8600 video display - too small fonts etc

Thanks, I wish I could say that I have not, but I have.  That is the only way that I have been able to make it even close to usable at 96 dpi or settings close to that.  But then I end up with some OK, others not so good or really bad.  At 96, I have had no luck getting the right combination so font sizes and images are both good.  But it may well be me and I am not doing something(s) right.  I guess I should have asked if others have had success at the normal size (96 dpi) and have  a decent font size and clear images.  I may just have a bad computer/video  card or whatever......John

This may not help much, but:

I have a new Inspiron 9100 15.4" WSXGA+ display, with 1680x1050 resolution also. I gave up trying to use the 96 DPI setting, it just never worked out. 120 is the only acceptable setting this notebook will ever see. At 96, the font size is just too small for me to read in IE.

Most of my "Item" font sizes in Display Properties/Appearance/Advanced are set to 10, and ClearType is enabled.

With all that said, I still have the same "fuzzy image" problem in IE, but the text on web pages, and on the Desktop, and in every application I've had a chance to work with looks absolutely gorgeous.

The author from a another thread said that the Netscape browser doesn't have this "fuzzy image" problem (go figure). I hope that Dell, Microsoft and the entire industry will eventually wake up to the fact that there's no reason why text AND graphics on a web page shouldn't look great even when a customer chooses to use 120 DPI on a high-resolution screen.

-Dave H.

Yeah I did the same thing with the registry,solved my problem when I got mine in November, just go into the registry and change the UseHR registery key value to 0 instead of 1. and that should solve your problem

Specs 8600 1.7, 128Nvidia 5650FxGo, 768Mb 333DDR, 60 Gig Hd, 15.4 WSXGA+, 1300 Wireless, 4xDVDR+RW

Message Edited by warmonger on 05-26-2004 06:09 PM

Here's the exact instruction:

The UseHR Registry edit is supposed to solve one problem: fuzzy or jagged images in Internet Explorer when using a DPI other than the default 96 dpi, such as the 120 dpi that DELL has set on systems with high-resolution LCD displays which it has shipped (.e.g. WUXGA and WSXGA+).  If you do the Registry edit correctly, it will solve this problem.  There should be no problem with images in IE if you are using 96 dpi, and in this case, no Registry edit is needed; however, fonts will be rather small -- too small for some people.  So, if you want to use 120 dpi instead and have images appear correctly in IE, do the following Registry edit:

Go to Start > Run > type REGEDIT and click OK.  Once in the Registry Editor, click the + signs to navigate to the following key (folder):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Main

Click on the "Main" key (folder) in the left pane to highlight it.  In the right pane, you'll see the contents.  Look near the bottom for a value named "UseHR".  If it doesn't exist, you'll have to create it.  To do this, right-click on a blank area of the right pane and choose New > DWORD Value.  Name it "UseHR" (without the quotes).  If you just created it, it will automatically have a value of 0 (zero), which is what you want.  If it already exists, and has a value of 1 (one), double-click it to edit it (or right-click > Modify), and change the value to 0 (zero).  Click OK and close the Registry Editor.

Open a new browser window and you should see the difference.  If not, reboot your computer and try it again.

All good stuff blokes. I've got a 8500 with 1920x1200 and intitially I thought I'd gone too far. However set to 153% font size ...147dpi...then it is a beautiful thing. Graphics are the best around IMHO. Business apps....A4 are WYSIWYG. No problemo with IE....I leave the font scaling on. My eyes are getting old but I use small icons for taskbar and menus, normal font size in Appearance ( Display props) and all is clear.

For a good overview of resolutions, screen sizing etc. look at the Adobe Photoshop Help tutorials. My screen has 0.17mm pixel size therefore divide into 25.4mm (inch) gives 149.4dpi. I set mine to 147 as that gave the most accurate A4 100% sizing on screen.

My 8500 is now 1 year old and I'm happy as the proverbial pig.

snackbox,

I appreciate the UseHR info. I did in fact experiment with this setting a few days ago. But when scaling is turned off, the font size was reduced considerably. Though I admit several of the Web pages I looked at didn't look bad at all. Mainly it was www.msn.com and related pages where the reduced font size was real noticeable to me. Anyway, now that I finally received my new high-speed modem, I will be better able to "judge" font size vs. fuzzy images at different dpi settings.

Thanks again.

-Dave H.

Update and thanks to everyone so much......I have been slow to respond since I am a Professor and the end of the semester leaves little time for anything else.

Summary of results so far:

The change to the registry was very helpful and strange that it did not seem to change the font size on IE--but did clear up the "fuzzy image" problem so now I have been able to reduce the dpi setting and still be able to read the font sizes.  96 was even good on IE but Outlook and several of the Windows task panes(?) or whatever you call them were still too small to be comfortable - e.g.   Windows Explorer, control panel.  120 seems to work pretty well as a compromise.

With no change to the registry, Netscape worked fine and that does say something about the two monopolies getting along - no idea why Netscape can get it right and MS IE can not. But if you can get by with Netscape, that may be one of the best fixes.

I wish I knew all the terms, but the task bar at the bottom also acts strange.  I chose the large icons since the regular size is pretty small. But strange that the open programs indicators are tiny - this is at 96 dpi.

I am still experimenting and keep the ideas coming.  We may be able to get this right yet until the powers to be can really fix the problem.

One thing that I am worried about that I have not been able to try is using this laptop with the projectors in our classrooms. They seem to require a lower laptop resolution to get the screen contents onto the projector screen. That would seem to indicate that I will not be able to use this machine for classroom use.  I still have not been able to figure out why going to a lower resolution makes everything just about unreadable - all my other computers have never had that problem -and I currently am using 5 different Dell computers - 3 desktops and 2 laptops.

Again, thank you all for the help and let's keep trying options and looking for fixes.  Maybe the tech support people will also read this so we do not have to waste so much time getting no (or negative) results.  On that subject, anyone figure out how to get to the tech support that knows something about Dell computers? Since all the outsourcing started, I have had horrible assistance (and no longer receive any questionnaires on the quality of support - but I think we all know the answer to why they are no longer being sent).