Windows 7: Recommended Resolution

Hi All,
The recommended resolution for my Windows 7 is 1920x1080. When I right click my desk top and click Screen Resolution, the adjust resolution page comes up, and when I click the down arrow it shows all the different resolutions and recommends 1920x1080. When I apply that resolution, the desktop gets smaller and there's about an inch of space between the desktop and the monitor edge. I have tried adjusting the monitor settings and looked everywhere on the computer, and can't find a way to stretch the desktop to the edges of the screen. Before I bought this computer, I bought my 23" monitor for my WIN XP computer and just plugged it in and it fit the screen perfect. Not so with my Windows 7 DELL. I keep thinking there's a simple step that will stretch my desktop to the edge of the frame, but it is beyond my grasp. In order to fill the monitor screen I have to set the resolution to 1024x768. The only problem with that is any round circles on the screen are slightly elliptical. Is there any one who can solve this problem for me? Thanks in advance for a solution.

More then likely the screen is an HDMI type. I just went through this on a friends PC. But I forget what I did to correct it.

1920x1080 is a 16:9 resolution, most commonly for HDMI connected displays.

If your monitor also offers a DVI connection (and there's also a DVI connection on the video card, as well as the HDMI connection), ALWAYS GO WITH THE DVI CABLE AND CONNECTION OPTION.

Using DVI will make use of the entire "native resolution" and available real estate on a screen, whereas HDMI might not. For example, I have an Eizo HD2441W which has a native resolution of 1920x1200 (16:10 aspect ratio, not 16:9 as with a standard HDTV screen or similar monitor). The screen is shaped 16:10, not 16:9.

When using a DVI connection to my HD5770 video card the full 1920x1200 appears in the "available resolutions" and is also the "recommended resolution") and is used in its entirety if I select it (which of course I do). So there are no black bars on top/bottom of the Windows desktop which extends fully to the outer edges of the screen (in both H and W directions). And of course 1920x1200 provides more vertical size for the Windows desktop than, say, 1920x1080 would.

On the other if I use an HDMI cable connection, it only shows as 1920x1080 available and recommended. And consequently there are black bars on top and bottom of the Windows Desktop which is only 1920x1080, "centered" vertically by the monitor itself fed via HDMI inside the native 1920x1200 screen itself.

Furthermore, when I experimented further by routing the HDMI video cable through one of the HDMI-inputs of my AVR (in order to get HDMI audio into my external surround-system that way) and then back from the HDMI-output to the HDMI input of the monitor, it was even worse (much like yours). Now the 16x9 1920x1080 image appeared "shrunken and reduced" in both H and W dimensions, so that it now looked "postage stamp" with black bars on both top and bottom as well as left and right. For some reason the monitor had "miniaturized" the 1920x1080 image coming from the video card through the AVR and out to the monitor to some degree, so that I'd say the pixel size now was shrunken/reduced from the pixel size using a single direct HDMI cable. Yes, it was still 16x9 aspect ratio, but reduced in overall size inside my monitor's available screen real estate.

Now my Eizo has a setting which did result in a "small enlargement" of the 1920x1080 postage stamp, so that it did grow somewhat in both H and W directions. But it still did not reach the extreme left/right edges of the screen, and certainly still came nowhere close to the top/bottom edges of the screen.

==>> ALWAYS USE DVI WHEN IT'S AVAILABLE. NEVER USE HDMI IF NOT MANDATORY OR ESSENTIAL.

DVI is the right way to take advantage of 100% of any monitor's available real estate, i.e. "native resolution" of the hardware as in its specs.

Furthermore, I have a second monitor in my setup... an Eizo S2443W, which is also a 1920x1200 monitor. And again, I wanted to use DVI to connect it but at the time my HD4850 video card only had one DVI output and one VGA output (which actually did support the Eizo in native 1920x1200 but in analog rather than digital mode as I wanted). I went ahead and upgraded my video card to a dual-DVI HD5770 (specifically that one with TWO DVI OUTPUTS, as video cards come in various configurations of connectors in support of multiple monitors)... specifically so that I could get full 1920x1200 display on both 1920x1200 monitors, both in digital DVI mode.

Thanks for your response and info. Thanks to you I have the answer to the problem. My monitor came with a VGA cable, and I bought a HDMI cable to replace it. I see there is a DVI-D port on the monitor and a DVI port next to the VGA port on the computer. I will have to buy the DVI cable.

There are two aspects (yay puns) to this problem:

- The display. Most displays have a setting which makes them stretch the image to the full screen, and it sounds like you have this enabled (otherwise 1024x768 would take up a smaller portion of the screen). Make sure you find this setting and disable it, at least while you're troubleshooting.

- The computer's graphics card. What brand is it? (AMD/ATI, nVidia, Intel, other?) The settings are all slightly different, but you basically want to set your output resolution to 1:1 (one pixel in the original image = one pixel in the output signal). For some cards, you need to disable overscan, which makes the image smaller to account for different border sizes on CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs - it sounds to me like this might be your primary issue.

I would suggest you come back with model numbers for your graphics card and display so we can give you more concise instructions. I wouldn't worry about HDMI vs. DVI too much unless you're using an HDTV - both connectors transmit identical signals, but TVs may be lacking the controls to properly size the image being received.

Thanks for responding. My video card is a ATI Radeon HD5450 and the monitor is a Dell ST2310-HDMI 23" if that's what you mean by my "display". I can't find my output resolution as to whether it's 1:1 or not because I don't know where to find it. I'm not a techie, just a home computer user and learn as I go so please take that into consideration.

Don't spend any more time fretting.

Just buy a DVI cable and it will almost certainly solve your problem.

The Dell ST2310 is a 16x9 monitor, with native resolution of 1920x1080. I am confident that the DVI cable will result in edge-to-edge presentation for that 1920x1080, rather than the somewhat smaller than full-screen (i.e. "miniaturized") 1920x1080 which apparently results from using your HDMI cable. As I described earlier, this is the identical symptom I saw with my own Eizo 1920x1200 monitor when routing HDMI from video card through AVR and back out to monitor, where (a) it was only 1920x1080, and (b) it was "miniaturized" on the screen itself, not a full-screen edge-to-edge 1920x1080.

I cannot say whether or not there is any setting on your Dell ST2310 to slightly expand the "miniaturized" presentation you describe. But I'm confident the DVI cable will solve your problem.

OK will do. I just remembered that a friend of mine recently bought the same computer I have with probably a lesser video card, and has his monitor hooked up with the VGA cable that came with the monitor. He doesn't have my problem. Is the VGA cable basically the same as the DVI cable but lesser quality?

Are you using an Dedicated GPU if so it isn't the monitor at this point you need to scale your GPU to size with the screen depending on what brand Nvidia or AMD you are using

I would first check if you are running dedicated graphics because if it is HD graphics by intel they should have some sort of callibration settings to fit your needs

I just saw you are using AMD/ATI HD5400 series cards so what you want to do is put the resolution you set go into ccc where it says flap panel scaling and after that fit to size and the resolution will be correct

Before switching or buying another cable, leave it connected HDMI and check the scaling options in CCC/VECC,



It is likely set to 15%, and if so set it to 0% and that should fix it.