It seems that a lot of LCD monitors sold as "widescreen" aren't
actually 16:9, they're 16:10. My new BenQ FP241W falls into
this category. The FP241W's native mode is 1600x100. That's
too small for me and hurts my eyes, so I wanted to use one of
the modes that it can scale to in hardware. However, the modes
offered by the BenQ (at least, the ones exposed through my
Nvidia display panel) aren't correct aspect ratio: they're
16:9, which means that I can either view them stretched to fill
the whole screen, which distorts the shape of objects on
screen, or I can have black bars at the top and bottom of my
screen. Either "solution" seems poor to me.
Now, I found my own fix for the problem, which is to get the
Nvidia card to do the scaling, rather than requiring the panel
to support it directly. Now, the Nvidia control panel doesn't
directly expose any modes that correctly support 16:10, but
they're in there. I downloaded a widget that allowed me to get
at (it turned out that 1440x900 is the one I was looking for).
I.e. the Nvidia driver supports it, but you have to use a tweak
utility to get at it.
But here's what I was wondering:
1. What the hell is a video company thinking, only offering
one correct-aspect-ratio resolutions (that would the native
mode 1600x1000) plus a bunch of 16:9 ones on a piece of
16:10 hardware??
2. If a company like Nvidia has already done the necessary
work to support other, *correct* resolutions, why do they bury
them where almost nobody will know about them?
3. With all the artists, videographers, photoshop junkies, et al
out there, how come you never hear anything about this issue?
--
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."
On Sun, 9 Dec 2007, Del Rio wrote:
> It seems that a lot of LCD monitors sold as "widescreen"
> aren't actually 16:9, they're 16:10. My new BenQ FP241W falls
> into this category. The FP241W's native mode is 1600x100.
Did you mean 1600x1000? I cannot imagine a monitor with 16:1
resolution ratio. :-)
BTW, FP241W's native resolution is 1920 x 1200 as per BenQ
<http://www.benq.us/products/LCD/?product=638>
yes it is 16:10
Maybe that's the HDTV resolution?
> That's too small for me and hurts my eyes, so I wanted to use
> one of the modes that it can scale to in hardware.
Alternatively you may want to setup your GUI's setup with bigger
fonts, bigger icons, etc.
> 1. What the hell is a video company thinking, only offering
> one correct-aspect-ratio resolutions (that would the native
> mode 1600x1000) plus a bunch of 16:9 ones on a piece of 16:10
> hardware??
Apparently the are not thinking. :-)
> 3. With all the artists, videographers, photoshop junkies, et
> al out there, how come you never hear anything about this
> issue?
I think they usually use maximum resolution, whatever it is.
All LCDs require you adjust Display properties for their small dot pitch.
Start with 120dpi in Settings/Advanced, then large fonts and icons in Apperance.
You should have 1440x900 (17-19) and 1680x1050 (20-22) settings,
but scaling will look ugly and make small text unreadable.
"Del Rio" <delrio@panix.com> wrote in message news:fjh6ku$qcs$1@reader1.panix.com...
> Maybe someone can explain this to me.
>
> It seems that a lot of LCD monitors sold as "widescreen" aren't
> actually 16:9, they're 16:10. My new BenQ FP241W falls into
> this category. The FP241W's native mode is 1600x100. That's
> too small for me and hurts my eyes, so I wanted to use one of
> the modes that it can scale to in hardware. However, the modes
> offered by the BenQ (at least, the ones exposed through my
> Nvidia display panel) aren't correct aspect ratio: they're
> 16:9, which means that I can either view them stretched to fill
> the whole screen, which distorts the shape of objects on
> screen, or I can have black bars at the top and bottom of my
> screen. Either "solution" seems poor to me.
>
In article <alpine.OSX.0.9999.0712091216480.319@imac2006.loca l>,
S P Arif Sahari Wibowo <arifsaha@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 9 Dec 2007, Del Rio wrote:
>> It seems that a lot of LCD monitors sold as "widescreen"
>> aren't actually 16:9, they're 16:10. My new BenQ FP241W falls
>> into this category. The FP241W's native mode is 1600x100.
>
>Did you mean 1600x1000? I cannot imagine a monitor with 16:1
>resolution ratio. :-)
>
>BTW, FP241W's native resolution is 1920 x 1200 as per BenQ
><http://www.benq.us/products/LCD/?product=638>
>yes it is 16:10
You're right of course. I ran into this problem months ago,
and I'd forgotten some of the details. The native resolution
is 1920 x 1200, and but it does offer 1600 x 1000 natively,
which I immediately changed to 1600 x 1000 (thus my statement
that the FP421W only offers one aspect-ratio-correct mode in
hardware was false: it offers two). 1600 x 1000 was still too
hard on my eyes, which is how I found my way to 1440 x 900.
>> That's too small for me and hurts my eyes, so I wanted to use
>> one of the modes that it can scale to in hardware.
>
>Alternatively you may want to setup your GUI's setup with bigger
>fonts, bigger icons, etc.
That only scales OS-related stuff though, which fixes maybe half
of my issues...
>> 3. With all the artists, videographers, photoshop junkies, et
>> al out there, how come you never hear anything about this
>> issue?
>
>I think they usually use maximum resolution, whatever it is.
Maybe you're right, but I don't see how people can work at
those resolutions.
--
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."
