Screen resolutions for Windows

November 20, 2004 6:39 PM

Windows users: What's your screen resolution? Are you using clear type? Sometimes I find I cant get anything done unless I'm at 800x600 and with clear type off, but when I'm not working, coding, writing, etc I really like the higher resolution and nicer fonts. What gives?
posted by skallas to computers & internet (42 comments total)

1400 x 1050 - with no clear type, it's my laptop's native resolution and it's a problem. I find that beyond 1024 x 768 on a normal sized monitor the text becomes really hard to read. I've messed about for weeks, the solution for me -so far - is to set the DPI setting to 120. The result is generally good but it messes up a lot of web pages and even system dialogs.

My workmate with a similar laptop has just set the resolution to 1024 x 768 - it looks terrible but he doesn't seem to realize.

Clear type does nothing for me - just makes everything fuzzy.

Course with CRT displays you can just set the resolution any way you like, but with LCDs it's not so easy.
posted by grahamwell at 6:56 PM on November 20, 2004

1280x1024 on a 17" LCD, ClearType on. Default DPI. All apps in which I code set to 9pt.

I love it.
posted by cheaily at 7:06 PM on November 20, 2004

1600 x 1200 - 22" CRT. ClearType on. Horrible without ClearType. Crappy ATI Radeon 9600 video card. Have also used a 20" LCD. No problems either.
posted by juiceCake at 7:16 PM on November 20, 2004

Clear type makes everything too fuzzy for me too. I'm running at 1024 x 768 and it looks just fine to me. (Maybe I just don't know any better though - macs at school do seem to have a better...feel to it.)
posted by christin at 7:37 PM on November 20, 2004

minor derail: what effect does ClearType have on a CRT? My understanding was that it is anti-aliasing on the subpixel level (LCD pixels are composed of three primary color sub-pixels, ClearType, like Apple's Quartz and Adobe's CoolType, takes advantage of this to perform antialiasing within the macro pixel [my term, may be incorrect] and the adjoining pixels making a much finer edge even at lower point sizes) this is a more precise technique that, obviously, is only available on an LCD screen. Does ClearType also contain better algorithms for AA on CRTs?
posted by Grod at 7:48 PM on November 20, 2004

1024 x 768 - 12.1" lcd. cleartype makes everything blurry, so it's off.

if my laptop would support it i would go higher res. text is, however, more readable here than at 1600 x 1200 on my crt. i always increase the text display size when viewing web sites, although it doesn't bother me much for system fonts.

on preview: i don't think cleartype yields any benefit for crt monitors, but i would be hard pressed to explain why.
posted by too many notes at 8:00 PM on November 20, 2004

Just lowered mine to 1280x1024. I increase my font sizes everywhere. And I won't use a machine without ClearType anymore.
posted by rushmc at 8:04 PM on November 20, 2004

I chiefly sit in front of three machines. At work, I use a Windows laptop with dual heads: the LCD panel is 1400xSomething, and the Trinitron CRT is 1280x1024. At home I have a rather ancient Windows laptop at 1280x1024, and a Mac laptop at 1024x768.

All of these machines have subpixel font rendering ("ClearType") enabled.

I spend a lot of time in front of the 1024x768 machine, which I find rather crowded but acceptable. I would go batshit insane if I had to use 8x6 for more than a few minutes; there's no way I would call it "productive."
posted by majick at 8:12 PM on November 20, 2004

1400x1050, no Cleartype. I find the Cleartype (even after tuning with the tuner app, and using an app my friend wrote that lets one fine-tune even more) screen-blurring and it hurts my eyes.. I can't operate effectively at less than 1024x768, and that's pushing it. I dropped the refresh on my work computer to 75Hz to get the 11__x8__ resolution.
posted by j.edwards at 8:38 PM on November 20, 2004

1600x1200x85hz sans ClearType on an 80lb. huge-ass 21" flatscreen apeture grille dual-input IBM workstation monitor (P260).

1024x768 14.1" laptop screen with ClearType
posted by Ryvar at 8:46 PM on November 20, 2004

1600x1200 with Clear Type on a 19 inch CRT, and 1024x768 on my LCD in a dual screen setup. I use the LCD (lower res) for reading, and the CRT for gaming and digital art. I cannot stand reading on displays that don't have Clear Type enabled.
posted by xyzzy at 8:51 PM on November 20, 2004

All the people who have LCDs that say cleartype makes things blurry: I don't understand it. It's always seemed to increase the resolution for me, making things look nice and smooth, not angry and jagged and "computery". Now the non-cleartype antialiasing, I understand. That makes stuff look blurry and even "globby."

