Does your size give you problems? (screen resolution)

[Thread Necromancer]

No, not a NSFW topic.

So I'm wondering these days what most people use for their screen resolutions. There's a lot of information out there but it seems at best it's dated. With widescreen displays becoming more and more common, CRTs heading out the door and in the world of bigger is better...

I have a 22 inch widescreen lcd that I surf and work with at 1680x1050 and have recently needed to plug in my old 18 inch CRT and it drives me nuts going back to 1024X768 or even 1280X1024. I couldn't possibly imagine trying to surf the web or try to get any work done at 800x600 anymore.

So what do you use? Do have any problems with website displays? I find that at 1680X1050 most websites just expand the blank/background space around the central content (like WoW's site) but others stretch the content out over the page, like our very own www.halforums.com.

I was going to make a poll here but there are just far to many options so I'll just leave it as a discussion thread.

 

[Frank]

My issue is mostly when I want to play an old game. This monitor refuses to do fixed aspect ratios and stretches everything out. It being a cheap ass Acer 22 inch is likely the reason.

 

[Covar]

I run whatever the highest resolutions are on my monitors.

1680x1050 on my iMac's monitor
1920x1080 on my second monitor
1280x800 on my Thinkpad

Outside of my laptops I never run the browser in full screen.

 

[figmentPez]

1920x1080 (21.6") on my desktop, and don't run my web browser full screen (well, except for Google Maps and other things that need lots of real estate)
Before I got this monitor I was running a 20" LCD @ 1600x1200 and a secondary 17" CRT @ 1024x768. The extra width of the widescreen gave me enough room to drop the secondary display.

1024x600 on my netbook, and it feels pretty cramped at times, but it's still usable. The width is usually okay, but the height is frustrating.

 

[Hylian]

Unless it makes it impossible to read (which is very rare) I have it set to its highest possible resolution.


At my work (dual 24" monitors)
1920x1200


Home Laptop (17" screen)
1920x1200

 

[sixpackshaker]

1600x1200 at work. big CRT

1080p at the house big 24" LCD


Half my users here run their big screens at 1000x700 or 800x600. I try to teach them to use high res, and increase the size of their fonts and icons. but they want 1 setting to change and be able to read. And one of these people does all of our scanning, and she has a 24"+ screen...../cry

 

[PatrThom]

Depends on the computer I'm using.
1280x1024 - Main Mac (which is the max resolution of the monitor I am using - 17in 4:3 HP LCD)
800x600 - Main PC (17in Elements CRT - though I switch to 1024x768 for games or poorly designed websites (400px fixed-width ad banners on both sides of the screen? Really?). I keep the CRT because it lets me use the Quadro GPU's 3D goggles)
1280x854 - Main Portable (Titanium PowerBook G4 - it's the only portable I own ATM)
1280x1024 - Kati's main PC (she's using the same model HP LCD as my Mac, above. I got a good deal on 'em)

Nothing wrong with my eyes, just can't afford to upgrade anything right now, nor for the foreseeable future.

Television is a standard 27in tube job that plays commercials too loud (which is why we got it cheap). No digital tuner, nothing like that. I assume it still works, we haven't even turned it on in almost a year. Nothing interesting enough on TV to make us want to watch it and spend too much time on the computer to play the consoles.

--Patrick

 

[wana10]

i went back to dual monitors a few months ago. both 17" 1280x1024. one monitor has things like irc, skype, music player, video, articles i'm writing about. the main monitor has whatever i'm really focusing on.

 

[Bowielee]

1280X1024 I haven't seen any reason to upgrade yet. I probably won't go widescreen until I finally take the plunge and get one that has the refresh rate needed for 3D gaming.

 

[@Li3n]

As i recall my last CRT went to 1600x or even more.

But right now i have a 19" plasma that doesn't go beyond 1240x1024... and i have no problem with it... and i'm actually thinking that i'll have to get at least a 24" screen if i want to use it at 1600x and beyond.

 

[gargoyle_eva]

32" lcd monitor (well tv actually, but I upgraded to a 50" in the lounge and also got a new graphics card with no vga output so the crt went away) running @ 1360*768

FEAR MY HUGE MONITOR!!!!

 

[Math242]

1920*1200 on my 24'

1280*1024 on the 17' at work

 

[Bowielee]

32" lcd monitor (well tv actually, but I upgraded to a 50" in the lounge and also got a new graphics card with no vga output so the crt went away) running @ 1360*768

FEAR MY HUGE MONITOR!!!!

If we're including TVs, my PC is also hooked up to the 72 inch widescreen plasma tv.

 

[gargoyle_eva]

72"...omg i want one!! biggest we have in shops is 65" atm. And while technicaly it is a tv, I do not have another monitor. This is my primary. Ultra widescreen TF2 and COD4. I can gaurd all 3 doors at once on pipline in the underground. It is total hax!

 

[GasBandit]

My issue is mostly when I want to play an old game. This monitor refuses to do fixed aspect ratios and stretches everything out. It being a cheap ass Acer 22 inch is likely the reason.

If you run an Nvidia card, you can change the LCD scaling in the Nvidia control panel to scale the image but enforce the ratio, basically giving you black bars on the sides of the screen (called pillarboxing, a kind of sideways-letterboxing).

At work I run 1280x1024 on a 19 inch LCD.

At home, I run two 22" LCDs side by side, each at 1680x1050.

 

[Vagabond]

I run 1440x900 at home.

19 inch widescreen from Acer.

So far I haven't had any problems displaying anything.

 

[Matt²]

all mine have been 17" monitors until yesterday.. 19" which I took home.. my usual resolution is 1024x768, but when I went to put it at 1280 at home, I couldn't see as well, mainly because my home chair is busted.. so until it's fixed and I am able to sit up straight instead of leaning back, it will be at it's max resolution..

otherwise, I have all mine set at 1024x768 except for a new lcd (again 17") which I've dedicated as my "watching stuff on" monitor here at work and it's now 1280 ..which is taking some getting used to, and Winamp doesn't want to stretch out all the way to a custom resolution.. I have a security camera in the bottom right corner of the screen.