🚀 go-pugleaf

LCDs in general, and your monitor in particular, shouldn't be doing that. They've been around for years on laptops and most of a decade for desktops. Size shouldn't matter either; they're all high resolution. The reason it may appear stretched is because whatever resolution you're setting in your video card Control Panel is not proportional to your desktop setup -- it may be more or less rectilinear.

But a monitor is generally a dumb device. Have you checked your video card's drivers to make sure that they're the lastest&greatest? And depending on video card brand, the manufacturer probably also provides some free display tweaking softwware.

Also, look at Microsoft's ClearType utility, which is designed to improve legibility on LCD screens.

Art

Paul

As Art says, it sounds to me like you don't have the correct driver for your LCD device, or if you do you don't have the display settings properly configured.

Having bought my first LCD more than three years ago, I'd never go back to a CRT. Overall display quality and physical size are of course better, but most of all the LCD's absence of a screen refresh/redraw cycle leaves my eyes feeling much better at the end of a long day...

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

I also concur with Riley that I've found the absence of screen refresh (flicker) in an LCD makes it much, much easier on my eyes. One related issue, though, with any type of monitor can be flicker from ambient light -- overhead fluorescent lights often have their own flicker that can be very irritating if it "bounces" into your field of view. One low-tech solution that can help is to wear a baseball cap to shield your eyes from the worst of the effects. Also, adjusting the monitor position (if possible) so that light from windows doesn't glare off the screen is another important factor.

If you wear eyeglasses -- or even if you don't -- another option might be to have some glasses made specifically for use with the computer screen. In my case the focal distance is adjusted to be the distance between my normal sitting posture and the monitor (basically 18"), with a slight magnification.

fwiw, I have a 24" Samsung LCD running at 1920 x 1200, and a Matrox P650 video card.

One last note, there's a setting in the user-level (the one that's usually in Documents and Settings) maker.ini for "MonitorSize=" where you can specify the diagonal size of your monitor, so that FM will optimize to show a full page at 100%.

Sheila

Hi Art, Riley, and Sheila,

Thank you all very much for your response. I don't think the video card is an issue (but I could be wrong) since the monitor was given to me along with the PC from my employer. The PC is a Dell Optiplex 745 and the monitor is a 2009W.

I know this is low resolution for all of you but 1024/768 would have worked for me but, again, everything is stretched.

Sheila,

My glasses were fine when I worked with 800/600 resolution on my CRT. However, guess I'll take your advice and contact my eye doctor (if he can help). Well, I gave it a try. Hope one day LCDs allow one to change resolutions similar to CRTs without any degrading. Just a thought. Again, thank you - you're all good people.

The specs on the Dell site say that the 2009W has a native resolution of 1680 x 1050 -- when you have your system set to that resolution, is the display still distorted, or is the problem just that it's too small for you?

On my computer (WinXP), in the Windows settings for Display properties, and in the Advanced tab, there's a setting for the Display where I can change the DPI setting from "Normal" to "Large size" which the display says "if your screen resolution makes screen items too small to view comfortably, you can increase the DPI to compensate."

DisplayMate has a lot of great info on LCDs:

 <http://www.displaymate.com/index.html>

Paul,

I didn't read that you had actually checked to see if the graphics card drivers and software were up to date.....

IMHO, the fact that the equipment was supplied by your employer would be a reason to check the software, not a reason to assume that it was up-to-date.

Cheers,
Art

And one PS on setting resolution....

Everything is (supposed) to be based on the antique VGA resolution of 640x480. If you start with that and increase the resolution to even multiples of that, you're pretty safe from the distortion that you're mentioning, Paul.

Your 1024 x 768 setting is an even multiple of 640x480 (a factor of 1.6).

But the 1680 x 1050 native resolution that Shelia reported is not... There's a different factor at work on each dimension, so that may be why you're getting some distortion -- the pixels aren't, or may not be, symmetrical.

Hi Art and Sheila,

Thanks again for the info. Well, I haven't given up yet. Yes, I have the setting at 1680x1050. For me, the text and icons are just to small to work with. Therefore, I've played with the DPI a bit. At this point, I have it set to large (120 DPI) and have made adjustments to the appearance. I'll see how this works for me next week in work.

I realize bigger is better for most but I'm wondering if a seventeen inch square like LCD monitor would be enough for my situation. I'm looking at the Dell 1708 FP. My reasoning is that I only have three or so applications up at a time and I'm a great alt/tab guy � Ha! Agree/Disagree? I say this because brightness is an issue in the office too (which I can't control). I feel I'd cut down on any unneeded real estate on the monitor and any accompanying brightness (Note: I've played a bit with the brightness and contrast settings on the monitor.) I've been told in work that I can return to my CRT monitor but I guess I'm determined to adjust to a LCD monitor (since CRTs will probably be hard to find in the future).

Thanks again and have a great weekend.

Paul

Paul,

That 1680 is much higher resolution setting than I'd ever use or be
comfortable with.

Why aren't you just cranking it down to 1280 or 1024 or less?

Art

Art,

The 1280 or 1024 view only makes things distorted or stretched. I know you've mentioned the video card but from my readings on LCD monitors, the distortion is expected (because its not set to the native resolution). Thus, I assume the only adjustments one can make is the DPI and appearance afterwards from the native resolution. Here is an example of something I read (among many):

 <http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/87>

In your Window's Device Manager > Monitors is your specific monitor model name showing (2009 or whatever), or does it show "plug and play monitor", or ?

