Changing display resolution

Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 6/20/19 3:26 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?



Go to your display vendor's web site and download the inf
file for your monitor. Look inside. Do not try to force
anything that is not in the inf file.

And try installing the INF. Go into devices and tell Windows
to use the INF for your display. You may get a lot more options.

Ken Springer wrote:
Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?



There used to be a way to do that.

Powerstrip (no longer sold)

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/266-powerstrip.html

You can see the Modeline interface here.

https://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

*******

On NVidia and ATI/AMD, it used an *available* facility
to set a custom resolution.

https://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

A copy of the "CCC user manual", likely has similar
pictures for the ATI/AMD version.

*******

But something I saw recently, was a comment that stuff
like this might work in an XDDM (old driver), which
some Windows 10 users might be using on old video cards.
Whereas WDDM is the current driver generation.

So while I can find pictures and examples from the past,
of doing this, modern systems might not have it.

Technically, the hardware registers (the entire modeline),
has been around for 50 years. The frame buffer card I built
at home, using a CRT5027, the datasheet was already old and
hard to get, when I bought my chip. It already had width,
height, refresh, front porch, back porch, and so on,
as part of the modeline capability. That chip was just as
flexible as a modern GPU.

Modern drivers and control panels, simply choose to hide
stuff like this.

Start shoveling.

At a bare minimum, a horizontal value divisible by 8 is supported,
while a vertical resolution divisible by 2 is supported (this
allows convenient flipping between progressive and
interleaved, depending on monitor type).

When programming it, try to use an interface that has
the "15 second auto-recover feature", in case application
of the custom value, causes the screen to go black. The
OSD will usually say "Out of Range" when you do something
stupid. Even the wrong refresh rate can trigger Out Of Range.

There was a time, when a non-Multisync monitor could be
destroyed by using custom values, which is why the video card
drivers "have this thing" about starting at 1024x768 if they
can't read the EDID from the monitor.

Paul

Ken Springer wrote:
Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?

OK, here is a picture. I used the NVidia icon in the overflow icon area
in the lower right corner, to select the proprietary NVidia dialog.
The rest of it was easy. Or, at least you can see that the desired
materials are present. Dunno about "good results" because I don't
know what you're trying to do with it.

https://i.postimg.cc/wMt2zVT0/custom-resolution.gif

Paul

"Ken Springer" wrote

| Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
| monitor/graphics card is in use.
|
| Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?
|

Is this related to your recent question about
figuring out which resolutions are the right ratio?

I don't know if this will help, but I was using something
like 1440x900 until recently. I decided to upgrade my
monitor, for graphics work. And because a very good
IPS monitor was on sale. I'm now running 1920 x 1080.
I can handle that, despite my aging eyes, for two reasons:

1) I also got a bigger monitor, moving from 24" to 27".

2) The 1920 is the default for the monitor. Thus, while
text is now a bit smaller than on the old monitor, it's
much sharper.

3) Not as important, but I enjoy the extra real estate.
I keep dozens of scripts and HTAs on my desktop, for
various purposes, as well as numerous files for things
I'm currently working on. So lots of space helps.

On 6/21/19 7:42 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
| monitor/graphics card is in use.
|
| Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?
|

Is this related to your recent question about
figuring out which resolutions are the right ratio?

Dovetails right into that question. I'll be mentioning that fact when I
reply to Paul. See the post I'll be writing to Paul.

I don't know if this will help, but I was using something
like 1440x900 until recently. I decided to upgrade my
monitor, for graphics work. And because a very good
IPS monitor was on sale. I'm now running 1920 x 1080.
I can handle that, despite my aging eyes, for two reasons:

New, but defective, IPS monitor here, too, but 1920 X 1200. iMac Mini.

It's amazing the small color issues that get fixed with an IPS panel.
I've mentioned more than once that some monitors can't display light
blues and greys. Now, I've discovered that some fill i fields like
login and password fields actually have a light yellow fill. That had
never been noticeable before.

This prompted me to check the monitor I use on my mostly Windows
computers with a KVM switch. To my very pleasant surprise, that monitor
also displayed the yellow. Note, these were websites I never visit with
those computers, as 95% + of my computing has been on a Mac since 2009.

1) I also got a bigger monitor, moving from 24" to 27".