Anyway, I use cleartype on both LCDs and CRTs, even though there's color fringing on the CRTs. It's fine, because the old non-cleartype font antialiasing algorithm in Windows is really, really bad. I'll live with the small amount of fringing for decent fonts.
posted by zsazsa at 9:04 PM on November 20, 2004

1024*768 on a 17" CRT monitor.
posted by madman at 11:13 PM on November 20, 2004

1280 x 960 (or 1152, I can't remember or care that much... I know it's not 1024) @ 75 Hz, on two separate CRT monitors.

One a flat 21" trinitron, the other a 20" invar shadow mask.

Mmmm, nice vibrant and fast changing colour.

I have cleartype turned on, IIRC.
posted by shepd at 11:17 PM on November 20, 2004

1400*1050 LCD with Cleartype on... Eyes hurt without it.
posted by lorbus at 12:04 AM on November 21, 2004

1152x864 on a 17" CRT. Cleartype off (it makes things too blurry for me).
posted by neckro23 at 12:50 AM on November 21, 2004

I think the issue might be one of focus. A higher resolution encourages/allows you to have more windows displayed at the same time, and if your work involves working with many different programs or sets of data, that's great. If you're old-school, or just have one single place to do your work, then you might become distracted by the empty space.. and maximizing just isn't a good idea above about 1024x768 as it looks silly.

One solution might be to clean up your desktop (i.e. have almost nothing on it) and change your wallpaper/background to just total black. That way if your working application is in the middle of the screen, you pretty much just have dead screen all around it, but you still get the benefit of the higher resolution.
posted by wackybrit at 12:56 AM on November 21, 2004

1856x1392.

No cleartype (not an LCD, so no point). Refresh rate is 105Hz. I (heart) my new monitor.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:54 AM on November 21, 2004

is this something i'd need a computerxp to know about? can't see an option in my properties doodah for cleartype on win2k.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:05 AM on November 21, 2004

Desktop -> Properties -> Appearance -> Effects -> ClearType options.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:48 AM on November 21, 2004

We've all run the Cleartype tweaker, right? Especially anybody that says it's blurry?
posted by sageleaf at 4:48 AM on November 21, 2004

C_D - Appearance and Effects are two different tabs (Effects is not inside Appearance) and neither has ClearType options. I'm using the latest patches, afaik (I have "Smooth edges of screen fonts", but am guessing that's anti-aliasing).
posted by andrew cooke at 5:10 AM on November 21, 2004

ah, sageleaf's link implies xp only.
posted by andrew cooke at 5:10 AM on November 21, 2004

I run my Samsung LCD at 1024x1280 @ 75Hz.. Portrait mode is sooo much better than landscape - why don't more people do it? Makes reading webbypages nicer.

Fedora core has some form of antialiasing, right? All the fonts look so pretty when I load into it. Haven't been able to figure out how to rotate my display with my ATI card on it though :(
posted by Mossy at 5:44 AM on November 21, 2004

If you're running an LCD at anything but native resolution, it's going to look blurry or worse.
posted by sageleaf at 7:31 AM on November 21, 2004

skallas, an issue which you might want to consider is that of refresh rates. Most people can't see the difference between 75hz and anything higher than that. At lower resolutions, most CRT monitors are able to refresh faster. If you crank up the resolution, the refresh rate is likely automatically be set lower (even though you may still be able to turn it back up). Many people who are more sensitive to refresh rates find that they get headaches or just generally can't stand to look at the screen when the refresh rate is too low, even though they're not sure what the cause is.

Also, Mac OS X's Quartz rendering does not employ ClearType. It's standard anti-aliasing, and will actually make text look better on CRTs as well as LCDs.
posted by tumult at 8:28 AM on November 21, 2004

All the people who have LCDs that say cleartype makes things blurry: I don't understand it.

I don't understand it on LCDs or CRTs. The difference for me, on any machine I've ever used it on, is night and day (ClearType makes text smoother, more rounded, and clearer for me—far easier to read the vast quantities of text that I read daily). Is it a question of not enough memory on their videocards?

Most people can't see the difference between 75hz and anything higher than that.

