NEWBIE needs help

[ugly_dude]

Hi, please bare with me as i'm not very computer savy.ok here goes. i own a dimension 8200 desktop, i want to upgrade my monitor, the monitor we'd like to buy is the "The Dell™ UltraSharp™ 2407WFP "

Is what i need to know is if my current video card will work for this monitor, i have the same video card as when i bought the computer, it's the "GeForce2 mx400 32rm nvidia" the thing that has me worried is the statement that says " To optimize this monitor's performance, your system must be able to support WUXGA resolution (1920x1200"
i think the highest rez my card offers is 1600/1200.

the truth is that we run our current 17 inch monitor at 800/600 as i sit a fair distance from my computer, i don't see myself ever wanting to run my new monitor in the 1920.1200 res. i also don't use the computer for any video games. so with all that said, if i bought the above mentioned monitor , would it work with my current video card at 800/600 or 1152/864 resolutions?
thanks for taking the time to read, i would really appreciate any insight that you could offer me.
Regards'

[BiPolar_Nut]

first off, you wouldn't run it at 800x600 or 1152x864. Those are normal aspect (4:3) ratio resolutions. Your new monitor is a widescreen (16:9 aspect) so you'd need to run a wide screen resolution.

I've used LCD's at non-native resolutions and had them look excellent....and I've used some that really looked crappy at non-native resolutions. LCD's are different than CRT's as there are actual, physical pixels on LCD's. Your new one would have 1920 horizontal and 1200 vertical physical pixels. Running a non-native resolution will force the monitor to double some pixels but leave others alone in it's best attempt to display your screen image.

I actually have no explanation whatsoever why a handful of LCD's actually DO look good at non-native resolutions. This is the exception, however, and not the rule. If you could make an even multiple, like running 800x600 on a native 1600x1200 monitor, it should look clear, but there is no widescreen resolution I'm aware of that is exactly 1/2 of 1920x1200 (I've never seen 960x600 as a choice).

Best thing to do is to try it on a display model someplace before buying. I don't know offhand if your video card would support 1920x1200. You can right click on your desktop, select properties, go to display settings tab, click advanced, and under the "Adapter" tab there should be a box that says "show all modes". See if 1920x1200 is listed there.

[ugly_dude]

bipolar, thank you for the post, i did what you said, the highest i can get is 1600/1200. looks like i'll have to buy a card, oh well. thanks again for the post.

[jjshabado]

This is actually one advantage of Vista that I've found. High res no longer means small icons.

Now I'm sure there's a way to get that to work in XP, but I've never cared enough to explore it.