The iMac I replaced with the Mini was 24", and I wanted to go to 27".
But I couldn't find much with a 16:10 aspect ration. And a 32" was way
out of the price range I could stomach. LOL

16:10 aspect ratio was the default for older iMacs, and now when I'm
using 16:9, I notice the difference, and it feels "cramped" to me.

2) The 1920 is the default for the monitor. Thus, while
text is now a bit smaller than on the old monitor, it's
much sharper.

Same.

3) Not as important, but I enjoy the extra real estate.
I keep dozens of scripts and HTAs on my desktop, for
various purposes, as well as numerous files for things
I'm currently working on. So lots of space helps.

OH, I noticed this when I went from a 14" CRT to 17". Ever since, I've
always tried to get the most screen real estate I could, ergo the 16:10
aspect ratio.

With the Mac, I discovered multiple desktops, and now, I'll never use a
computer that doesn't have that feature available, either by the OS or a
3rd party utility. I added Dexpot to W7. Task Views on W10 is an
abomination when you compare to a Mac. MS should be ashamed of what
they have delivered. Linux has multiple desktops, but I've not
experimented with them.

If you're one of those users that have a supremely cluttered desktop,
you'd love the stacks feature of Apple's Mojave OS. I know I do. LOL


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 2019-06-21 8:42 a.m., Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
| monitor/graphics card is in use.
|
| Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?
|

Is this related to your recent question about
figuring out which resolutions are the right ratio?

I don't know if this will help, but I was using something
like 1440x900 until recently. I decided to upgrade my
monitor, for graphics work. And because a very good
IPS monitor was on sale. I'm now running 1920 x 1080.
I can handle that, despite my aging eyes, for two reasons:

1) I also got a bigger monitor, moving from 24" to 27".

2) The 1920 is the default for the monitor. Thus, while
text is now a bit smaller than on the old monitor, it's
much sharper.

3) Not as important, but I enjoy the extra real estate.
I keep dozens of scripts and HTAs on my desktop, for
various purposes, as well as numerous files for things
I'm currently working on. So lots of space helps.



Since switching to my 27" IPS monitor at 1920 x 1080 from a 22
" I find it just about the Ideal size with scaling at 125% For these
less than great Eyes this works out pretty decent.

Rene

On 6/20/19 5:35 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?



There used to be a way to do that.

Powerstrip (no longer sold)

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/266-powerstrip.html

You can see the Modeline interface here.

https://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

*******

On NVidia and ATI/AMD, it used an *available* facility
to set a custom resolution.

https://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

A copy of the "CCC user manual", likely has similar
pictures for the ATI/AMD version.

Looking at the screenshots, it appears that the ability to make these
types of changes will vary from graphics card to graphics card. For my
goal, that is not a practical solution. I do need something like
Powerstrip, but will work with everything out there.

snip

I snipped all of your reply as it's so far above my pay grade! ROFL

As I just mentioned in a reply to Mayayana in this thread, this
dovetails with my question about aspect ratios.

Now that *I* have old eyes, I'm looking for the best way to adjust a
monitor for people who find it hard to read their monitor without the
use of a magnifying glass. I suspect most people will simply suggest
using a magnifying option, but it didn't take me long to realize that
solution really sucks, especially when it comes to ease of use. For one
thing, if you have older hardware, it seems to be incredibly slow and
cumbersome.

So, I'm off on a different path to a solution to the problem.

--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

"Ken Springer" wrote

| The iMac I replaced with the Mini was 24", and I wanted to go to 27".
| But I couldn't find much with a 16:10 aspect ration. And a 32" was way
| out of the price range I could stomach. LOL
|
I don't know how compatible Macs are but part of the
reason I got a new one was because they were so cheap.
$200 at Microcenter for one of the highest rated.
Allegedly $300 normally. I picked it based on this site:

https://www.color-management-guide.c...ing-guide.html

The author even details what adjustments he made with
each monitor. Of course, one can pay a lot more for 4K
or ridiculous refresh rates, but I just wanted good color.

| With the Mac, I discovered multiple desktops, and now, I'll never use a
| computer that doesn't have that feature available, either by the OS or a
| 3rd party utility. I added Dexpot to W7. Task Views on W10 is an
| abomination when you compare to a Mac. MS should be ashamed of what
| they have delivered. Linux has multiple desktops, but I've not
| experimented with them.
|
| If you're one of those users that have a supremely cluttered desktop,
| you'd love the stacks feature of Apple's Mojave OS. I know I do. LOL
|
I discovered that when I first tried Linux but never got
used to the idea. It rquires switching. As with a real
desktop, it's not really more real estate if I have to switch
between them. What I do instead is to have folders on
the desktop. and shortcuts to folders. I have a folder full
of CHM shortcuts. A folder for website-related things. A
shortcut to my business docs folder. Etc. I also, often,
have a couple of folders for current work. So I can just
leave those open to easily access files.

