displaying 1280x1024 picture in 1600x1200 LCD by utilizing only the 1280x1024 pixels?

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fatso

If I have a 1600x1200 LCD, and I want to display a picutre of only
1280x1024 in it, the picture will get stretched to utilize all the
pixels of the monitor, causing the picture to look distorted.

Is there a way to get the 1280x1024 picture to disply in only the first
1280x1024 pixels of the 1600x1200 LCD monitor, thus having the
ramaining monitor pixels not utilized at all, to prevent the image
distortion? Has anybody seen something like that done?

I'm not sure if this is something that the video card or the monitor
would have to support. Is there a better group to post this question
to?

Thanks
 
fatso said:
If I have a 1600x1200 LCD, and I want to display a picutre of only
1280x1024 in it, the picture will get stretched to utilize all the
pixels of the monitor, causing the picture to look distorted.
Click to expand...

I don't understand what you mean by "look distorted." 1280x1024 will be
stretched to 1600x1200 but it won't be distorted (it may look less sharp if
your LCD is not a high-end). Well, you can always display the picture in a
window.
 
fatso said:
If I have a 1600x1200 LCD, and I want to display a picutre of only
1280x1024 in it, the picture will get stretched to utilize all the
pixels of the monitor, causing the picture to look distorted.

Is there a way to get the 1280x1024 picture to disply in only the first
1280x1024 pixels of the 1600x1200 LCD monitor, thus having the
ramaining monitor pixels not utilized at all, to prevent the image
distortion? Has anybody seen something like that done?

I'm not sure if this is something that the video card or the monitor
would have to support. Is there a better group to post this question
to?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Are you trying to use the picture as a background in Windows? If so
just select Center for the position and the picture will show in its
native resolution. Most programs that display pictures have the ability
to show pictures at their native resolution.
 
Michael said:
Are you trying to use the picture as a background in Windows? If so
just select Center for the position and the picture will show in its
native resolution. Most programs that display pictures have the ability
to show pictures at their native resolution.
Click to expand...

Not just a picture. The entire signal from the video card (screen
resolution). Like this (for example):

- Video Card outputs a 1280x1024-pixel signal to an LCD which has
1600x1200 physical pixels
- The LCD receives the signal and displays it using only 1280x1024 of
its total number of pixels (some physical pixels would be unused),
instead of stretching the 1280x1024 signal to all of its phycical
1600x1200 pixels.

Does this explanation make sense?
 
I'm not sure if this is something that the video card or the monitor
I think you're saying that the aspect ratio for a 1600x1200 display is
not the same as a 1280x1024 display. So the image displayed correctly
on one may look slightly stretched on the other.

As well, the utilization of the pixels may be subtly different, as the
display likely uses some anti-aliasing to reproduce the image on the
non-native resolution.

I have *seen* situations where you can assign the display to use a
certain (lower) number of pixels, like 800x600 on a monitor which
supports 1280x1024, and to simply display black around the edges. This
will almost certainly be a function of the card. I would expect that
the monitor would simply display the pixels it's told to.

But consider this:

You have a monitor whose native resolution is 1600x1200. It's a 19"
monitor, and its aspect ratio is 3:2.

You also have a monitor whose native resolution is 1280x1024. It's also
a 19" monitor, and its aspect ration is *also* 3:2.

Displaying the same image on both monitors will look the same. So could
it not be the shape of the actual pixels that is different here? If so,
I doubt anything will get around that.

That's a drawback (arguably) of LCD technology - it's not as flexible
as analog CRTs.

DW
 
fatso said:
Not just a picture. The entire signal from the video card (screen
resolution). Like this (for example):

- Video Card outputs a 1280x1024-pixel signal to an LCD which has
1600x1200 physical pixels
- The LCD receives the signal and displays it using only 1280x1024 of
its total number of pixels (some physical pixels would be unused),
instead of stretching the 1280x1024 signal to all of its phycical
1600x1200 pixels.

Does this explanation make sense?
Click to expand...

I don't understand why you want to only use part of the screen for the
display. I use the native 1600x1200 resolution on my 20" LCD, that is
why I bought the monitor. If I wanted to only display 1280x1024 I would
have kept my 17" monitor and had a bigger picture to boot. Displaying
at the lower resolution means you are only using 80% of your screen.
 
