Do you run your LCD at different resolutions?

[aristide1]

Looking at LCDs some people swear they only look great at their "native" resolution and lower settings aren't so good. Do you agree with that?

Frankly for text and reading I run a 17" CRT at 800 * 600, and my 19" CRT at 1024 * 768, even though it can run higher. The smallest pixels and highest resolution make for sharp pics, but my age is becoming a factor as well.

Thanks

[qviri]

Looking at LCDs some people swear they only look great at their "native" resolution and lower settings aren't so good. Do you agree with that?

Yes.

[mentawl]

Agreed also. I'll only run LCDs at native resolution.

[ntavlas]

Lcds indeed look awful when not running their native res.

Frankly for text and reading I run a 17" CRT at 800 * 600, and my 19" CRT at 1024 * 768, even though it can run higher. The smallest pixels and highest resolution make for sharp pics, but my age is becoming a factor as well.

How come you are not using an lcd? Text on a 22 incher should be fairly large at the native resolution and a lot sharper than on the crt.

[Vicotnik]

Why not increase font size instead of messing with the resolution?

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi Aris,

Why not increase font size instead of messing with the resolution?

If things are too small, increase the font size, as mentioned. This also can increase the icons and all the rest -- but it leaves the LCD at the maximum native size, so that everything is a clear and crisp as possible. If you just decrease the rez, then things get fuzzy, and you see a lot less of a desktop.

[Greg F.]

This is a timely subject for me as I have installed Linux Mint Gloria on my machines. The default resolution is nice appearing, but my eyes start hurting after a short while because the text is too small. Dropping the res makes things look fuzzy. I blamed Linux at first (actually I was blaming the video drivers), then I started blaming the browsers as the Firefox 3.0 that comes installed with Gloria looks better than any others I downloaded. You have given me some ideas which I will try out now. Thanks.

[lm]

Firefox can increase/decrease text size on the fly very nicely by Ctrl-mousewheelspin. Default size can be restored by Ctrl-0. These are also available in the menus.

Same shortcuts work in Opera, but the zooming works even better than in firefox.

I use these when I lean back/forward in my chair.

[aristide1]

How come you are not using an lcd? Text on a 22 incher should be fairly large at the native resolution and a lot sharper than on the crt.

That's a good point. I simply do not buy monitors very frequently.

Playing around last night on an LCD I noticed the native resolution was higher than the website, so the browser centered the picture with white borders. I then zoomed in from 100% to 125% and it filled the screen nicely. Everything got bigger, not just the font. so the proportions on the screen did not change and look strange. Hmmm, playing around it appears I can do the same in Word and Excel as well. So the only thing left that would be hard to read are the desktop icon labels? Maybe not.

Hi Neil.

[Hezu]

This is a timely subject for me as I have installed Linux Mint Gloria on my machines. The default resolution is nice appearing, but my eyes start hurting after a short while because the text is too small. Dropping the res makes things look fuzzy. I blamed Linux at first (actually I was blaming the video drivers), then I started blaming the browsers as the Firefox 3.0 that comes installed with Gloria looks better than any others I downloaded. You have given me some ideas which I will try out now. Thanks.

One hint for Firefox: set the minimum font size in the preferences and you should no longer experience too small text size even if some stupid web designer has a braindead idea that small text size looks very cool. Of course, that setting still does not help much, if the small text is actually displayed using images.

[audiojar]

If you are using windows, go to display properties > settings > click advanced > under the general tab change the DPI to a higher value (120 is the normal "large" option). This will make everything bigger, I believe.

[Reachable]

If you are using windows, go to display properties > settings > click advanced > under the general tab change the DPI to a higher value (120 is the normal "large" option). This will make everything bigger, I believe.

This will make the fonts in Windows bigger, but not the icons, and it won't effect other programs (such as Firefox.)

You can make the DPI larger than 120 if you want by using the "Custom setting" option.

