TFT monitor resolution problem

[TheMagician]

Hi everybody!
A few weeks ago I bought a 19'' TFT Flat Screen Monitor. The resolution is set to 1280x1024.

I made two testgames: One in 320x200 and one in 320x240.

If I play them both in fullscreen mode they look badly blurred.
If I change the AGSSetup.exe to run the games in 640x400 (or 640x480) they look a bit better (especially the 320x240 game looks much better) but still blurred.

My theory: this is due to the monitor resolution:
1280 / 320 = 4

1024 / 200 = 5.12  => badly blurred

1024 / 240 = 4.26  => not too baldy blurred but still

Is this theory correct or do I have to change some settings in my monitor setup?
Or is it even a driver problem ... the new drivers not able to handle such a low resolution?
Do you have similar problems with your flatscreen monitors?

Thanks in advance,
Stefan

[strazer]

That's correct.
TFTs have a native resolution, a fixed number of pixels (1280x1024 in your case). Any other resolution has to be interpolated and might be slightly blurry if it can't be cleanly upscaled to the native resolution as you described. Nothing you can do about it, I'm afraid.

I haven't seen it myself and I'm curious, how bad is it?

[TheMagician]

As I can't take a screenshot of the blurred version  I can only say: it is heavily blurred and ever worse, everything is streched to fit the full screen.
I made a test background consisting only of squares ... and in the game everything looked like rectangles (blurred, of course).
Roger looks more slim as well 

I'm curious though ... why doesn't a CRT monitor with a resolution of 1024x768 have the same problem?

[Privateer Puddin']

CRT monitors change their resolution rather than centering the image and stretching it to fit

[Gilbert]

I think it depends on what internal method the TFT display uses for scaling to full-screen to the required resolution (mostly depends on brands and their classes I think).
For example if it uses direct pixel repeating the desktop may look more crispy sharp (though with obvious double pixels) but it the screen may look ugly and unevenly pixelated for displaying, say, photos. If it uses interpolations the scaled image is "smoothen", which may look good when display photos but can look awfully bad when display texts.

Nonetheless, TFT displays look best only when they're displaying their native resolutions, so it's best for ppl using one fixed resolution most of the time (like ppl using mainly desktop windowed apps, no good if you have to run games, etc. frequently using a variety of fullscreen resolutions).

[EldKatt]

When I got my TFT monitor (17", but 1280x1024 as well) a few months ago, I remember being a bit bothered by the blurring (alliteration purely coincidental) of any lower resolution. Now I quite simply don't notice it. I know this is a crap answer that probably won't satisfy you, but you will get used to it.

[LGM]

Looks to me like you wasted $300+ without researching.

Bummer

[TheMagician]

Apart from [lgm] thanks for all your input!

@EldKatt:
I'm sure I will get used to it. It's just bad if you are designing a game and don't know how it will look like on a CRT (without the stretching).
Perhaps I'll keep my old CRT as a workstation for AGS 

Thanks again.

[LGM]

No, I was just saying.. If you were planning on gaming you should've known LCD screens really aren't the best for that.

I wasn't trying to be vindictive.

[Pelican]

Have you tried switching between running it in a window, and running it full screen. Bit random, but I was having trouble with a game (not an AGS one), on my TFT - the graphics were a bit distorted. I switched the game settings from full screen to windowed (or maybe vice versa), and it sorted it. Don't know if it applies but its worth a try.

[CoffeeBob]

Looks to me like you wasted $300+ without researching.

Bummer

Hehe, that sounds like it could be a death message from a SQ-game.

[strazer]

I switched the game settings from full screen to windowed (or maybe vice versa), and it sorted it.

Of course, if you play the game windowed, its resolution gets mapped to the physical pixels if your desktop resolution is set to the TFT's native resolution. At best you could also upscale the game resolution via the game setup to enlarge the window, but personally, I want to play all my games fullscreen.

I wonder if the interpolation quality increases notably on TFTs with higher native resolutions like 1600x1200 or something.

[Snarky]

I just got a 1600x1200 LCD screen, and I still see significant blurring, though at 640x400/640x480 it's pretty acceptable.

What you might want to try is to change your display settings so that the stretching is done by the graphics card, not the monitor. The graphics card might do a better job of it. Right-click on your desktop and go to Properties>Settings>Advanced... and then the tab for your graphics card. You can also set it to not stretch the image, just center it, but it's going to be pretty small in the middle of your screen.