Aspect ratio problem solved

Don Stauffer wrote:
I worked with Gateway tech support and got my problem solved. Turns out
the movement of the "knob" on the resolution setting was so fine that
the desired 1440 x 900 resolution was just between two 4:3 settings and
I was overshooting. I had to move my trackball VERY carefully, but did
finally get it, and the system seems to have gone into wide screen mode
automatically. Since I am operating at the display's native resolution,
the image quality is a lot better, and circles are now circles! It was
a manual skills problem :-) These old hands were just not handy enough
to select the proper resolution easily.

The graphics "card" does have a 1440 x 900 widescreen mode.

You may find that your mouse (trackball) driver program has a setting
for 'fine' control. You might investigate this for future similar problems.

On Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:45:02 GMT David J Taylor wrote:
| wrote:
| []
| This is why "device drivers" should not also try to be user
| interfaces.
| There should be one well designed user interface and a standardized
| means
| to communicate with the graphics card driver. Then the well designed
| user interface would have things like a menu of standard modes, with
| the native one for the monitor highlighted as native, and where the
| cards can handle
| it, the option to manually type in exactly the size you want.
| Gimmicks
| like a "knob" are silliness for serious people. They may be cute
| looking, and some people might even like them. They could also be
| included. But a straight forward wait to get the proper video mode
| needs to be present.
| Note that both MS Windows and open source software like Gnome and KDE
| are short on this kind of useability. I can't comment about Macs.
|
| Phil,
|
| On the most recent Dell I set up you just plugged in the monitor and the
| system automatically selected the correct resolution. That system happens
| to run Windows Vista. Very simple and straight-forward.

Given the correct driver, which I presume Dell would have installed, and such
a driver that is programmed correctly, which would read the monitor data, it
should be a snap just like that.

There are video cards, however, that cannot do exactly every video geometry.
For example many cards must do horizontal geometries only in multiples of 4
or 8. That ruins attemps to use HDTVs at 1366x768 since 1366 is not exactly
divisible by 4. The standard computer monitors should all be OK with modern
video cards.

I've heard that at least one recently released video card cannot do 640x480
but I don't know if that is a hardware limitation or a software limitation.
In any case, it's more funny than sad, as I don't know anyone using 640x480
anymore. I remember when 1024x768 was considered a high end workstation.
Now it's considered ghetto video.

Maybe some day I'll try out Vista. I use Windows so little I'll just stick
with the XP Pro I have now. Everything else I do on Debian, OpenBSD, Slackware,
or Ubuntu (with Gentoo to join that mix in the next few months and NetBSD at
some point beyond that). And my 1280x1024 monitor should be fine for all.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, googlegroups.com is blocked. Due to ignorance |
| by the abuse department, bellsouth.net is blocked. If you post to |
| Usenet from these places, find another Usenet provider ASAP. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

David J Taylor wrote:
Dave Cohen wrote:
[]
The only thing I find a little puzzling is although text is
pretty good on both system, Ubuntu seems more crisp, probably a font
difference.
Dave Cohen

Windows has the ClearType function available, which will smooth the edges
of characters so that they no longer consist of well-defined dots, but are
smoother and easier to read - less aliased and more like good quality
printed text.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypeInfo.mspx

You may want to experiment with the ClearType settings on your Windows
system. There's a program you can download to adjust the settings:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...uner/tune.aspx

Cheers,
David


I did try that before I downloaded the correct drivers and decided not
to use it.
Now that everything else is correct, I just gave it another try. It is
an improvement and I'll keep it. Thanks.
Dave Cohen
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

lid wrote:
[]
I did try that before I downloaded the correct drivers and decided not
to use it.
Now that everything else is correct, I just gave it another try. It is
an improvement and I'll keep it. Thanks.
Dave Cohen

Glad it helped, Dave. I'm amazed by how may people either don't use, or
are not aware of, ClearType.

Cheers,
David

Don Stauffer in Minnesota wrote:
On Oct 1, 5:45 pm, "David J Taylor" -
this-part.nor-this-bit.co.uk wrote:
[]
Phil,

On the most recent Dell I set up you just plugged in the monitor and
the system automatically selected the correct resolution. That
system happens to run Windows Vista. Very simple and
straight-forward.

73,
David

That is what my monitor instructions said too, but it didn't work.
Making the proper setting using the detailed instructions instead of
the quick setup makes for a much nicer appearance.

So it looks like the score is Dell 1, Gateway 0

G

David

"David J Taylor"
wrote in
message om...
lid wrote:
[]
I did try that before I downloaded the correct drivers and decided not
to use it.
Now that everything else is correct, I just gave it another try. It is
an improvement and I'll keep it. Thanks.
Dave Cohen

Glad it helped, Dave. I'm amazed by how may people either don't use, or
are not aware of, ClearType.

Cheers,
David

Perhaps because it looks crap.

On Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:15:20 GMT, "David J Taylor"
wrote:

wrote:
[]
I did try that before I downloaded the correct drivers and decided not
to use it.
Now that everything else is correct, I just gave it another try. It is
an improvement and I'll keep it. Thanks.
Dave Cohen

Glad it helped, Dave. I'm amazed by how may people either don't use, or
are not aware of, ClearType.

Cheers,
David


Because no matter what settings I tried when using it, it made all text on my
LCD display painfully annoying. I have excellent eyesight and my monitor has no
problems displaying text comprised of 1 pixel-width lines, when the monitor's
"focus" adjustment is properly set. I surmise that an LCD monitor's focusing
adjustment is its own antialiasing method (unlike a CRT focus adjustment which
actually does focus the electron beam, but you do have to remove the shroud to
get to that adjustment in the high-voltage section). I prefer little to no
antialising for my text, individual pixels defining all edges is as crisp and
detailed as it gets. I find that using small 8-10pt fonts on my monitor to be
spatially efficient and easy to read. When engaging "ClearType"® its
antialiasing methods make all my fine-line text into bold and garrish letters,
no matter the "ClearType"® settings tried. The precise 1px-width lines making up
the black on white text will end up being a blurred 2-3 px-width blackish-green
blob of lines. It's as if I increased the font by 2-3 pts, turned on an
extra-bold attribute, engaged a gausian blur, and changed the black's hue to an
ugly and muddy green.

Gates can keep his disasterous Un-"ClearType"® text-effect. His
coke-bottle-bottom glasses that he's worn all his life a testament to where that
idea and programming came from.

Steve B wrote:
[]
Glad it helped, Dave. I'm amazed by how may people either don't
use, or are not aware of, ClearType.

Cheers,
David

Perhaps because it looks crap.

Sorry to hear it doesn't work well for you - it's behaved perfectly on all
the LCD displays I've used. If it doesn't improve the display, then
something is most likely wrong.

Cheers,
David

20-15 wrote:
[]
Gates can keep his disasterous Un-"ClearType"® text-effect. His
coke-bottle-bottom glasses that he's worn all his life a testament to
where that idea and programming came from.

As I said to Steve B, it's behaved perfectly on all the LCD displays I've
used. Sorry to hear it's not working for you.

Cheers,
David