Oliver Posted December 4, 2006 Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 Hi there :) Not quite sure if this is the correct subforum to post to, but if I'm wrong - sorry :S Since I'm planning to buy an external TFT monitor for my laptop (this one is 15" and since I spend a lot of time programming - it's getting much like a torture with lots of palettes and tabs/windows). Since the nature of my job, there is no much need for vertical size - only for width, and I'd like to buy some 20-22" widescreen monitor. BUT, some people I know had issues and even had to buy new graphic cards in order to have correct resolutions, because the "old" ones did not have widescreen modes supported. I am not sure if they could do it by some software tweaks or not, and I'm here to ask the people who know more than I do :) I wouldn't like to drop few hundreds of euros and find out that I can't use my monitor in the way I want. My video card is GeForce FX5100 Go, with 64MB of memory, and the secret question is: - Does it support widescreen resolutions? I've been looking at nVidia panel/drivers, max resolutions showed are 1400x1050 and 1600x1200, but the list may be adapted to the current display size and/or type (not sure). I use old 53.60 drivers, released by the manufacturer, since some of the new versions decreased the performance (latest ones I tried were <9x.xx). Thanks in advance for your replies, Oliver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 What is the native resolution on the monitor you intent to use? Also what connection method are you going to use on it? If it doesn't work a simple driver tweak or new driver should fix it. That card should be able to output just about any resolution your monitor could run over VGA, and probably DVI too if your laptop has that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Posted December 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 I am not sure about native resolutions since I haven't made the final decision about the monitor size and manufacturer, I just wanted to find out more about the capabilities of the graphic card and (possible) limitations on that side. Most likely it would be a 20" monitor, and, according to a friend, it should work at 1680x1050 (he has one). And, yes, the laptop has VGA output (only), so there is a minimal chance of problems? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 You should be able to run any widely used widescreen res on that. If you are really worried you can test it with any decent CRT. I would bet a good CRT can accept that res even if it appears stretched or shrunk. I would personally recommend one of the 24 inch 1920x1200 res LCDs though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Posted December 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 Okay, I will try to test it first, although all my fears about this are almost gone :) Btw, 24" would be an overkill, I really don't need that large screen :) Even 19" is going to fit perfectly to me, but I'll take 20" since the price does not differ too much from 19" one. Again, thanks a lot for your help :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 I would pick a 1920x1200 screen because you can run 1080p resolution stuff on it. Also if your current monitor has 1200 vertical matching that would be nice for the dual monitor layout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Since you are likely to spend some pesos in an external monitor... get a FullHD one with HDCP in it. It will allow you to run protected content from Satellite dish, BlueRay and HD-DVD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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