Do widescreen monitors squash your images?

rodney

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Rodney
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I have just received a 21.5 inch wide screen monitor but when I view the images they seem to be compressed to fit the screen. Is this normal and if so can anyone recommend a monitor that isn’t wide screen (21-24 inch).
 
sounds like the monitor has been configured incorrectly :bonk:

you should be able to set the correct dimensions in the settings & enjoy a nice big screen experience :thumbs:
 
Yeah, you need to set the desktop resolution to the correct setting.
 
Or you can change the desktop resolution to fit the monitor's native resolution (I suspect it's 1920 x 1080 in your case).

To change the resolution, right click on a space on the screen (not on any icons or windows) and look for "Screen resolution" in the pop up menu.

EDIT: Nawty's beaten to me. :D
 
A VGA cable should be perfectly capable of supporting your monitors native res. Make sure that you've got the correct drivers for it and your graphics card loaded before wasting any money on unnecessary (and expensive) extra wiring.
 
You only need a VGA cable. Why would you want a DVI lead??

Your monitor should have come with a driver disc. But even without its a pretty standard windows setting which you can select from the windows control panel.
 
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VGA cable should support 1920x1080 although the monitor will produce a better picture with a DVI cable as it is digital to the monitor, not analogue. As to DVI cables being expensive - yes they are if you buy from the likes of PCWorld. Personally, I buy all my DVI/HDMI cables off e-bay and rarely pay more than a fiver delivered. The cheapest one at the length you are looking for will do....
 
Sounds like it might be an older PC with on-board video chipset which does not support wide screen resolutions.
You may have to fit a video card. AGP cards are still available for older mainboards.
 
i can only echo whats above, make sure your graphics card is up to date and also load the driver that came on the disk with the monitor. make sure you run the screen at its native resolution, anything else looks rubbish.

also, if you can then personally id run DVI. in my opinion its always a little sharper than VGA.
 
I too had this problem, however I was using a LCD TV as a monitor, the problem was the res. and windows couldn't find the right drivers, so I ended up buying a decent branded monitor..well, dell :p
 
21.5 inch screen may only be 1680x1050 native resolution, depends on the monitor. I have a 22" at work (DELL) and a ***** IBM deskotp, the chipset on the motherboard that controls the graphics is stuggeling with this monitor.

If you need an AGP graphics card if your machine is that old, i have one from a very old system i just took apart and its yours. It ran my old 22" monitor just fine even for high res videos.
 
Thank you for all the helpful replies. There was apparently a problem with the driver supplied and my graphics card. I have downloaded a compatible driver which now enables me to set the resolution to 1920 x 1080.My pics are now in proportion and look far better on my new monitor which I am now very pleased with and would recommend to anyone wanting to replace a monitor (BenQ G2222HDL 21.5-inch Widescreen LED Back-Light Monitor £99.99 Amazon) Thanks again Rod
 
Thank you for all the helpful replies. There was apparently a problem with the driver supplied and my graphics card. I have downloaded a compatible driver which now enables me to set the resolution to 1920 x 1080.My pics are now in proportion and look far better on my new monitor which I am now very pleased with and would recommend to anyone wanting to replace a monitor (BenQ G2222HDL 21.5-inch Widescreen LED Back-Light Monitor £99.99 Amazon) Thanks again Rod


those monitors looked favourable when i was looking monitors, however went with the IPS panels of the Dell u2311h monitors instead and just waiting for them to be delivered now.

glad you got everything sorted in the end!
 
should be in the manual and generally the highest the graphics card will allow (as long as you have the option selected for only show resolutions supported by the monitor)
 
should be in the manual and generally the highest the graphics card will allow (as long as you have the option selected for only show resolutions supported by the monitor)

all of the supported resolutions sometimes do not appear unless you load the monitor .inf file normally supplied on CD
 
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