How is the monitor connected, is it through the standard VGA cable or through a DVI cable?

Hi Paul,

1680 x 1050 is the native resolution of the Dell 2009W, because it's a widescreen monitor. The width/height ratio is heigher than that of conventional monitors (4:3). Therefore 1680 x 1050 do not distort the display, but 800 x 600 (and multiples of it) would.

Best regards

Winfried

Paul...

Here are some ramblingthoughts on your issue. They expand on the good advice you've already received, and thus do not dispute what others have said.

Make certain your drivers for the graphics card are the latest and greatest. This is the first step you should take. You probably have already done that. If not, go do it. But check the next paragraph first.

If your graphics card has a DVI output, by all means use it. If it doesn't, opt for a different graphics card, preferably one with two DVI outputs, known as a dual-head graphics card. I address this again below.

Life is too short to drink cheap wine. It's also too short to spend a professional career working with inadequate computing resources, especially when you consider the cost of the capital outlay versus the salaries and the wasted time fooling around trying to make things right. If your employer has artificial limits on spending, go make a business case for better gear.

You already seem to understand the concept of the monitor's native resolution. High resolution monitors are best for image processing, when programs like Photoshop are used to edit photographic images. For text-based work, they're the wrong way to go, as you've discovered. Part of the problem is that many web pages and all operating systems seem to be stuck with a one-size-fits-all set of icons, menus, page sizes and the like. With Windows, you get two choices of text size, but those choices don't apply to all text instances and only in the operating system, not in the applications that run on top of the application. So driving a high resolution monitor at its native resolution results in tiny text, icons and the like. I get some email messages that I cannot read because the very popular marketing company that creates them uses what must be 4 point typefaces.

I have dual 20.5" Samgung monitors with 1600x1200 native resolution on two of my workstations. They're beautiful monitors, but I would trade even-up for the same monitor with 1280x960 native resolution. One thing that's nice about LCDs, by the way, is this. If you get ones that pivot clock- or counter-clockwise, and many do, you can easily run them in portrait mode by rotating them and changing the settings for the driver. My FrameMaker workstation has one monitor set to landscape orientation and the other to portrait mode. Try setting a 17" CRT on its side�good luck!

LCD monitors will ONLY look their best when the image is displayed at their native resolution, or perhaps in some cases, at a submultiple of the native resolution. For example, a 1600x1200 monitor might look OK when the graphics card is set to 800x600. In my case, that makes the icons and windows appear too large, though. Something in-between is best for me. I doubt, however, that you have a 840x525 choice, but if you do, try it.

Sheila asks about your video cable. An LCD monitor *should* be driven by a graphics card with a DVI (digital) output. Otherwise, the signal must be converted to analog (VGA) and back to digital for display purposes. Since the image is inherently digital to begin with, converting to analog video and then back to digital has its obvious drawbacks. I'm not sure if a modern graphics card can properly identify the connected monitor though a VGA cable�it's been so long since I used a CRT and a VGA card that I've forgotten.

A CRT monitor also has a "native resolution" based on the pitch of the phosphor triads and the shadow mask in the tube. Because that was an analog interfaced world, and CRTs are relatively "soft" compared to LCDs, the effects of non-native scan rates and resolution settings were not as troublesome or as obvious as they are for LCD screens. Once you get the settings right on your LCD display, though, you will NEVER consider going back to a CRT display.

It's probably too late to lobby for this, but if I were you, I would strive to get a "dual-head" graphics card, one with two DVI outputs, and put two identical monitors side-by-side. Once you've experienced a dual-monitor setup, you will never be happy with just one screen.

Setting the graphics card resolution for a 16:10 aspect ratio in any other than the native resolution of the monitor will result in "aliasing" artifacts, which may be what you mean by "distortion." The simplistic way to describe the aliasing effect is that some elements of a character inevitably fall in the "cracks" between pixels. When the image resolution setting matches the native resolution, the video data from the card "lines up" perfectly with the pixels, giving the most accurate representation. The other type of distortion that you may be referring to is due to a mismatch of the aspect ration associated with an image resolution setting versus the aspect ratio of the screen. In such situations, a "truly" round circle would appear elliptical on the screen. This is what Winifred is describing. You cannot expect acceptable results with any graphics card setting whose resolution aspect ratio is , relative to the display, mismatched. You must use a setting that corresponds to the 16:10 ratio.

Another way to understand the artifacts associated with aliasing is to imagine viewing a checkerboard through a piece of wire fencing with a square pattern laid on top of it. When the size of the squares in the fencing material are the same as the checkboard squares, you can make things line up and see all of the checkerboard. If the screen wire is a different size, then there's no way to place the wire over the checkerboard without covering some of the squares with wire�that is, unless the pattern in the fence is twice the size of the square, ot four times, and so on.

Sheila,

The Dell 2009W is a plug and play monitor. It is connected by a DVI cable.

Winfried, thank you for your time and response.

Dennis, thank you for the great info! The time you gave me is unbelievable. My company is an older, traditional company. In other words, everybody gets the same stuff here (e.g., computers, etc.). However, you are correct. In this instance, I think I may have to create a little ruckus to get this issue resolved.

This leads me to all your info and time:

For what its worth, people who respond to people in need of assistance on message boards don't get much satisfaction. For example, did my response help him or her? In my case, all your help is most appreciated. Just the fact, you took the time out to help a stranger is the best in my book. OK, if I'm a bit corny; so be it. Just want to thank all of you again.

Paul