In article <13loo2uqeq88k74@corp.supernews.com>,
Eric Gisin <gisin@uniserve.com> wrote:
>All LCDs require you adjust Display properties for their small dot pitch.
>Start with 120dpi in Settings/Advanced, then large fonts and icons in Apperance.
Resizing the GUI fixes some of the visibility problems I have,
but not all. I suppose between resizing the fonts/icons and
the ability of many browsers to scale web pages etc, I could
probably compensate for 70 or 80% of my issues without having
to re-scale the desktop. But scaling the desktop to a
comfortable resolution fixes all the problems at once.
>You should have 1440x900 (17-19) and 1680x1050 (20-22) settings,
>but scaling will look ugly and make small text unreadable.
Actually, unlike on some older monitors, the scaling looks
really nice. I used to scale my old 17" LCD from its native
1280 x 1024 to my prefered 1024 x 768 - now *there* you could
really see the scaling artifacts. On this one, the scaling
looks fine.
--
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."
> Maybe you're right, but I don't see how people can work at
> those resolutions.
>
I have to use reading/computer glasses to use computers and my 22" LCD
is 1680x1050 and I can read text fine. For websites that use really
small fixed fonts I use the zoom feature in the browser. For Firefox it
is ctrl+scroll wheel on mouse. Maybe you need to invest in some reading
glasses? I buy mine at the drug store and they only cost $20.00. Make
sure to get the correct and comfortable strength for reading text though
or else they will make you feel dizzy if they are too strong. Some use
cheap glass too that smudge easily so look for ones with decent quality.
One of my favorite pairs only cost four bucks at the dollar store. I
have four pairs lying about here.
> 1. What the hell is a video company thinking, only offering
> one correct-aspect-ratio resolutions (that would the native
> mode 1600x1000) plus a bunch of 16:9 ones on a piece of
> 16:10 hardware??
Did you install the monitor .inf file? The video card won't know what
resolutions the monitor can support until you install that.
"John Adams" <no@email.invalid> wrote in message
news:t4g7j.71355$Rr7.60629@fe09.news.easynews.com. ..
> Del Rio wrote:
>
>> 1. What the hell is a video company thinking, only offering
>> one correct-aspect-ratio resolutions (that would the native
>> mode 1600x1000) plus a bunch of 16:9 ones on a piece of
>> 16:10 hardware??
>
> Did you install the monitor .inf file? The video card won't know what
> resolutions the monitor can support until you install that.
In many cases, the video card will know what timings are
supported by the monitor from the EDID information it
provides. Probably most, if not all, cases, these days.
Re the original comments - indicating support for 16:9 timings
makes a lot of sense, given that many people will want to use
these monitors with HDTV material. Whether or not the
monitor does the right thing and displays such inputs at the
correct aspect ratio (or at least gives the user the option to
do this) is another question entirely, but clearly a 16:10
display CAN correctly present 16:9 material. I've never
understood the objection to, say, having 1920 x 1080
video displayed on a 1920 x 1200 panel via "letterboxing"
- you are getting exactly the same number of pixels as you
would be if the panel had only 1920 x 1080 pixels in the
first place. If the black areas bother you, either try not to
think about it or do what the theaters do - install curtains. :-)
In article <Y0g7j.76739$_H4.26453@fe08.news.easynews.com>,
John Adams <no@email.invalid> wrote:
>Del Rio wrote:
>> Maybe you're right, but I don't see how people can work at
>> those resolutions.
>
>I have to use reading/computer glasses to use computers and my 22" LCD
>is 1680x1050 and I can read text fine. For websites that use really
>small fixed fonts I use the zoom feature in the browser. For Firefox it
>is ctrl+scroll wheel on mouse. Maybe you need to invest in some reading
>glasses? I buy mine at the drug store and they only cost $20.00. Make
>sure to get the correct and comfortable strength for reading text though
>or else they will make you feel dizzy if they are too strong. Some use
>cheap glass too that smudge easily so look for ones with decent quality.
>One of my favorite pairs only cost four bucks at the dollar store. I
>have four pairs lying about here.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not quite ready to resort
to reading glasses yet for things that are still fixable in
software. ;-)
You know I'm not sure, I'd have to do the math, but I bet I've
probably been viewing things at roughly the same DPI for years.
Every time I get a big, high res monitor I run it at some
fraction of the current-standard "best resolution".
I ran my 17" LCD at 1024 x 768, my 21" CRT at 1152 x 864,
and now my 24" widescreen at 1440 x 900.
--
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."
In article <t4g7j.71355$Rr7.60629@fe09.news.easynews.com>,
John Adams <no@email.invalid> wrote:
>Del Rio wrote:
>
>> 1. What the hell is a video company thinking, only offering
>> one correct-aspect-ratio resolutions (that would the native
>> mode 1600x1000) plus a bunch of 16:9 ones on a piece of
>> 16:10 hardware??
>
>Did you install the monitor .inf file? The video card won't know what
>resolutions the monitor can support until you install that.
Yes, I did. Btw, I corrected my original statement in a
different branch of the thread: the monitor actually offers two
16:10 resolutions (plus a bunch of 16:9 ones). What doesn't
make sense to me is why doesn't it offer a variety of 16:10
ones, and no 16:9 ones, since the latter all cause vertical
stretching??
--
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."
LCD aspect ratio problem 16:10 
Linear Mode
