Hello mschein-ga:
I will first start by answering your question directly; however, I
recommend that after you read through this Answer, you take full
advantage of the "Request Clarification" button above to ask about any
of the alternatives I mention here.
Your IBM Thinkpad T23 is equipped with a 14.1" SXGA+ display
displaying 1400x1050 pixels. It is a laptop that I am very familiar
with, having used one on and off for the past two years.
The XGA mode that you would like to use, is 1024x728 pixels. IBM
actually had two LCD screens available depending on the model of T23
chosen; the lower models have a 14.1" XGA panel, while the higher
models like yours have the SXGA+ panel.
Fortunately, the aspect ratio for XGA is the same as the aspect ratio
for SXGA+; namely, 4:3. So, stretching 1024x768 to fill 1400x1050 will
not result in too many noticeable 'jaggies'. However, by asking the
display hardware to do this stretching, you will still see some jagged
edges as the hardware is not capable of interpolating (ie. smoothing
out the jagged edges).
To turn on stretching, you need to access the BIOS settings for your
Thinkpad. If your Thinkpad is configured from the factory, you should
have a program called Thinkpad Configuration installed. This should be
located somewhere on your Start Menu>Programs menu.
If you do not find it, you can always install it by downloading it
from IBM's website:
http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4ZFRG3
Assuming you now have the utility installed, please run it.
On the window that appears, you should see an option for the 'LCD'
panel on the upper-right. This is also available from the 'Display'
menu at the top. Please select the 'LCD' option.
In the resulting dialog that appears, select 'Enable' for the Screen
expansion option, then click 'OK'.
If you did this while your Display Settings were already set to
1024x768, your screen will have already stretched to fill the LCD. If
you did this while in SXGA+ mode, you can now switch down to XGA mode
to see what the stretched view looks like.
The results may leave a lot to desire. Unlike a CRT monitor, where the
phosphors tend to blend and blur the edges of anything displayed on
the screen to make most resolutions appear smooth, an LCD panel is
extremely digital in nature. A pixel is either on, or off. The stretch
mode built into the LCD panel hardware cannot interpolate the image,
leaving you with the jaggies that you undoubtedly are now seeing on
the screen.
Unfortunately, the only other option is the one that you have already
mentioned not liking; namely, using the software capabilities built
into Windows XP to achieve the same effect for text. The reason that
this is the only other option, is because Windows ultimately controls
everything that you see on the screen. All Windows-compliant programs
simply request that Windows display whatever it is that needs
displaying, based on the configuration settings you have set.
Therefore, if you want to have larger fonts displayed, you need to
change the DPI setting to enable Windows to manage the larger fonts
for you (including smoothing them to work properly on your LCD).
Please let me know which of the two options you prefer; personally, I
prefer using the Windows DPI method, for a smoother display.
Regards,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
Request for Answer Clarification by
mschein-ga
on
14 Mar 2004 06:31 PST
The Configuration Utility takes me to where I have already been:
Display Properties/Settings. I then click on Advanced tab and the S3
display tab. It is there that LCD box is already selected - and BTW
cannot be deselected - and below is that is the expand panel image
check box, which is unchecked, and which cannot be modified - the
check box is not addressable, though it is not grayed out! Where do I
go from this?
It may be moot, since if you are correct the expanded display may not
be satisfactory, but I would like to try it, so how?
thanks
|
Clarification of Answer by
aht-ga
on
14 Mar 2004 17:23 PST
In Internet Explorer, simply go to the View menu, Text Size, and
select either Larger or Largest. This causes IE to intentionally bump
up the text size for any HTML-formatted text. The only time this won't
help, is if text is being displayed inside a Java or ActiveX
application inside the web page.
Personally, I use at least 'Larger' on any screen of that resolution
and size, my eyes would hurt too much from squinting if I didn't! :)
Regards,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher
|
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