Computer Crisis

kaz67 · Post by **kaz67** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:00 pm

Evening all .. technophobe checking in again ...

I've been out and treated myself this afternoon to a new monitor (17" LCD) and when setting up was faced with a number of resolution and refresh frequency choices

. The single sheet of "Quick Set Up instructions" wasn't much help, most of it was in Japanese, but it did say something about setting it too high gives you eye fatigue.

Anyway ... within 10 minutes of using it, I've got a headache, I give it a rest, the headache goes, I play some more, I get a headache. Fingers crossed it's coincidence but it's highly likely I've mucked up on the setting up.

Can anyone suggest the ideal setting pour moi please. Having only 10 minutes playing time severely impacts on my Wonderlanding and is clearly a MAJOR CRISIS !!!

Thanks in advance

Kazza

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:37 am

Hey there, with all LCD (liquid crystal display) and TFT (thin film transistor) the refresh rate is irrelevant. Simply leave it at 60hz. Of course those of you with CRT monitors (the big fat ugly things!) should set your refresh rates as high as possible to avoid head aches!

You should set your monitor at its native resolution, which in your case is likely to be 1024x768 unless it is a fairy expensive screen then it might be 1280*1024. It is essential you only run your monitor at its native resolution as LCD screens do not work very well with "scaling" - this can break anti-aliasing amongst other things.

Now the headaches.... make sure the screen is not directly in front of an open window that is shining sunlight on to it, the reflection from the monitor to the sun can cause strain. I also recommend enabling "Cleartype" which is a text rendering specification included in Windows XP which can also be downloaded from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cle ... Step1.aspx

As human beings over 60% of all light that comes into our eyes consists of greens (this all goes back to our roots when we hunted in the wild for our food and spent most of our time traversing green lush lands) as a result people with colour deficiencies may find reading fonts on a coloured background causes strain.

Good luck anyways

Andrea · Post by **Andrea** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:44 am

I, too, have a 17" LCD and have it at 60Hz and resolution at 1280 x 1024. I don't get headaches from it and trust me, I use it WAY more than 10 minutes at a time!

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:50 am

I should add that if a game has no support for your native resolution (for example Wonderland Deluxe, for some unknown reason)has no support for my resolution 1280*1024, so If i run full screen the graphics are rubbish) then you might notice improvement by running games in windowed mode.
Note: Running games in windows mode uses more CPU, and Graphics power so a beefier card might be needed.

kaz67 · Post by **kaz67** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 3:22 pm

Thankyou SOOO much .. I'm such a pleb with all things technical. I'll give that a go later. I'll let you know how I get on

Thanks again

Kazza

popo · Post by **popo** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 4:20 pm

I've got a Samsung SyncMaster 172v 17" TFT monitor which is set at 60hz and 1024 x 768 although it is capable of 1280 x 1024, but the icons are too small at the full resolution. I had to fiddle with the contrast and brightness quite a bit at first as it was too bright and that gave me headaches. I also have the colour set to the blueish end as that seems to calm it down a bit too.

It did take some getting used to, but I find the non reflective screen an advantage as I used to be able to see my dining room window in the screen of my old CRT monitor. I don't find the graphics as good though, but that may be because I haven't got it set to the maximum resolution.

You will get used to it, in the meantime wear your shades.

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 5:00 pm

popo wrote:I've got a Samsung SyncMaster 172v 17" TFT monitor which is set at 60hz and 1024 x 768 although it is capable of 1280 x 1024, but the icons are too small at the full resolution. I had to fiddle with the contrast and brightness quite a bit at first as it was too bright and that gave me headaches. I also have the colour set to the blueish end as that seems to calm it down a bit too.

It did take some getting used to, but I find the non reflective screen an advantage as I used to be able to see my dining room window in the screen of my old CRT monitor. I don't find the graphics as good though, but that may be because I haven't got it set to the maximum resolution.

You will get used to it, in the meantime wear your shades.

I have a solution for everything! You REALLY need to be running that lovely monitor at its native resolution, like you said, the graphics are not a patch on what they should be, thats because of the subpixel rendering being "broken" as the resolution drops. Here is what to do... set the monitor to its max resolution then do the following:

Right click on the desktop and click Properties
Click on Appearance tab
Click Advanced button
In the Item menu select Icon
Increase the size to whatever you are comfortable with!

popo · Post by **popo** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:12 pm

Ooh, that looks clever. I've never noticed that option before.

Just one thing, I have my appearance set like the left window - XP style in silver, but the right window says if you have anything except Classic, that will overide the settings you choose in the advanced section. Does that mean that I would have to change to Classic to make it work?

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:16 pm

I don't use Classic, and it worked fine when I tried it out earlier. Icons increased in size yet the WIndows-XP style stayed the same.

popo · Post by **popo** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:21 pm

Oh goody, I will give it a try. I can always change it back if I don't like it, can't I.

Thanks Mark.

Andrea · Post by **Andrea** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:38 pm

You are fantastic BIGZIPZ!

I was so used to my other monitor that when I got this nice new one and had a different resolution everything looked so small, but someone I know who is very computer savvy wouldn't let me change it. I've gotten used to the icon size, I think my husband (who is much more computer illiterate than I am) may have accidentally run across that before and changed the icons to make them bigger, but didn't remember how he did it.

Anyhow, I was just able to go in and fiddle with the icon and text sizes. It looks so much better now! Thank you so much and expect PMs from me in the future when my computer isn't doing what it's told!

kaz67 · Post by **kaz67** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 7:32 pm

Oh my word ... that's clever !! Everything looks so sharp and crisp, no headache so far

All the text on the internet (including this board) is so much smaller though. Bearsland helped me some time back on how to make the text bigger - I've got that set to "largest" but it's still pretty small.

a) Is there a fix ?
b) Will I get used to it?
c) Will I need to go to Specsavers ... again ...

Thanks for all your help so far

Kazza

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 11:37 am

Did you set this option? See picture 2.

If that is not enough then change the option in picture 1 to increase the font size.

kaz67 · Post by **kaz67** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:47 pm

Hello .. thanks, I've done both those, text on my taskbar and menu is quite big but on the forum it's still small
Having said that I've gotten quite used to it already

I certainly don't seem to be straining at all
Thanks for all your help - I can enjoy my new toy now

Kazza