[hophophop]

If you are using windows, go to display properties > settings > click advanced > under the general tab change the DPI to a higher value (120 is the normal "large" option). This will make everything bigger, I believe.

This will make the fonts in Windows bigger, but not the icons, and it won't effect other programs (such as Firefox.)

You can make the DPI larger than 120 if you want by using the "Custom setting" option.

I have it set at 150 and it suits me (with a 1280x1024 19 inches lcd). As aristide1, I was using a 800x600 resolution on my old 17 crt.

[Greg F.]

This is a timely subject for me as I have installed Linux Mint Gloria on my machines. The default resolution is nice appearing, but my eyes start hurting after a short while because the text is too small. Dropping the res makes things look fuzzy. I blamed Linux at first (actually I was blaming the video drivers), then I started blaming the browsers as the Firefox 3.0 that comes installed with Gloria looks better than any others I downloaded. You have given me some ideas which I will try out now. Thanks.

One hint for Firefox: set the minimum font size in the preferences and you should no longer experience too small text size even if some stupid web designer has a braindead idea that small text size looks very cool. Of course, that setting still does not help much, if the small text is actually displayed using images.

Yes, "Tools, Options, Content" works very nice in FF for Vista (what I am in now). But doing the same thing in FF for Linux Mint it just sets there. It must be me. It's gotta be me. What am I missing? And if I go to a Linux forum I am afraid they will point out something obvious and I will be held up to public ridicule.

[Cryoburner]

So the only thing left that would be hard to read are the desktop icon labels? Maybe not.

There are settings for adjusting the font sizes of icons in Windows. In XP, you can right click on your desktop, choose 'Properties', and click the 'Appearance' tab followed by the 'advanced' button. From here, you can adjust the font, color and size of various Windows elements, including the font size for icons.

The only real problem would be with some programs that use a fixed size font and ignore the Windows settings.

And if I go to a Linux forum I am afraid they will point out something obvious and I will be held up to public ridicule.

Don't worry, being Linux, it's probably not something at all obvious. They'll probably have you type a dozen unintuitive commands into the console before recompiling the entire operating system. : ) That does remind me that I downloaded Linux Mint 7 some time back and haven't installed it yet though.

[aristide1]

Yes I found all kinds of font settings. They look strange at first but I'm getting used to them. Even better one can stick to the native resolution on the monitor and still adjust things to be readable.

This allowed me to strongly consider a larger monitor, one that would also work well with photography. Well forget that aspect. True color is 16.7 million or 24 bit color. That would be 8 bits of red, green, blue. All reasonabely priced LCDs are not true color, they are 6 bit monitors. That wouldn't bother me so much if they were honest about it, but they are all marked as true color when they aren't.

Idiots.

[Hezu]

This is a timely subject for me as I have installed Linux Mint Gloria on my machines. The default resolution is nice appearing, but my eyes start hurting after a short while because the text is too small. Dropping the res makes things look fuzzy. I blamed Linux at first (actually I was blaming the video drivers), then I started blaming the browsers as the Firefox 3.0 that comes installed with Gloria looks better than any others I downloaded. You have given me some ideas which I will try out now. Thanks.

One hint for Firefox: set the minimum font size in the preferences and you should no longer experience too small text size even if some stupid web designer has a braindead idea that small text size looks very cool. Of course, that setting still does not help much, if the small text is actually displayed using images.

Yes, "Tools, Options, Content" works very nice in FF for Vista (what I am in now). But doing the same thing in FF for Linux Mint it just sets there. It must be me. It's gotta be me. What am I missing? And if I go to a Linux forum I am afraid they will point out something obvious and I will be held up to public ridicule.

GNU/Linux version of Firefox places settings in different place in menu hierarchy than Windows version: Edit->Preferences. The actual settings window should still be otherwise pretty much the same regardless the platform. And if you ask reason for this difference, I believe it is in the different traditions on different systems...