Screen Resolution Q?

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Overclocker01

176 posts

Master Geek

Topic # 30830 22-Feb-2009 21:54

Heya,

What dictates what a screen can be run at (resolution) Is it the graphics card or the monitor or a combo of both.

The reason I am asking is my mate has a a 4 year old pentium 4 pc w/ intergrated graphics. He currently has a 17" crt monitor however he is looking at a 22" widescreen monitor (run in full resolution 1650*1060 or sumthin like that, I cant remeber)

Cheers

rphenix

871 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 54

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Reply # 197412 23-Feb-2009 12:24

Both!

For high resolutions the graphics card needs to support the mode. Generally when you go to buy a screen you can find out the native resolution (this is the resolution the LCD is made for and it looks pretty terrible at any other resolution unlike a CRT which can run at several different resolutions and look fine).

Even crappy integrated video cards I find these days tend to support reasonably high resolutions 1440x900, 1600x1020 etc.. but I would just make your friend aware they may need a dedicated graphics card (cheap will do). If you lookup the chipset of the integrated graphics you can find out before hand what resolutions it supports.

if its a P4 it should have an AGP slot I guess. I probably have a spare AGP graphics card lying around if you end up finding the pc wont run the new screen at the right resolution.

Overclocker01

176 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 197525 23-Feb-2009 18:45

Manufacturer - SiS
Chip Type - SiS 661 Rev 00
DAC Type - Internal
Memory - 32MB

What res could this handle?

zaptor

658 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 28

Reply # 197561 23-Feb-2009 20:30

If it's integrated and 4 years old, then I'd recommend you look at a dedicated graphics card (unless you have neither a PCI, PCI-e, or AGP slot) - I'm talking about image quality.

Running a 1680x1050 monitor at native resolution through an integrated VGA D-Sub (particularly an SiS gfx chipset) can be ugly. You can bet the RAMDAC on that will be underwhelming.

rphenix

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Reply # 197570 23-Feb-2009 20:42

Overclocker01: Manufacturer - SiS
Chip Type - SiS 661 Rev 00
DAC Type - Internal
Memory - 32MB

What res could this handle?

Apparently there is two SIS 661's but both of them have a resolution of 1600x1200.

SIS 661

Also based on the chipset you definently have an AGP graphics bus the question now is do you have an AGP slot or is it integrated only on the motherboard + pci slots.

Overclocker01

176 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 197672 24-Feb-2009 09:30

So If he wanted to run 22" widescreen monitor such as http://www.playtech.co.nz/product.php?action=showdetail&id=6106 He would have to get a dedicated agp or pi graphics card to support the resolution of 1680x1050...Correct

zaptor

658 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 28

Reply # 197675 24-Feb-2009 09:43

Overclocker01: So If he wanted to run 22" widescreen monitor such as http://www.playtech.co.nz/product.php?action=showdetail&id=6106 He would have to get a dedicated agp or pi graphics card to support the resolution of 1680x1050...Correct

No. His onboard SiS 661 should be able to do native 1680x1050 - it's just a driver issue (download the latest one, whatever that is).

It's just that image quality won't look that great compared to what you'd get with a dedicated video card.

Get him to try with the SiS 661 gfx first. He might think the image quality is fine. But, if it looks ugly, don't blame the monitor.

rhysb

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Reply # 197698 24-Feb-2009 11:11

From experience the SiS chipsets do not like widescreen resolutions. Although the drivers may support the resolution, they also require the Video BIOS to support the resolutions as well and not many MB manufacturers bother updating old MB's. You will most likely require a dedicated GFX card.