Again, I have trouble accepting this as true. I wouldn't run my machine at less than 85 for anything. Is it running at too low a refresh rate that is screwing up ClearType for people? I know there's some variation in human vision, but I find these discrepancies puzzling.
posted by rushmc at 8:36 AM on November 21, 2004

rushmc, I was talking about general use when I mentioned refresh rates, not just how they relate to ClearType. Windows' ClearType rendering uses a sort of anti-aliasing in addition to the sub-pixels, so some people might find a slight improvement on CRTs when ClearType is enabled, depending on the make and brand. For example, ClearType looks totally different on Trinitron monitors than on standard CRTs, because of the aperture grill.

Again, I have trouble accepting this as true. I wouldn't run my machine at less than 85 for anything.

Believe it or not, most people really can't see a difference between 75hz and 85hz. Some people can't see a difference over 60hz, and some people can't stand to look at anything under a hundred. Refresh rates do not affect ClearType. Also, Video card memory doesn't come into play at all, as the image is processed by Windows before it is ever sent to the video card to be displayed.
posted by tumult at 8:57 AM on November 21, 2004

On my computer, Effects is inside Appearance. But I don't see anything about cleartype.
posted by bingo at 10:19 AM on November 21, 2004

bingo, you have to have XP for cleartype.

By the way, people may or may not be able to tell between refresh rates on CRTs, but I bet eye strain is decreased. When I worked in IT, a lot of people who ran at 60Hz that had eyestrain couldn't tell the difference immediately after I upped the refresh rate, but later they said their eyes felt better. There's a happy medium - a lot of cheaper CRTs get blurry at 80Hz and above, so a crisp 75Hz is probably better for your eyes than a blurry 85Hz.
posted by zsazsa at 11:11 AM on November 21, 2004

If you're using cleartype on an LCD and it makes things blurry, you should check the configuration. As some people suggested, it might enable regular anti-aliasing as well, which you could turn off if that bothers you. The sub-pixel rendering however shouldn't ever make anything blurry if it's doing what it's supposed to.
posted by advil at 12:21 PM on November 21, 2004

does that make sense, advil? i've just been reading how it works on the ms site and it looks to me like cleartype is anti-aliasing with a colour-cast in the edge pixels that exploits the rgb order of sub-pixels on the screen.

if that's the case then it doesn't make sense to have cleartype without anti-aliasing, because the progression is:
- aliased, blocky type
- antialised with "grey" (ie simple interpolation between foreground and background) edge pixels
- antialised with "cleartype" edge pixels
posted by andrew cooke at 12:40 PM on November 21, 2004

(i suspect the blurring is because the rgb pattern is either different from screen to screen, the relative intensities of the different colours differ, or the colour balance between sub-pixels varies. which would explain the need for calibration via the tool people linked to earlier)
posted by andrew cooke at 12:42 PM on November 21, 2004

We've all run the Cleartype tweaker, right? Especially anybody that says it's blurry?
posted by sageleaf at 4:48 AM PST on November 21

The dim lightbulb above my head just got switched on by you!

Ok, now I get what you cleartype folks are talking about.
posted by christin at 12:50 PM on November 21, 2004

Never heard of ClearType until now. Installed it and it works like a dream! Recommend it to everybody.
posted by subverted at 2:23 PM on November 21, 2004

Also, Mac OS X's Quartz rendering does not employ ClearType. It's standard anti-aliasing, and will actually make text look better on CRTs as well as LCDs.

Actually, it depends on which anti-alias setting you choose. On certain settings, OS X does employ subpixel rendering.
posted by gyc at 3:08 PM on November 21, 2004

1600 x 1200, with ClearType, 15" laptop LCD. My friends say I am insane and will eventually need an eye transplant.
posted by jenovus at 3:13 PM on November 21, 2004

zsazsa, I do have XP.
posted by bingo at 4:58 PM on November 21, 2004

1600 x 1200, 20" LCD

Is this ClearType an XP-only thing?
posted by scarabic at 5:00 PM on November 21, 2004

Uh. Don't mind me, zsazsa.
posted by scarabic at 5:01 PM on November 21, 2004

1024*768, on a 15" LCD, with sub-pixel antialiasing enabled ('Cleartype.') Alas, this is connected to the computer with an analog cable (albeit to a matrox card) so the effect isn't as good as it could be.

I used to run 1280*1024 on a 19" CRT @85Hz, and am still adjusting to the smaller screen size.
posted by maledictory at 5:55 PM on November 21, 2004

1600x1200 with Cleartype on a 20" LCD. My screen has a zoom feature that goes to about 100x and text looks psychedelic with Cleartype on and zoomed in.
posted by jewzilla at 10:19 PM on November 21, 2004