Hi! I just bought a new 17-inch CRT monitor to replace my old, smaller one that burned out. I was messing around in Control Panel under the Display heading. I went to Settings and realized I can change my screen size. I changed it from 649x480 (what it was before with the old monitor) to 1024x768. I never knew that I could do this!! My question is: What is the advantage to having the larger display setting (besides seeing more text on the page and making the toolbars and other things smaller)??

Thanks for sharing any pertinent info on this subject!

Frank

Windows and the Mac OS are graphical user interfaces. They will make good use of all the pixels and color range you can give them.

The more dots on the screen, the finer the detail in the pictures on the screen. It's all about image resolution in dots per inch. Finer detail and better color can make the screen easier on the eyes.

You might what to hold off on using tiny screen fonts and the higher screen resolutions till you get a much bigger monitor. Squinting and getting close to the CRT is not a good idea.

It also depends on what you use your computer for. If you typically only look at one application at a time then you can get away with using the lower resolutions. If, like me, you use many applications at the same time (and need to display them side-by-side) the more stuff you can fit onto the screen the better so the higher resolution helps as there's more space on the display for the different applications.

In my job (software developer) we call the amount the space on the screen that you can fit stuff into "Real Estate". For us, the more of it that you have the better and that means monitor size and, if necessary, multiple monitors (but that's a different issue).

I agree with JonTown about the squinting issue. Make sure that the chosen resolution is sensible.

Cheers,

Beetroot

1024x768 is a fairly sensible option for a 17 inch CRT. I have mine at that resolution.

For me the real advantage is when you're gaming, everything looks a lot less blocky and round edges even look round!

And a lot of websites aren't really designed to be viewed at anything less than 800*600.

Gaming ???
That sounds like food for a whole new thread.
What computer games do you play, Jonesc2ii ?
I enjoy The Heroes of Might and Magic (are they going to make a V?), Battlefield, Diablo II exp (although kind of burned out) and Counterstrike (on our network at lunch).
Do you know anything about the work going on to bring the old Atari, Commodore, game called Archon to the PC ?

GlenD

Thanks for the info! I also changed my color setting from High Color (16-bit) to True Color (32-bit). Don't really see too much of a change in how color is displayed on my monitor, but I guess it's better to have it on the highest setting, right? I'm assuming that the higher setting will bring out more subtle shades of color in photos, websites, computer games, etc., right?

Frank

Yup!

I just got a 17 inch Sony LCD, and whoa it's sweet. Running 1280 x 1024 resolution and it's awesome, but 1024x768 is great for games and when combined with a good video card games look awesome.

I'm a developer like Beetroot, and love having a lot of real estate. I once had a 27 inch monitor I ran at 2048 x 1296 (?). That was awesome—like having a real window on your desk! The bigger the better for games, but only if it doesn't start to affect the performance. I can't stand action games when they start moving jerkily.

-Reg {*}

I use 2 19" inch monitors running at 1600X1200 each. I do a lot of graphics and animations and thus use the real estate. Dual monitors is the way to go once you get used to it.