In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt DJT said:
I am thinking of upgrading my current monitor to a wide screen LCD
Monitor. I have heard of problems with the contents of the screen
being stretched due to extra pixels horizontally.
You want a card that will display the native resolution of the monitor.
Almost all modern cards will do so.
Even most older cards have newer drivers.
I updated *my* driver for my card when I got the new LCD panel.
Do I need to have a Graphics card that will display the monitors
resolution to enable more space on the screen rather than just a
streched display, or is it a function of windows.
You need a card that will do so.
Most will these days; but you *might* have to buy a new card if yours is
older than about three years or so.
Do I rely on the inf file for the monitor, Windows or Graphic Card to
create more space on the desktop
Mostly if you *have* a .inf file for the monitor, you'd use that.
Most LCD panels don't even bother to come with a .inf file these days;
simply relying on Windows to extract the information needed from the
monitor itself. I believe that's in the VESA monitor specification how
they do that.
Several of your programs or setting *might* need to be changed to
reflect a wide display; but not many. TV displays, of course, will.
The most noticeable thing I think you'll find is that using "stretch"
for wallpaper doesn't work too well; as most pictures are still 3:5
format. OTOH, some programs handle that quite well.
Sport's Illustrated's Screen-Saver for example ... Wow.
Especially when displaying Swimsuit models. ;-}
These days some things still work better with 3:5 format; while others
work better with wide-screen. The wide-screen type are getting far more
common all the time.
For some reason I've noticed most screensavers do a better job of
cross-type displaying than about any of the normal display packages I've
found yet. Don't know why. That's displaying still pictures OR video.
Strange. I use my default picture-displaying program "Irfanview", for
example, to create a "slideshow" of both static pictures mixed in with
various movie files; and the pictures and movies looks far BETTER when
saved as a screensaver than when run directly from Irfanview itself.
That's on EITHER a CRT *OR* an LCD wide-screen panel. Go figure.