"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| Since switching to my 27" IPS monitor at 1920 x 1080 from a 22
| " I find it just about the Ideal size with scaling at 125% For these
| less than great Eyes this works out pretty decent.
|
Hopefully technology will keep up, so that in 10 years
when we can't see the 27" we'll be able to project it
onto an 8'x12' wall.

Ken Springer wrote:
On 6/20/19 5:35 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?



There used to be a way to do that.

Powerstrip (no longer sold)

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/266-powerstrip.html

You can see the Modeline interface here.

https://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

*******

On NVidia and ATI/AMD, it used an *available* facility
to set a custom resolution.

https://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

A copy of the "CCC user manual", likely has similar
pictures for the ATI/AMD version.

Looking at the screenshots, it appears that the ability to make these
types of changes will vary from graphics card to graphics card. For my
goal, that is not a practical solution. I do need something like
Powerstrip, but will work with everything out there.

snip

I snipped all of your reply as it's so far above my pay grade! ROFL

As I just mentioned in a reply to Mayayana in this thread, this
dovetails with my question about aspect ratios.

Now that *I* have old eyes, I'm looking for the best way to adjust a
monitor for people who find it hard to read their monitor without the
use of a magnifying glass. I suspect most people will simply suggest
using a magnifying option, but it didn't take me long to realize that
solution really sucks, especially when it comes to ease of use. For one
thing, if you have older hardware, it seems to be incredibly slow and
cumbersome.

So, I'm off on a different path to a solution to the problem.

If you want to experiment with fuzzy options, the
regular VESA (and otherwise) resolution choices should
suffice.

A 3840x2160 screen could be operated at 1920x1080,
but this is basically saying you couldn't find a
1920x1080 screen at that screen size.

Goofy resolution choices, like 1440x900 displayed
on a 1920x1080 screen, will be a bit fuzzy on text.
You really don't want to do that. Such a choice makes
no difference to video content.

CRTs are much more forgiving on these choices. I
could run my Trinitron at 1280x1024 or 1152x864 and
it didn't really matter. Trying a lot of choices
like that on an LCD will gives you lots of bad options.

And there aren't too many "divisible by two" choices.
Your custom resolution might come in handy for that
purpose. Running the 3840x2160 screen at 1920x1080
should give you a sharp result, a bigger result,
but some would consider this a waste when the thing
could be running at full resolution (and some HiDPI
or scaling setting applied to make dialogs bigger or
something).

Custom resolutions can be used for things like projectors,
ones which happened to have a presentation problem.
Maybe you need overscan or underscan correction.
There might be some weird combinations (too large res,
some scan correction).

Paul

Well... This is not good...

W10 1903

I was experimenting a bit ago with the various scaling options available
in 1903, not the display resolutions.

125% that Rene says works good for him (her? Sorry, I don't know.)
looked as if it might be too big for some people. There may have been
other things but I didn't do a close "inspection" of the desktop.

So I thought I would try the custom scaling, and selected 110%. Nothing
seemed to happen. The field had a greyed out 100-500 in it, which
appears from the text to be the acceptable range. So I entered 110-110.
Up comes a message that says I have to sign out for the changes to
take effect. Darned if the system doesn't lock up during sign out.

Power off to reboot. Reboot is fine. I've now forgotten what I did, as
I had to attend to other things, but I needed to reboot again, and this
time the system locked up at the HP splash screen.

Power off to reboot once again. And... Nada. Nothing. No hard drive
activity, no indication of checking for the optical drive. Basically,
dead as a door nail! LOL

I can laugh about it because the computer was "rescued" from a recycle
pile. And it was used simply as a W10 learning platform.