Displaying
at the lower resolution means you are only using 80% of your screen.
Click to expand...

I've seen the issue before. The monitor has to do some interpolation to
recreate the image at any but the default resolution. Some monitors are
better at this than others.
 
BD said:
I've seen the issue before. The monitor has to do some interpolation to
recreate the image at any but the default resolution. Some monitors are
better at this than others.
Click to expand...

My NEC 19" and SONY 23" LCDs do a wonderful job interpolating non-native
resolutions. For instance, my SONY's native resolution is 1920x1200 but has
no problem sharply displaying images of non-native resolutions in full
screen. Of course, if I wish just like the OP does, I can use only XX% of
the LCD to display images of smaller resolutions.
 
BD said:
I think you're saying that the aspect ratio for a 1600x1200 display is
not the same as a 1280x1024 display. So the image displayed correctly
on one may look slightly stretched on the other.

As well, the utilization of the pixels may be subtly different, as the
display likely uses some anti-aliasing to reproduce the image on the
non-native resolution.

I have *seen* situations where you can assign the display to use a
certain (lower) number of pixels, like 800x600 on a monitor which
supports 1280x1024, and to simply display black around the edges. This
will almost certainly be a function of the card. I would expect that
the monitor would simply display the pixels it's told to.

But consider this:

You have a monitor whose native resolution is 1600x1200. It's a 19"
monitor, and its aspect ratio is 3:2.
Click to expand...

This one is 4:3

You also have a monitor whose native resolution is 1280x1024. It's
also
a 19" monitor, and its aspect ration is *also* 3:2.
Click to expand...

This one is 5:4

Displaying the same image on both monitors will look the same. So
could
it not be the shape of the actual pixels that is different here? If
so,
I doubt anything will get around that.
Click to expand...

It will be distorted because of the _different_ aspect ratios.
 
It's a driver issue, and today most drivers will do the "stretch", but
if you set the Windows driver resolution in display properties to
1280x1024, you might get a smaller desktop centered in the larger screen
with a black border around it.
 
Ok, my bad. They are not the same; one is 4:3, one is 5:4.

But it's irrelevant. The poster wants to display 1280x1024 in a larger
LCD panel without interpolation, and therefore without filling the
screen (e.g. with a black border taking up some part of the screen). It
may or may not be possible: Change the Windows resolution and see what
happens.
 
If I have a 1600x1200 LCD, and I want to display a picutre of only
1280x1024 in it, the picture will get stretched to utilize all the
pixels of the monitor, causing the picture to look distorted.

Is there a way to get the 1280x1024 picture to disply in only the first
1280x1024 pixels of the 1600x1200 LCD monitor, thus having the
ramaining monitor pixels not utilized at all, to prevent the image
distortion? Has anybody seen something like that done?

I'm not sure if this is something that the video card or the monitor
would have to support. Is there a better group to post this question
to?

Thanks
Click to expand...

What video card do you have? This is a function that should be an option in
the video card settings. It should say something like used fixed pixel
ratio in the options somehwere.
 
There should be an option in Display Properties (perhaps near the resolution
slider) for fixed pixel ratio, "center timing", or some other checkbox to
that effect.

I understand your reasoning for this. Most LCDs look quite ugly unless they
are run at their native resolution or exactly 1/4 of it.
 
I don't know why everyone is saying that it's a video card issue. The VC
outputs a certain resolution. Even if you find some creative way to get it
to output a 1280x1024 image with black borders making a 1600x1200 image
(it's possible to do though I'm not sure how), that means the VC will be
outputting 1600x1200; and if it can't do that with a true 1600x1200 image,
it's not going to be able to do it, period.

It's far more likely (but not very likely) that your LCD can do this; I've
encountered several that give you the option between stretching a low-res
image and displaying it in true size with black borders all around. RTFM.
 
* fatso:
Not just a picture. The entire signal from the video card (screen
resolution). Like this (for example):

- Video Card outputs a 1280x1024-pixel signal to an LCD which has
1600x1200 physical pixels
- The LCD receives the signal and displays it using only 1280x1024 of
its total number of pixels (some physical pixels would be unused),
instead of stretching the 1280x1024 signal to all of its phycical
1600x1200 pixels.

