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Help! I don't understand much about such monitors. E.g., currently my computer has a dedicated video adapter card and is sending 1024 x 768 pixels to a CRT

by graycat 13y ago

Help! I don't understand much about such monitors. E.g., currently my computer has a dedicated video adapter card and is sending 1024 x 768 pixels to a CRT with a 15.5" diagonal. It appears from Windows > Start > Control Panel > Display > Settings that the most pixels is 1280 x 960. For me, 1024 x 768 pixels are plenty, but on my screen with diagonal only 15.5", a lot of text is too small to read, even if I used a magnifying glass. So, I'd like a bigger screen, but still with only about 1024 x 768 pixels. That a screen can display more pixels is from useless to me down to a concern: My guess is that, now that CRTs are out, the current solid state displays have some actual physical pixels, independent of the signal from the computer, and that when the computer sends, say, 1024 pixels on a line somehow the display (or video card?) has to fit the 1024 pixels across the 1200 or whatever the number of pixels the screen has. Sounds like a good opportunity for some moire effects. Also, my old video card may be sending a signal that newer monitors can't use. So: Q 1. What should I do to display the 1024 x 768 pixels I want but on a screen with diagonal longer than 15.5" Q 2. What about moire effects or other issues from displaying, say, 1024 pixels from my video card on a screen with more than 1024 pixels, say, 1200 or many more? Q 3. How can I use the signal from my old video card, or do I need to get a new video card? Thanks!

rythie 13y ago
Q 1. The problem is, the DPI you are using is 82.6 which is already the lower than any modern display I know of. You could try to find a 21 inch CRT [~19.5inch viewable] (should be cheap or free). Another option might be to buy a second hand LCD 19inch LCD running at 1024x768. Another option would be to get a bigger LCD, run it at native resolution and use the font size/DPI settings in Windows to make the text bigger. Q 2. I don't think the issues to do with non-1:1 scaling are that bad if you have poor eyesight anyway. Q 3. I don't think there is enough information to answer this, though even graphics cards made 10 years ago should support more than 1280x960. Though often I find windows isn't very good at giving you those options. Most likely 1280x960 is the limit of the CRT you have already connected.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> For me, 1024 x 768 pixels are plenty, but on my screen with diagonal only 15.5", a lot of text is too small to read, even if I used a magnifying glass. > So, I'd like a bigger screen, but still with only about 1024 x 768 pixels. Why? You can have bigger text without having bigger pixels (and, at any given size, readability should be better with more pixels because the lines making up the characters will have better definition.) Get a monitor the size you want, with as many pixels as you can (given your budget), use all of them, and use the text scaling setting in your OS to get text the size you want. Don't hobble yourself with a low-resolution device (or low-resolution setting on a high-resolution device) to get bigger text, that's the worst possible way to do that.
- graycat 13y ago
  If the characters of the alphabet are larger on my screen, then the maximum number of characters per line is lower which means that at a lot of Web sites I can't read a full line of text without horizontal scrolling. In that case, commonly I copy the text to the system clipboard, pull it into my favorite text editor, 'reflow' the lines, and then read them. Bummer. But a larger screen with each character taking the same amount of area on the screen as now would make the maximum number of characters per line larger letting me see whole lines more often without scrolling and/or let me have each character take up more screen area without scrolling. E.g., here at HN I'm seeing 90 characters per line which is way too many. Why HN wants such long lines I don't know. What does HN want, screens 10 feet wide? Traditional typing at 10 characters per inch horizontally on 8 1/2 x 11" paper with 1" margins gives maximum line lengths of 6 1/2" or 65 characters per line. Newspapers commonly had many fewer characters per line. 90 characters per line is just wacko in several respects -- there's no good reason for it. On my Windows XP SP3 system (yes, I recently got a DVD of Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, for my next computer when I finally give up on XP), it appears that nearly all the text from Microsoft's programs, e.g., essentially everything that comes from the tree rooted at Start > Control Panel and Start > My Computer, was designed for a screen with diagonal about my 15.5" but with 640 x 480 pixels. Using the Microsoft software to set the screen resolution down to 640 x 480 makes the old Microsoft software much easier to read but, then, commonly has too few characters per screen to display all the screen contents -- e.g., the screen from Start gives a message that some content could not be displayed. So, keeping my present 1024 x 768 pixels per screen but having a screen with diagonal larger than 15.5" should basically just magnify what is shown on the screen, that is, each character would take up more screen area and be larger and easier to read. But a screen with a diagonal larger than 15.5" and, say, 1280 x 960 pixels or some, say, 2048 x 1536 would, unless I got a huge screen, say, diagonal 31", make each character on the screen take up less screen area and, thus, be still more difficult to read. Yes, more pixels per character would give nicer looking characters, but characters with just 10 x 18 pixels are easy enough to read if they take up enough screen area. That is, for reading text, I don't really need more pixels per character, as nice as that could be. E.g., in my Web site development, commonly I am specifying font sizes in terms of pixels, e.g., font-size: 25px; line-height: 30px; Then, with such a Web page, many more pixels per screen would make each character take up less screen area and, thus, be still more difficult to read. Yes, when using a Web browser I can ask for it to magnify the whole image and commonly do. But other software need not have such magnification, say, nearly all the software from Microsoft in the tree rooted at Start, so that more pixels per screen could make the text smaller and still more difficult to read. Net, I'd be happy with just my present 1024 x 768 pixels but displayed on a larger sheet of glass. Or, a larger sheet of glass with, say, 4 times as many pixels, could be more difficult to read instead of easier. Basically all I need is just a magnifying glass none of my computer hard/software knows about.

