LCD Monitors and Resolutions

[johnsa]

Hey all,

So i've been working on a rendering api, it's base 2d interface layer sits on-top of either GDI/DirectDraw7/Direct3D using a texture as the 2d surface to render to. This is all well and good and works really well.

I have 22" Acer LCD screen, however this problem seems to happen on all sorts of screens.

If I switch to fullscreen mode even as high as 1024x768x32 (which is sort of around the resolution I'd want to be running at) The monitor or video card driver (not sure which is responsible) stretches the screen to fit and blurs pixels most horribly.

Basically what I find is that unless a run over 1280x1024 i get nasty blurriness. I miss the old days with DOS/CRT where every mode was crisp even if the pixels were big.. :(

Is there anyway to stop this from happening? I've checked in the video-driver control panel and there don't seem to be any options of the sort.

A classic example is opening cmd prompt and making it fullscreen... its awful..

Any ideas?

[BogdanOntanu]

There is nothing that can be done about this. It is one of the "benefits" of modern human race's "technology".

The LCD screen does have a fixed number of pixels and hence it can display crisp images ONLY at the native resolution.
You must render at exactly that resolution or suffer the consequences.

Of course you could also render at 1/2 of that resolution (ie 640x512 in your case) or you could leave a blank black margin or you could ask the driver/video card to leave this blank margin for you.

Some BIOS/cards/drivers have this option but it is a user choice and usually you can not do anything about it at application level ... besides most users will not like it.

[johnsa]

After some more reading I learnt of the LCD "Native Resolution"... and this is the future... perhaps we should go back to the past :)

[BogdanOntanu]

.. perhaps we should go back to the past :)

This is not possible.

[zooba]

.. perhaps we should go back to the past :)

You're very much welcome to. You should be able to pick up a (second hand (do they still build these?)) CRT for a bit of pocket change these days (for example....

Personally, I'm happy to stick with high resolutions and lower power usage. And laptops, for that matter.

Cheers,

Zooba :U

[NightWare]

The monitor or video card driver (not sure which is responsible) stretches the screen to fit and blurs pixels most horribly.

then, it's only a stretch, with a blur you can't see the difference easily... and it's not the monitor, the monitor only shows the data received (blur or not)...

now concerning technology... lcd screen are easier to transport (i remember my old 20" crt screen...  :eek)...  :toothy

[GregL]

johnsa,

I just got a 22" LCD widescreen monitor about a month ago. I was a bit put off by the "native resolution" thing too, until I actually tried it. I wouldn't go back now.

[johnsa]

I too love my 22" wide running at 1680x1050.. especially for coding and general work under Windows.

And no I wouldn't ever want to go back to a CRT.. I'm just a bit disappointed that 1024x768 looks so utterly awful that it's unuseable. 1280x1024 is the lowest i can go on this screen without everything looking like i've had 20 too many beers :)

[vanjast]

Now I'm have to upgrade my LCD (thanks  :bg ).
Also LCD screens are a lot easier on the eyes.
:8)