Help understanding why the A.R. is distorted / question about refresh rate

[Sidrack Marinho]

Folks,
I have this monitor and after looking into the different sets of configurations, I wasn't able to find out the answers I was looking for. Maybe you can help me on that.

This is my current LCD:
http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2008/review-lg-w2452v.html

Refresh rate:

First of all, the native resolution is 1920x1200. If you wanna use all other resolutions, you will only be able to use 60Hz. Unless you wanna try 1280x1024 or 1280x960, which will allow you to use 75Hz.

Here's the question - if you are using any resolution with 60Hz, your eyes will be more tired than if you use 75Hz? I know it may not make sense, since this is not CRT, but some people were reporting more eye fatigue in such cases. Not sure if it's related to the refresh rate, or any other factors (maybe they were looking many white background pages, which reflects the light in the worse way imaginable).

And where I can find LCD monitors using 1920x1080 / 1920x1200 plus the 75 or higher refresh rate?

Aspect ratio:

Regarding 1:1 pixel mapping, I heard about it and since I don't have any monitor announced with this feature, I can't say/know how does it work.

What I do know is that, unless I am using 1920x1200, the lower resolution will be distorted if I try to use the entire screen space. There's a way to see the image keeping the Aspect Ratio but it will generate black bars in all 4 sides of the monitor.

I tried to use all kinds of configurations here, but I failed to deliver the image without distortion while using any resolution other than 1920x1200.

And this is my VGA card:
8800 GTS 512 MB EVGA

I used the nVidia Control Panel, and the monitor menus, plus the Forceware program.

Can someone explain to me why the images are being distorted? I need to mantain the A.R. using all kinds of resolutions. No distortion on the sides, at all settings. And no black bars, unless I am watching 4:3 or 2.35:1 videos.

 

[mlewis]

Refresh rate:

First of all, the native resolution is 1920x1200. If you wanna use all other resolutions, you will only be able to use 60Hz. Unless you wanna try 1280x1024 or 1280x960, which will allow you to use 75Hz.

Here's the question - if you are using any resolution with 60Hz, your eyes will be more tired than if you use 75Hz? I know it may not make sense, since this is not CRT, but some people were reporting more eye fatigue in such cases. Not sure if it's related to the refresh rate, or any other factors (maybe they were looking many white background pages, which reflects the light in the worse way imaginable).

LCD screens don't flicker like CRT screens so the 60Hz refresh rate doesn't cause eye strain. The image is constant and only the parts that change in each refresh change instead of the whole image being redrawn as happens in CRTs. The eye fatigue you mention is most likely down to the monitor's brightness being set too high. Out of the box LCD screens have very high brightness levels. I have mine screen's brightness set at 120cd/m2 - any higher and it starts to cause me discomfort - and I had to turn the brightness down quite a long way to reach that level.

 

[evilsofa]

And where I can find LCD monitors using 1920x1080 / 1920x1200 plus the 75 or higher refresh rate?

You don't. There aren't any.

As has been stated, the refresh rate of LCDs don't cause eye fatigue, because the technology is completely different. If you watch a CRT in super slow-motion, you'll see a single point moving across the screen, while if you watch an LCD in super slow-motion, you will see a slideshow of complete pictures. A very few people who are super-sensitive to flicker claim to be able to detect the LCD's backlight flicker, but this is not a problem for most people.

There's a long thread about nVidia's 1:1 scaling here, but what resolutions are you talking about, and what exactly do you mean by distortion?

First, the only way a non-native resolution will fill the screen without bars or being "squished" is if it is also a 16:10 resolution. 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 1440x900 and 1280x800 are common 16:10 resolutions.

Second, if by distortion you actually mean the picture looks fuzzy, that is because an LCD's pixels are actual physical objects that can't be made smaller or larger, so when you display a 1680x1050 resolution on a 1920x1200 screen, the monitor must discard and invent a lot of data. Imagine, for example, that you attempt to display a 7x7 picture on a 10x10 grid - you can never make it look quite right because the pixels don't match up.

 

[Sidrack Marinho]

There's a long thread about nVidia's 1:1 scaling here, but what resolutions are you talking about, and what exactly do you mean by distortion?

First, the only way a non-native resolution will fill the screen without bars or being "squished" is if it is also a 16:10 resolution. 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 1440x900 and 1280x800 are common 16:10 resolutions.

Second, if by distortion you actually mean the picture looks fuzzy, that is because an LCD's pixels are actual physical objects that can't be made smaller or larger, so when you display a 1680x1050 resolution on a 1920x1200 screen, the monitor must discard and invent a lot of data. Imagine, for example, that you attempt to display a 7x7 picture on a 10x10 grid - you can never make it look quite right because the pixels don't match up.

About 1:1 pixel mapping:

I thought this feature was working this way, sorry if I am talking nonsense:

Let's say 1920x1200 (or even 1920x1080) was the native resolution.

If you wanna display any lower resolution, such as 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1050, whatever, if you were using one 1:1 pixel mapping, then, instead of seeing the lower resolution this way:

You will see a perfect fullscreen version of that resolution... no distortion on both sides.

However, my LCD which uses 1920x1200 is displaying lower resolutions only those ways:

Well, even for a 24" LCD, displaying the 1280x1024 res. it will take a good space from your screen, but that won't be the same, because you will see the black bars while using Windows or doing anything...

 

[Blazestorm]

1:1 mapping is like the 3rd image down...

You get black bars on the sides, but it's meant to preserve the aspect ratio.

Instead of stretching 1280 x 1024 to 1920 x 1200, it simply fills it out to 1500 x 1200 so you get 150 black vertical lines on each side.

Which makes sense...