did the math, and the pixels are almost *exactly* the same size on a 15" running at 1024x768 as they are on a 19" running at 1280x1024 (.0116 in.^2 vs. .0117 in.^2). Text, etc. on the desktop would be exactly the same size; you'd just have more screen area.

 

[Xed]

Lol, that sounds like something you'd hear from most people who work at best buy. (yes I realize some actually know what they are talking about if that offends anyone) =)

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
What? Where do people come up with this stuff?

Have your client fire that idiot. No, you're not harming your monitor by running it at a non-native resolution. It just looks blurrier because of the scaling.

However:

I have a Dell 1901FP (19") LCD monitor. I use to run my previous 15" Dell LCD at 1024x768. The 1901FP's native resolution is 1280x1024. The transition was too big for me and I would have to get closer to the monitor to read things.

Huh? This makes no sense. I did the math, and the pixels are almost *exactly* the same size on a 15" running at 1024x768 as they are on a 19" running at 1280x1024 (.0116 in.^2 vs. .0117 in.^2). Text, etc. on the desktop would be exactly the same size; you'd just have more screen area.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Curryman - it's bad to run LCD's at non native resolutions because they look like crap - resolutions below the native (maximum) resolutions can only be achieved by scaling the picture (ie stretching it to fit the number of pixels in the screen).

A much better solution if text is too small is to increase the DPI size (it's under Display properties > Settings > Advanced. Change the DPI from 96 to 120 and you should be happy).

I found text on my 19" LCD to be perfect; on my 17" LCD (same resolution) I found it smaller at first but got used to that too.

 

[JBT]

It won't hurt it at all and it probably wouldn't be bad scaling either but 1024x768 is 4:3 while 1280x1024 is 5:4 so it is going to scrunch alot of stuff making it look like crap.

 

[JonathanYoung]

The beginning of wisdom = "I don't know"

I don't know why the f*ck people can't be honest and just say they don't know instead of making up bullsh*t like this. You definitely will *not* harm your LCD running it at any resolution... at lower resolutions you might harm your eyes, but that's about it.

 

[kranky]

I have a tendency to say to people "(such-and-such) is a bad thing to do" but I don't mean it will physically harm anything, just that it's not the best solution.

I know I've said the same thing the OP mentioned to people thinking about buying LCD monitors.

 

[Hikari]

Scaling isn't always crap. I know if I go down in resolution (but keep aspect ratio the same), it looks ok to me. Even my NC6000 laptop looks ok if I scale down this way. Of course it isn't quite as good as the native resolution, but with a decent pixel density it isn't nearly as bad as it once was.

 

[piroroadkill]

No damage, just looks like shit.

Native ratio is 5:4
Ratio you're running is 4:3

It looks vertically stretched slightly, and blurry all over.

Simple.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: JBT
It won't hurt it at all and it probably wouldn't be bad scaling either but 1024x768 is 4:3 while 1280x1024 is 5:4 so it is going to scrunch alot of stuff making it look like crap.

True for CRTs, utterly wrong for TFTs. That's because the TFTs that have 1280x1024 resolution also do have 5:4 aspect ratio, which gets you the square pixels you need for non-scrunched visuals.

And the final advice for people who can't read text properly:

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS

DISPLAY PROPERTIES - APPEARANCE - FONT SIZE

GOOD FOR?

Oh, and while you're at it, you might also want to enable ClearType in the "Effects..." subwindow right next to it.

 

[Hikari]

Very true, Peter.

On a minor note (we're off-topic about native resolutions now), make sure to do the ClearType tuner as well http://www.microsoft.com/typog.../cleartype/tuner/1.htm

Originally posted by: Peter

Originally posted by: JBT
It won't hurt it at all and it probably wouldn't be bad scaling either but 1024x768 is 4:3 while 1280x1024 is 5:4 so it is going to scrunch alot of stuff making it look like crap.

True for CRTs, utterly wrong for TFTs. That's because the TFTs that have 1280x1024 resolution also do have 5:4 aspect ratio, which gets you the square pixels you need for non-scrunched visuals.

And the final advice for people who can't read text properly:

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS

DISPLAY PROPERTIES - APPEARANCE - FONT SIZE

GOOD FOR?

Oh, and while you're at it, you might also want to enable ClearType in the "Effects..." subwindow right next to it.

 

[DaCurryman]

Thanks a lot guys...this is why I love AT. I was hesitant to accept what the guy said, but I also didnt want to take chances and I knew all the smart people here would know.

I'm definitely going to try changing the Font Size/DPI setting and switch to native resolution. If the size is fine with the increased clarity, then I'm good to go!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Peter
And the final advice for people who can't read text properly:
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS
DISPLAY PROPERTIES - APPEARANCE - FONT SIZE
GOOD FOR?

Unfortunately, there are far too many apps out there, that are not properly programmed to take system/font metrics into account when generating their UI, and stuff gets all screwed up if you mess with the default system font size(s). I know that it shouldn't be like that, but in many cases it is.

Originally posted by: Peter
Oh, and while you're at it, you might also want to enable ClearType in the "Effects..." subwindow right next to it.

Does that really make as big a difference as people make it out to be? I don't yet own an LCD myself to test out ClearType, but I've never found that "font smoothing" made that much of a difference on a high-res CRT (1600x1200), if anything, it tended to make text harder to read, not easier. I tried ClearType on a CRT, that has funny effects.

(Actually, I should probably try it on this particular M700 CRT. NEC's documentation makes a lot of noise about how the "slot mask" design ensures accurate registration of the pixels right next to each other. IOW, the pixel mask layout on this particular CRT is pretty-much the same as an LCD, in contrast to normal shadow-mask dot-triads. I found that out the other day, I had always wondered why the pixels on this tube looked more 'squarish' than usual.)

 

[Peter]

ClearType only works if the rendering unit has full control over the RGB subpixels and their relative positions. On CRTs as well as TFTs connected through analog VGA, this is obviously not the case, so indeed, things will look funny there.

On digitally (!) connected TFTs though, it does make a difference. Smooth font edges through subpixel antialiasing looks very good. Initially, most people don't like it because it's not as razor sharp, but then you want to read stuff, not look at individual pixels - and reading smooth letters goes faster. Make sure you fine tune your ClearType contrast setting to your likings (and to minimize rainbow effects on your display), e.g. through that link above (works only in IE, unsurprisingly).

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Peter

Originally posted by: JBT
It won't hurt it at all and it probably wouldn't be bad scaling either but 1024x768 is 4:3 while 1280x1024 is 5:4 so it is going to scrunch alot of stuff making it look like crap.

True for CRTs, utterly wrong for TFTs. That's because the TFTs that have 1280x1024 resolution also do have 5:4 aspect ratio, which gets you the square pixels you need for non-scrunched visuals.

And the final advice for people who can't read text properly:

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS

DISPLAY PROPERTIES - APPEARANCE - FONT SIZE

GOOD FOR?

Oh, and while you're at it, you might also want to enable ClearType in the "Effects..." subwindow right next to it.

uhh what? he said he is going to run 1152x864 which is 4:3 on a 5:4 screen which the native res is 1280x1024. So yeah I guess I should have said strech and not scrunch

 

[JonathanYoung]

Hikari, thanks for that link! I didn't even know you could tweak the cleartype settings... things look much better now!