Widescreen Monitor Proportion Settings

Question

I have a Dell wide screen monitor. Circles appear as slightly widened lozenge shapes. People look like a 16th Century nude (wide). I tried a couple of settings that appeared to offer different proportions, but each time I change them the screen goes black and I get a message that the resolution is unsupported. There doesn't appear to be any way to get out of that message once it shows up, except to call the IT guy and bother him with a problem that is from his point of view sort of trivial. Not so to me. Except that the reason for having a wide screen monitor for me is showing all the apps I am working with, windowed and overlapped. I habitually keep four to  seven different apps running at the same time, in windowed mode, and having the screen real estate occupied by a bunch of overwide images is not how I visualize my future. Am I barking up the wrong tree by changing resolution? Is there a way to have images properly proportioned without further deteriorating my relationship with IT? Thanks. Don Cook. Windows XP SP2 Dell E178WFPc LCD Monitor (Wide Screen) ~17' Dimension 3100 PC 2MB Memory

PowerForward · Answer

I believe the native resolution on that monitor is 1440 x 900, is that resolution not available?  Do you have a dedicated graphics card or is it just integrated?  Any resolution that is not in the 16x10 (1.6) aspect ratio is going to distort the picture.  Perhaps you have 1280 x 800 available which would get rid of the short-and-wide look but then everything will be enlarged so you probably wouldn't want that either.  You may have to improve your video card situation if that is what is preventing you from having the correct resolution for your widescreen monitor.

RChris · Answer

If you do have a video card, but it doesn't offer the desired resolution, often an updated driver from the card's manufacturer will get you there.

And, as pointed out above, you DO want to use the monitor's native resolution.

Dlelthba · Answer

RChris, I don't have a card. Video is integrated. Thanks. Don.

Dlelthba · Answer

PowerForward,

You must be enjoying March.

Thanks, that gives me something to go on with IT when he has time for my trivial wants. I'll try 1440x900 (I think I tried it before b/c it sounded like the right proportion) but the card probably wouldn't handle it. We'll see.

Don.

Monitors

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