Monitor Resolution - Size and Quality

[Morty]

This is for the average PC user that doesn't know how to adjust their monitor's resolution. This works only for PC users, I haven't a clue how to do anything for a MAC.

Some of the benefits of increasing your monitor's resolution are things such as seeing MORE of a web page or program on your screen at once. For example, MTW looks best at 1024x resolution, yet I'm sure many of you use 800x. The 1024x takes about an hour to get used to, but I doubt any of you will ever go back to using the 800x resolution once you switch. Mind you though, depending on the quality of your PC or your video display card in your PC, you might not be able to increase your resolution beyond 800x.

But let's check...........

1. RIGHT click with your mouse on your desktop. Desktop being the screen that shows your PC's background when you don't have ANY programs open at all.

2. When you right click an empty area of your desktop, a little pop-up window will appear that looks like this. Select PROPERTIES.


3. Now, after you clicked PROPERTIES, your "Display Properties" window should have opened up and it will look something like the following image. Across the top you will see tabs, click the tab that says SETTINGS.


4. You have now clicked the SETTINGS tab. The box with the 1 in it, represents your monitor. For me, since I have 3 monitors, I have 3 boxes labeled 1, 2, and 3. To the left you will see a little horizontal slider bar. With your mouse, LEFT click on the handle of that slider bar and while HOLDING DOWN the LEFT mouse button, drag it to the right. Hopefully you can drag it to the point where it reads "1024 by 768 pixels." If so let go. If you have it dragged all the way to the right and all it says is "800 by 600 pixels" then that's all your PC is capable of.

5. Now, to the right you should see a little rainbow looking thing with a drop down menu above it. Click on that list and select whichever item is at the BOTTOM of the list. Hopefully its "Medium (16 bit)" or maybe "Highest (32 bit)". This option actually controls the visual quality as far as sharpness and colors that your PC will use.

6. Now click the OK button.

7. You will most likely see your monitor flicker a bit and then a window will say something along the lines of "Your desktop has been reconfigured. Do you want to keep these settings?" with a Yes or No button. Click YES.

8. If you find you for some reason don't like how your PC looks now, you can always follow these steps again, but chose different settings other than the one's I mentioned.

Give it a try, you'll enjoy your PC usage more I guarantee it if you can get your resolution to increase if it isn't already set now.

[Scavok]

morteh i have the option but when i choose to enable it makes my screen look like this ( ) its all curved and crap :/ tried fixin it wit pin cushion and shit couldnt seem to get it .. mayb u know an easier way

[Kase]

9800, nice. I have an SE but I overclock it to a pro. My only issue is that I hope your 3rd monitor is the reason why it maxes out at 1024x
I personally run 1280x1024 32bit in windows and 1124(something like that) in linux because something is screwed up with the drivers
actually I just remembered... I got the driver installed like they said to do in some blog (ATI autoinstaller doesn't work) but now I only get 640, so if anyone knows something about Linux SuSE....
oh yeah- If anyone uses linux and would like to change thier resolution... well you should already know how (right click desktop, configure desktop, screen diameters I think... the bottommost tab on the left).

[Kase]

Originally Posted by Scavok

morteh i have the option but when i choose to enable it makes my screen look like this ( ) its all curved and crap :/ tried fixin it wit pin cushion and shit couldnt seem to get it .. mayb u know an easier way

sounds like you have an old monitor that can't handle the refresh rate at that res to me.

[Scavok]

i can cahnge my refresh rate right now its on like 60 hertz or sum shit :/

[Morty]

Go to windows update and see if it has any updates for your video card.

[Scavok]

only one we have is windows service pack 2 and its a major update thing but my mom said she installed it b4 and it fucked up the comp so i donno

[Morty]

I'd just leave good enough alone then if your PC is wiggin out like that.

[Maximal]

if she installed SP2 before and your computer wigged out, she probably ran the uninstall, it doesn't actually uninstall everything and that is probably why you are having problems

you need to get SP2 downloaded and installed, nobody should be on the net without SP2