Does this explanation make sense?
Click to expand...

Of course it does. You want to disable the upscaling function that
stretches lower resolutions to fit the native resolutions...

Check if your monitor allows you to disable stretching. If not, then go
into the ATI display driver control panel, set "scaling" from "monitor"
to "gfx card" (can't tell you the exact checkbox names because at the
moment I don't have an ATI card by hand), and then disable image stretching.

Benjamin
 
see comments below
I think you're saying that the aspect ratio for a 1600x1200 display is
not the same as a 1280x1024 display. So the image displayed correctly
on one may look slightly stretched on the other.

As well, the utilization of the pixels may be subtly different, as the
display likely uses some anti-aliasing to reproduce the image on the
non-native resolution.

I have *seen* situations where you can assign the display to use a
certain (lower) number of pixels, like 800x600 on a monitor which
supports 1280x1024, and to simply display black around the edges. This
will almost certainly be a function of the card. I would expect that
the monitor would simply display the pixels it's told to.
Click to expand...

It's doing eactly that that I'm interested in. Any ides how this can
be done?

I agree about this being the function of the Video Card, this is why I
posted this question in the news group. However, now that I think
about it, a monitor could do this, too. The monitor could detect the
incoming signal, if lower than monitor native resolution, display only
the incoming number of pixels.
But consider this:

You have a monitor whose native resolution is 1600x1200. It's a 19"
monitor, and its aspect ratio is 3:2.

You also have a monitor whose native resolution is 1280x1024. It's also
a 19" monitor, and its aspect ration is *also* 3:2.
Click to expand...

1280x1024 aspect ratio is 5:4. If it were 3:2, the pixels would have
to be not square.
Displaying the same image on both monitors will look the same. So could
it not be the shape of the actual pixels that is different here? If so,
I doubt anything will get around that.

That's a drawback (arguably) of LCD technology - it's not as flexible
as analog CRTs.
Click to expand...

This one drawback is what I find most unatractive about LCDs
 
I don't understand why you want to only use part of the screen for the
display. I use the native 1600x1200 resolution on my 20" LCD, that is
why I bought the monitor. If I wanted to only display 1280x1024 I would
have kept my 17" monitor and had a bigger picture to boot. Displaying
at the lower resolution means you are only using 80% of your screen.
Click to expand...



I want to use it for games. I like to play games at the highest
resolution possible while still maintaining decent performance. To
achieve this, I have to play different games at different resolutions.
Using a different LCD monitor for each resolution isn't practical, or
cheap. Displaying non-native resolutions on a LCD causes the picture
to distort. Here's why:

To keep things simpler lets talk about the horizontal resolution only

For example: You have a 1024-pixel signal going into a 1600-pixel
monitor. How does the monitor display the picture? Well, it stretches
the incoming 1024-pixel signal to be displayed over its 1600 physical
pixels. This means that each of the 1024 incoming pixels gets enlarged
by a factor of x1.5625. Since this is an uneven number, some of the
incoming pixels will be displayed by more, or less, of the physical
pixels, and never by exactly 1.5625 of the physical pixels (because
there is no such thing as a 1.5625 of a pixel). So the final 1024
signal being displayed over the 1600 pixels is distorted.

Take your 17-inch 1024-pixel LCD and send a 1024 signal to it. Then
take your 20 inch 1600-pixel LCD and display that same 1024-pixel
signal on it. Compare the two images side-by-side. Ignore the size of
the LCDs. The 1600 monitor will distort the picture.

Does this make sense?

To avoid the distortion, I would like the monitor to display the
receiving signal by using exactly the same number of its physical
pixels as the signal itself. And yes, the picture will be smaller than
the monitor can display, but this doesn't bother me. Any ideas how I
can get that to happen?
 
But it's irrelevant. The poster wants to display 1280x1024 in a larger
LCD panel without interpolation
Click to expand...

Exactly! Thank you.

, and therefore without filling the
screen (e.g. with a black border taking up some part of the screen). It
may or may not be possible: Change the Windows resolution and see what
happens.
Click to expand...

Sure. The monitor still displys any resolution over all of its
physical pixels.
 
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