How to know if my video card supports 1680 x 1050

[Felecha]

Device Manager says it's ASUS V9400-X V62.11. When I look at the Display Properties | Settings, I see lots of them, but nothing from 1600x1200 to 1920x1080. I tried to find something on the ASUS site, but no luck. All I have in my product literature is a Quick Setup sheet.

I'm wanting a 20.1" widescreen LCD for Christmas, and that's what I see as the recommended resolution. Don't want to get it if my card won't run it.

While I'm at it, I see at NewEgg names like Sceptre and BenQ. I haven't bought a monitor for 6 years. Are those OK brand names?

Thanks

 

[enclavesaga]

Originally posted by: Felecha
Device Manager says it's ASUS V9400-X V62.11. When I look at the Display Properties | Settings, I see lots of them, but nothing from 1600x1200 to 1920x1080. I tried to find something on the ASUS site, but no luck. All I have in my product literature is a Quick Setup sheet.

I'm wanting a 20.1" widescreen LCD for Christmas, and that's what I see as the recommended resolution. Don't want to get it if my card won't run it.

While I'm at it, I see at NewEgg names like Sceptre and BenQ. I haven't bought a monitor for 6 years. Are those OK brand names?

Thanks

Holy Mary mother of God, where have u been for the past 6 years. Your Gf card is as old as your monitor I assume...
It's a Nvida MX400 as i remember, perhaps even on a PCI bus, back to the golden age of 2000...
anyway, it can go up to 2000x1500, you probably don't have the up to dated driver, grab it here
http://www.soft32.com/download_182998.html
at 1600x1000, your card won't be able to run sxxt, doesn't even run .avi movies smoothly not to mention games.

 

[Felecha]

Calm down. This has nothing to do with Mary. She's busy with more important things.

I have been right here, happy for 6 years with my 21" Samsung 1100p, and would still be happy (a 21" monitor is a wonderful thing) except that in the last 6 months I have seen something of a loss of focus. I don't do gaming, I don't watch movies. Just not interested in either of those uses of a computer. I'm a programmer, and I like as much text on a screen as I can, so small fonts and large area are what I want. Now the small text is getting fuzzy. The card was bought 1 year ago when I got a new motherboard and the old card would now work in it. I presume the card will run a nice 20.1 screen of 8-font text.

 

[Felecha]

Looked at the link, and noticed latest update was July '04, so if I bought it in Nov '05, it's not likely to be an update. In any case, it never took me anywhere so I went to ASUS and am waiting out the download from there

 

[Felecha]

But still the fundamental question for me (you've already seen I'm a rookie at video cards) is -- if 1680x1050 is not currently listed as an option, would it be available for a new LCD widescreen? The geometry is different, right? It does offer 1440x900, a res that I see in specs for 19" widescreens. When you say "up to 2000x1500 ( I see 2048x1536) do you mean that any res that is called for that is lower than that would be covered?

 

[Peter]

This should really be in the FAQ or something.

To see what your graphics card /really/ supports, you need to go to Display Properties - Advanced, go to the Monitor tab, uncheck "Hide modes this monitor cannot display", and then go to the Adapter tab to browse the "List All Modes" window.

 

[Centurin]

I'd upgrade the video card before ever attempting resolutions that high.

 

[Peter]

Why? If the user does not care much (or at all) about 3D speeds, then the old stuff is way more than adequate. 2D speed has not improved for ages - in some cases, it's even gotten worse. Not to mention noise and power consumption - why bother with an 80 watt hairdryer when a completely silent, fanless 3W card gets the same job done?

 

[HannibalX]

The good news is if the card can't run that res a new(er) model than can is like $50.00

 

[INM8]

That isn't a standard PC resolution so I'm not surprised that it is not supplied by default. Since you have an older card, your best bet would be to use powerstrip to achieve the resolution that you want. It may take a bit of messing around (and learning your way around powerstrip) but it isn't that hard really. Your card should handle that res just fine, given that one of my computers which runs a TNT2 drives my dell 2405fpw just fine. Obviously I don't use that particular system for gaming, or any 3D work for that matter, but if your not doing either one of those then you should have no problems with that res on your MX440.

 

[Felecha]

Back home, look at all the input!

Peter - In the FAQ? Is there an FAQ I should have consulted first? I went to the places you said and got the Full List, and 1680x1050 is not there. So is that the definitive answer? The card is not made for it?

INMS - in Display Properties I found that it is apparently NVidia MX4000

All - a couple of you referred to it as such an old card. One year is now considered an old card? I bought it in Nov. 2005. The monitor is 6 years old, not the card

Thanks to all of you

 

[RamarC]

These instructions from nvidia describe how to add custom widescreen resolutions when not directly available through the driver:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

 

[quattro1]

If your current monitor cannot display 1680x1050, then it will not show up in the settings to adjust to that. The available resolutions is usually one of these 2:

1) The max resolution your connected monitor goes to (or what your PC thinks is connected)
2) The max resolution of your gfx card can display, based of what monitor is connected.

So if your currently monitor cannot display 1680x1050, your gfx card will not show that as an available resolution.

 

[Felecha]

quattro - so if I get the widescreen, the card will know it and show it as available? I think that's what youre saying (and I was hoping!)