by graycat 13y ago

rythie 13y ago

Q 1. The problem is, the DPI you are using is 82.6 which is already the lower than any modern display I know of. You could try to find a 21 inch CRT [~19.5inch viewable] (should be cheap or free). Another option might be to buy a second hand LCD 19inch LCD running at 1024x768. Another option would be to get a bigger LCD, run it at native resolution and use the font size/DPI settings in Windows to make the text bigger. Q 2. I don't think the issues to do with non-1:1 scaling are that bad if you have poor eyesight anyway. Q 3. I don't think there is enough information to answer this, though even graphics cards made 10 years ago should support more than 1280x960. Though often I find windows isn't very good at giving you those options. Most likely 1280x960 is the limit of the CRT you have already connected.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> For me, 1024 x 768 pixels are plenty, but on my screen with diagonal only 15.5", a lot of text is too small to read, even if I used a magnifying glass. > So, I'd like a bigger screen, but still with only about 1024 x 768 pixels. Why? You can have bigger text without having bigger pixels (and, at any given size, readability should be better with more pixels because the lines making up the characters will have better definition.) Get a monitor the size you want, with as many pixels as you can (given your budget), use all of them, and use the text scaling setting in your OS to get text the size you want. Don't hobble yourself with a low-resolution device (or low-resolution setting on a high-resolution device) to get bigger text, that's the worst possible way to do that.

graycat 13y ago
If the characters of the alphabet are larger on my screen, then the maximum number of characters per line is lower which means that at a lot of Web sites I can't read a full line of text without horizontal scrolling. In that case, commonly I copy the text to the system clipboard, pull it into my favorite text editor, 'reflow' the lines, and then read them. Bummer. But a larger screen with each character taking the same amount of area on the screen as now would make the maximum number of characters per line larger letting me see whole lines more often without scrolling and/or let me have each character take up more screen area without scrolling. E.g., here at HN I'm seeing 90 characters per line which is way too many. Why HN wants such long lines I don't know. What does HN want, screens 10 feet wide? Traditional typing at 10 characters per inch horizontally on 8 1/2 x 11" paper with 1" margins gives maximum line lengths of 6 1/2" or 65 characters per line. Newspapers commonly had many fewer characters per line. 90 characters per line is just wacko in several respects -- there's no good reason for it. On my Windows XP SP3 system (yes, I recently got a DVD of Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, for my next computer when I finally give up on XP), it appears that nearly all the text from Microsoft's programs, e.g., essentially everything that comes from the tree rooted at Start > Control Panel and Start > My Computer, was designed for a screen with diagonal about my 15.5" but with 640 x 480 pixels. Using the Microsoft software to set the screen resolution down to 640 x 480 makes the old Microsoft software much easier to read but, then, commonly has too few characters per screen to display all the screen contents -- e.g., the screen from Start gives a message that some content could not be displayed. So, keeping my present 1024 x 768 pixels per screen but having a screen with diagonal larger than 15.5" should basically just magnify what is shown on the screen, that is, each character would take up more screen area and be larger and easier to read. But a screen with a diagonal larger than 15.5" and, say, 1280 x 960 pixels or some, say, 2048 x 1536 would, unless I got a huge screen, say, diagonal 31", make each character on the screen take up less screen area and, thus, be still more difficult to read. Yes, more pixels per character would give nicer looking characters, but characters with just 10 x 18 pixels are easy enough to read if they take up enough screen area. That is, for reading text, I don't really need more pixels per character, as nice as that could be. E.g., in my Web site development, commonly I am specifying font sizes in terms of pixels, e.g., font-size: 25px; line-height: 30px; Then, with such a Web page, many more pixels per screen would make each character take up less screen area and, thus, be still more difficult to read. Yes, when using a Web browser I can ask for it to magnify the whole image and commonly do. But other software need not have such magnification, say, nearly all the software from Microsoft in the tree rooted at Start, so that more pixels per screen could make the text smaller and still more difficult to read. Net, I'd be happy with just my present 1024 x 768 pixels but displayed on a larger sheet of glass. Or, a larger sheet of glass with, say, 4 times as many pixels, could be more difficult to read instead of easier. Basically all I need is just a magnifying glass none of my computer hard/software knows about.