Not sure where I will go with this, now.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 6/21/19 10:16 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| The iMac I replaced with the Mini was 24", and I wanted to go to 27".
| But I couldn't find much with a 16:10 aspect ration. And a 32" was way
| out of the price range I could stomach. LOL
|
I don't know how compatible Macs are but part of the
reason I got a new one was because they were so cheap.
$200 at Microcenter for one of the highest rated.
Allegedly $300 normally. I picked it based on this site:

AFAIK, any monitor will work with a Mini. I think you can add a 2nd
monitor to an iMac, but I don't know how it is done.

https://www.color-management-guide.c...ing-guide.html

2 browsers, both say the URL isn't found on the server.

The author even details what adjustments he made with
each monitor. Of course, one can pay a lot more for 4K
or ridiculous refresh rates, but I just wanted good color.

Color and aspect ratio was the only "non-negotiable" features for me.

| With the Mac, I discovered multiple desktops, and now, I'll never use a
| computer that doesn't have that feature available, either by the OS or a
| 3rd party utility. I added Dexpot to W7. Task Views on W10 is an
| abomination when you compare to a Mac. MS should be ashamed of what
| they have delivered. Linux has multiple desktops, but I've not
| experimented with them.
|
| If you're one of those users that have a supremely cluttered desktop,
| you'd love the stacks feature of Apple's Mojave OS. I know I do. LOL
|
I discovered that when I first tried Linux but never got
used to the idea. It rquires switching.

the Linux distro you were using... What do you mean by switching,
as I've not experimented with multiple desktops. On the Mac, it's
essentially the same as switching windows, just a bit simpler to do.

As with a real
desktop, it's not really more real estate if I have to switch
between them.

What I like about multiple desktops is when a particular program
suddenly has you using 2 or 3 additional windows just for the one
program, you can switch to a different desktop and not have to deal with
the extra windows for the won program.

What I do instead is to have folders on
the desktop. and shortcuts to folders. I have a folder full
of CHM shortcuts. A folder for website-related things. A
shortcut to my business docs folder. Etc. I also, often,
have a couple of folders for current work. So I can just
leave those open to easily access files.

The bottom line, it's about the same, just a few more steps to get it up
and running in Windows. With that Windows method of accomplishing it,
for each group, you have to create the folder, then move the appropriate
folders and files into the folder you just created. As well as any new
files. With Mojave, click on View, click on Use Stacks, done.



--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

| The iMac I replaced with the Mini was 24", and I wanted to go to 27".
| But I couldn't find much with a 16:10 aspect ration. And a 32" was way
| out of the price range I could stomach. LOL
|
I don't know how compatible Macs are but part of the
reason I got a new one was because they were so cheap.
$200 at Microcenter for one of the highest rated.
Allegedly $300 normally. I picked it based on this site:

AFAIK, any monitor will work with a Mini.

any standard display will work, and not just mac minis either,
something which has been the case for more than 30 years.

I think you can add a 2nd
monitor to an iMac, but I don't know how it is done.

all that's needed is an appropriate cable to connect the two, possibly
with an adapter if it's something old like vga.

On 2019-06-21 3:31 p.m., Ken Springer wrote:
Well...Â* This is not good...

W10 1903

I was experimenting a bit ago with the various scaling options available
in 1903, not the display resolutions.

125% that Rene says works good for him (her?Â* Sorry, I don't know.)
looked as if it might be too big for some people.Â* There may have been
other things but I didn't do a close "inspection" of the desktop.

So I thought I would try the custom scaling, and selected 110%.Â* Nothing
seemed to happen.Â* The field had a greyed out 100-500 in it, which
appears from the text to be the acceptable range.Â* So I entered 110-110.
Â*Up comes a message that says I have to sign out for the changes to
take effect.Â* Darned if the system doesn't lock up during sign out.

Power off to reboot.Â* Reboot is fine.Â* I've now forgotten what I did, as
I had to attend to other things, but I needed to reboot again, and this
time the system locked up at the HP splash screen.

Power off to reboot once again.Â* And...Â* Nada.Â* Nothing.Â* No hard drive
activity, no indication of checking for the optical drive.Â* Basically,
dead as a door nail!Â* LOL

I can laugh about it because the computer was "rescued" from a recycle
pile.Â* And it was used simply as a W10 learning platform.

Not sure where I will go with this, now.



Him, Old, 85, Poor eyesight. :-) :-) :-)

Rene