Running non-native resolutions on 24" Monitor Question

[HHughes]

Hi OCers,

Need to tap your collective expertise.

I'm looking at buying a 24" monitor for my gaming PC. If I want to run at a resolution lower that native, say 1680*1050, is it possible to have a resized image displayed on the monitor. By this I mean that the 1680*1050 displayed uses less of the screen (so it pixellates less) and theres a black border around the image.

Reason why I want to do this, is certain games I would like to run at non native resolutions but I don't want them to be blown up. Ideally the image would just use less of the screen with a black border round it.

Is this possible? Is there a term for what I'm looking for? And do you know of a monitor that can do this?

Thanks for your help and have a great weekend!!

Howard

[myststix]

There are some monitors that do not auto-scale (that's what this is called) Mostly your older monitors, which are not going to have high resolution. I don't know of a single newer monitor that doesn't auto-scale.

My advice would be to contact tech support at some makers and ask them for model that doesn't. I am sure they have probably have gotten the question "Why is there a black border on my display!"

Oh, and ideally, you should get a CRT for what you want to do, imho

[AtomicMonkey]

I don't know of a single newer monitor that doesn't auto-scale.
I haven't shopped for a monitor in a few years but it seems most decent ones actually do provide 1:1 pixel map mode. All my WS Dells do including 2405. It's not a novel idea. When shopping for one you should be able to find out from specs or mfg what scaling options for non natives are available on the particular model, the three most common would be 1:1 (the one u looking for) Aspect Ratio and Full screen stretch.

[Mr.Guvernment]

most lcd if you do a smaller res, text isnt as clear and such, images aren't as crisp.. for games it is one thing, for every day usage, buy an LCD whose native res you can use.

[nightelph]

it seems most decent ones actually do provide 1:1 pixel map mode.

1:1? 24" monitors usually are 1900x1200. Please tell me what standard rez below that keep 1:1...

Anything other than native rez is called 'Pixel Interpolation'. Its your enemy. You're mapping one pixel to something like 1.2 pixels. Things get stretched and distorted. Rule of thumb: run LCDs at native rez... or buy a CRT!

[Albyno]

the samsung 245t has 1:1 so it would do exactly what you want but its not cheep

[SolidxSnake]

1:1? 24" monitors usually are 1900x1200. Please tell me what standard rez below that keep 1:1...

Anything other than native rez is called 'Pixel Interpolation'. Its your enemy. You're mapping one pixel to something like 1.2 pixels. Things get stretched and distorted. Rule of thumb: run LCDs at native rez... or buy a CRT!

1:1 mode = the image is centered and each pixel stays at one pixel. It gives a black border around the image to make sure everything still looks very crisp but the image itself is smaller.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^ thanks for clarification

so anything else will do as above, and stretch the image, giving he bad results many see with LCD nt running at a native rs :D

[nightelph]

1:1 mode = the image is centered and each pixel stays at one pixel. It gives a black border around the image to make sure everything still looks very crisp but the image itself is smaller.

Thanks for the correction.

[HHughes]

Thanks for all your advice.

1:1 mapping is exactly what I'm looking for. It seems the excellent Dell 2408WFP http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/monitor_2408wfp?c=us&l=en&s=dfo does indeed do this. On order!

[pejsaboy]

I don't know if ATi cards support the feature or not, but there's an option in the nVidia control panel that will force 1:1 pixel mapping by allowing the video card to handle it rather than the monitor. It's called 'Change flat panel scaling' oddly enough :) Set it to 'Use nVidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio. After that you can set custom resolutions within the control panel, and it will letterbox your monitor down to the desired resolution.

[Freezer7Pro]

ATI drivers do that too. Works really great. Can be turned on and off in a jiffy, too.

[MoreGooder]

If you care about low input lag (ie if you play fast motion video games) you might want to find a LCD that does NOT auto scale the image. The scalar chip that performs this trick contributes considerable input lag (delay from image in the frame buffer on the vid card to actually being displayed on the screen). It is best to let your vid card scale the image for you.

[nightelph]

My monitor has an option in the OSD for 1:1 vs autoscale.