New Monitor Resolution

[Guest]

I have always used a 19" monitor and my daughter just bought me a 22" wide
flat screen monitor. My question is: what is the best resolution for this
size. When I go to MSN.com there is so much space on both sides of the
screen and all the information is in the center. Any and all help is greatly
appreicated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have always used a 19" monitor and my daughter just bought me a 22" wide
flat screen monitor. My question is: what is the best resolution for this
size. When I go to MSN.com there is so much space on both sides of the
screen and all the information is in the center. Any and all help is greatly
appreicated.

Two points:

1. LCD monitors have a native resolution. You should always run an LCD
monitor at that native resolution, since anything else will produce
poor results. Check your monitor's documentation for what that native
resolution is.

2. Wide-screen monitors need a wide0screen resolution. Depending on
what video card you have, and how old it is, you may not have support
for that resolution on it.

 

[Guest]

You will always see alot of space on both sides. Microsoft has the page set a
certain way in different tables. You have a widescreen monitor.. if it fit
the whole screen it wouldn't look right. You will find ALOT of webpages are
like that, it may be annoying but you'll get used to it. Off the top of my
head, Facebook is another one. I've just tried a whole bunch of my bookmarked
websites and almost all the ones I tried are like that. Also you'll notice is
alot of times (not always) if you watch an imbeded video in your browser it
will be stretched, or squished... or half cut off. To watch it properly you
will have to go to fullscreen. Happens to me anyways.

Like Ken Blake said check the manual for what resolution you need to set at.
I have a 19" widescreen and mine is set at 1440x900. Chances are, yours will
probably be the same. Usually the newer monitors will tell you if its not set
at the optiminal resolution.

-Marcel

 

[Jerry]

My Samsung 225bw wide screen's native resolution is 1680 x 1050 and I have
had NO problems with the display filling the screen - no space or artifacts
are left/right/top/botton despite the comments by one ThaDraGun. And no
problems with videos either.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My Samsung 225bw wide screen's native resolution is 1680 x 1050 and I have
had NO problems with the display filling the screen - no space or artifacts
are left/right/top/botton despite the comments by one ThaDraGun.

Of course. ThaDraGun's comments were clearly incorrect.

 

[Paul Randall]

I have always used a 19" monitor and my daughter just bought me a 22" wide
flat screen monitor. My question is: what is the best resolution for this
size. When I go to MSN.com there is so much space on both sides of the
screen and all the information is in the center. Any and all help is
greatly
appreicated.

There is no "best resolution for this size". There may be a "best" for your
situation.
Using the native resolution gives the sharpest image because there is no
interpolation between resolution sent by video card and resolution of the
screen. Your old analog monitor had to interpolate no matter what
resolution you chose, and you could probably expand or shrink the display
area with controls on the front of the monitor. I imagine that you set the
resolution to a value that you were most comfortable with, not necessarily
the highest resolution available for the old monitor. That is the
definition of "best" you should use with your new monitor.

For some video card/screen combinations, like my 5-year old Sony laptop, if
I choose a lower resolution than the screens native resolution, it just uses
a smaller space in the center of the screen for the display. Other laptops
I've used will use the full size of the screen, making everything bigger but
a little fuzzy due to the interpolation. Your new monitor may stretch the
image to make it fill the screen, causing distortion when you choose
resolutions that don't match the wide screen height to width ratio.

I would advise trying different resolutions to see what is the most
comfortable (least stressful) for you. There are utilities that sit in the
tray that require just two or three clicks to choose and change resolution.
Maybe you will have a different best resolution for different tasks.

-Paul Randall

 

[Anna]

Christine:
For nearly every 22" LCD (flat screen) monitor, the native resolution is
1680 x 1050. Assuming your graphics/video card can support that resolution,
why don't you try setting it that way and see if it's OK for your viewing. I
assume you know how to set a monitor's resolution in XP.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Hmmm... Really sorry about that. I honestly thought that was normal. I set my
monitor to what is recommended by viewsonic. I guess I should try it on 1680
x 1050 and see if that makes any changes.

 

[Guest]

How do I make it so that those pages fill the whole screen on mine? I have a
ViewSonic 19" Widescreen (VA1912wb). Using msn.com as an example.. no matter
what resolution it is set at that page always looks the same. Depending on
what resolution I put it at the bigger the spaces are at the side. By space I
don't mean the screen doesnt go the whole width or is black at the sides..
The space is the shaded blue background that msn has set on there and the
main content is just stuck in the centre of the screen and never changes
size. I still don't think it would look right if that centre content was
across the width of my screen but I want to see what it's supposed to look
like and decide if I like it like that better.