 

[Felecha]

Ramarc - I did the instructions and sure enough now 1680x1050 appears in the list. But if I try Apply, it waits a LONG time and eventually pops back out of the black screen into my current resolution. So I guess the monitor wont handle it. But the widescreen would, and it will work?

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: Felecha
quattro - so if I get the widescreen, the card will know it and show it as available? I think that's what youre saying (and I was hoping!)

It should when you install the moniter driver which will either be included on CD in the box, or you can download it from the makers website if its not.

One thing to keep in mind however is that moniters which use that resolution are widescreen 16:10 aspect ratio & unless you plan on watching movies or widescreen gaming may not be the best choice for you ... be sure to go into a store & check them out before buying, because you might be happier with a standard 4:3 19 or 20 inch model instead.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Yes, it would seem that your gfx card will support that resolution. I know before I bought my widescreen a month ago, my radeon x800 definately didn't say that it would support 1680x1050, but as soon as I hooked up the monitor the resolution was there.

As for the BenQ lcd, I have no idea. But, as I said earlier, I just bought a monitor a month ago, and it was a 20.1 inch Sceptre. I am assuming that it is the same kind your looking at ($200, after rebate), and I am very happy with it. Great response time, good contrast ratio, I really don't think you can get a much better monitor for this price. I'd say go for the lcd, and if your card won't support this resolution, just buy a cheap one from newegg for $40-50. I would suggest buying a dvi cable to use with the monitor, though, if your card supports it. It really helped to make text more crisp and clear, for me.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: Felecha
Back home, look at all the input!

Peter - In the FAQ? Is there an FAQ I should have consulted first? I went to the places you said and got the Full List, and 1680x1050 is not there. So is that the definitive answer? The card is not made for it?

INMS - in Display Properties I found that it is apparently NVidia MX4000

All - a couple of you referred to it as such an old card. One year is now considered an old card? I bought it in Nov. 2005. The monitor is 6 years old, not the card

Thanks to all of you

Graphics chips are freely programmable to any kind of resolution - if you want 300x200 at 500 Hz, the chip can do it. The question is rather more, what does the driver offer?

As others have said before me, NVidia's Windows drivers let you add custom resolutions very much like the X system in Linux has ever had it. The blackscreen thing is because your current monitor doesn't do that resolution (probably because of the horizontal frequency being out of range). So fear not, everything looks very much like you're going to get 1680x1050 on your new monitor.

The MX4000 might be "new", but it's technically a GF4MX which in turn is little more than a rebadge of the GF2MX.

 

[Felecha]

Captante - the widescreen was indeed what I was wanting, the idea all along, with the 21" Samsung I have had for 6 years (it was a giant at the time, something like $1000) has been to maximize the amount of text I can see, especially wanting to often see more than one document open at a time. I expect that a widescreen will help with side-by-side display of windows.

Actually, here's an idea that just popped up, and I don't have popup blocking on in my head this morning. One of the guys at work uses a dual monitor setup, so he can mouse over to the boundary of one and "jump" over to the other. It is very cool, and I wondered about being able to use both monitors if I get a new one.

Here's the question. Can I run different resolutions on different simultaneous monitors? I will guess not.

 

[enclavesaga]

Originally posted by: Felecha
Captante - the widescreen was indeed what I was wanting, the idea all along, with the 21" Samsung I have had for 6 years (it was a giant at the time, something like $1000) has been to maximize the amount of text I can see, especially wanting to often see more than one document open at a time. I expect that a widescreen will help with side-by-side display of windows.

Actually, here's an idea that just popped up, and I don't have popup blocking on in my head this morning. One of the guys at work uses a dual monitor setup, so he can mouse over to the boundary of one and "jump" over to the other. It is very cool, and I wondered about being able to use both monitors if I get a new one.

Here's the question. Can I run different resolutions on different simultaneous monitors? I will guess not.

nope, apparently your card is not dual head, go grab a cheap Matrox G400 or something.

 

[RamarC]

check your custom resolution and make sure it's identical to the native res of the lcd. but an mx400 is really old and just may not have the chops for the task.

 

[Captante]

Using any up to date dual-head graphics card you can run different display settings on dual moniters, however it;ll be much easier using Nvidia's drivers then ATI's (I havn't tried a Matrox card in a LONG time) ... awhile back I was running a 19 inch Viewsonic at 1152x864 with a 21 inch NEC at 1280x1024 and things worked fine using a 6800GT, however when I upgraded to PCIe with an ATI X1900XTX ran into some problems.

 

[Steve]

I recently ran a 1280x1024 19"LCD paired with a 1024x768 17" CRT on a Radeon 9600. Setup was no problem whatsoever.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: Peter
This should really be in the FAQ or something.

To see what your graphics card /really/ supports, you need to go to Display Properties - Advanced, go to the Monitor tab, uncheck "Hide modes this monitor cannot display", and then go to the Adapter tab to browse the "List All Modes" window.

We got a nice, shiny new widescreen monitor at work only to find the Dell computers there have some ancient Rage cards in them... even with Powerstrip, it won't let you create a 1680x1050 resolution - it just won't do it. It's stupid; the card can do higher, but won't do odd resolutions.

 

[Steve]

Yup, shame about those old drivers.