Finding balance between resolution and functionality

Penn

Hey,

Built a PC about a week ago. I'm using it with a 42" Samsung as my monitor, as I'll mostly be using it for XBMC and some light gaming. Trouble is, the TV and graphics card are capable of fairly high resolutions, but I can't seem to find the balance of making the normal desktop functions still usable at that resolution, eg the tile apps, general PC text etc.

I found in PC and Settings something to make the text either Default or Larger, but Larger still isn't large enough, and it still doesn't change a lot of the other parts which don't look great at the higher resolution.

Are there ways of having your general PC functions at one resolution, while using another resolution when using certain applications like Steam/Kodi/Netflix? Anything I've tried so far has thrown something else out of whack, and it means my PC is currently at the lowest resolution, which kinda defeats the purpose of having built the f*cking thing.

Cheers

It's very difficult in Windows. Back in January I bought a 15.6" laptop with a 1920x1080 screen. But I found it uncomfortable to read at its native resolution. Increasing the DPI made some programs look terrible. I ended up running at 1600x900 in order to read it. But then it didn't look very clear. Now it's gathering dust because I just couldn't find a way to work with it.

Apparently, Windows applications just aren't written to take high DPI screens seriously. So I really don't know if there's a solution to your problem unfortunately (short of changing the OS).

Fysh

For Steam at least the solution is to use Big Picture mode. It's designed for exactly this sort of situation. Similarly, Netflix have a Windows 8 store app that I've tried on my tablet but seems more oriented to big screens.

I'm not so sure about other applications - if nothing else you could write a script to capture the current resolution, set the resolution you want for a given application and launch it, then change back when it exits, but it's a bit feeble to have to do that.

Capt'n Midnight

if there is a mode that is exactly half the native resolution it should still look crisp - ie. two real pixels per desktop pixels

ZENER

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

if there is a mode that is exactly half the native resolution it should still look crisp - ie. two real pixels per desktop pixels

Wouldn't that be 4 pixels ?

Ken

srsly78

I have been using windows @ 2560x1600 for years now, just need to set the icons to be extra-large is all. What specific apps give you problems OP?

Most stuff can be zoomed. More resolution means more text on screen, which is good for developers.

The problem is the size of the TV more than the resolution, it is not designed for close viewing. Conversely a 30" 2560x1600 can be viewed at a comfortable distance (after a desk upgrade lol).

Overheal

Penn what resolution is your TV running at and whats your viewing distance

djerk

have you tried messing with the gpu-scaling options in your graphics card control panel? mine was a bit finicky to apply, had to lower resolution first, apply default scaling options, then apply native 1080p res before scaling would stick properly. (that was for amd catalyst control though) it's possible your TV might over ride these settings with it's own type of scaling though.

advertsfox

What OS? Windows 8/8.1 is vector based and scales much better to large screens so I'd use that if not already (with Start Menu 8).