Sciencemadness Discussion Board

What's your computer display resolution?

Polverone - 15-5-2007 at 08:21

I am trying to determine if current standards for maximum allowed image size on Sciencemadness are comfortable for the vast majority of users. Which of the descriptions best matches the resolution of your primary computer display?

Nerro - 15-5-2007 at 09:13

What percentage of users are you ready to screw over? :P

pantone159 - 15-5-2007 at 09:32

BTW - 1280x960 makes more sense than 1280x1024, which involves non-square pixels. My 2 cents.

Sauron - 15-5-2007 at 10:00

Give a care to those of us who are visually impaired.

I simply can't read a screen at more than 800x600. My display adapter and monitor can go way beyond that but my eyes (or I should say eye) won't.

Rosco Bodine - 15-5-2007 at 10:05

Oh boy ! I know I stirred this up so let me add some more pertinent information here ( along with an image experiment )

It would be a more relevant question not to ask what is your display resolution , but what selected display resolution do you actually use .

My monitor display resolution is 1920 X 1440 , but that screen resolution capability is unusable , because the monitor is connected to a 7 year old legacy hardware desktop , whose video card and OS can't support a decent refresh rate at such high resolutions . Most
programs on my machine are also optimized for default display at 800 X 600 .

So what I use is a selected resolution of 800 X 600 which is best all around in my own hardware and software environment .

It is irrelevant what is your maximum monitor resolution capability , if most of your software and hardware is set
for best rendering of the current most popular resolution
which is ~57% of web traffic 1024 X 768 , and the largest
remaining percentage of legacy computer hardware is still
optimized at 800 X 600 . One of those two is more likely to be the best default setting on most computers today ,
meaning you don't have to custom rescale the sizes of
text , icons , and every window so that everything is in a legible form and proportion .

Screen resolution is very much related to what is best matched up with all of your software and hardware at
default capability , as most users will not sit and fine tune
everything to the next higher resolution or even much higher when one of the two 800 X 600 or 1024 X 768
will be easiest to adapt to every use .

Some of the problem on this website is the coding for
the page rendering . The formatting even varies depending on which topic category one is viewing ,
and can vary depending on which page within a category is being viewed . It seems to change the text formatting width when an image is inserted . The last image I posted was 500 pixel width , but the text window seemed
to expand , and the column to the left having the posters name narrowed to allow expansion of the text window ,
even though a 500 pixel width caused no such effect
when posted here in this different category .

I can illustrate what I am describing here . The effect will be seen at 800 X 600 resolution .
Open in a separate window the following forum page
for a view of one rendering of a 500 X 375 image , that
should appear different with respect to the margin on the right hand side , from the same image posted here
( unless the change occurs here also after the same image is placed here ) .

Update: Yeah it worked , you can see the formatting is
different depending on where you are , page to page ,
still within this website . What you get on one page in
text formatting change , differs from what occurs on another page , where the exact same image is posted ....go figure .
What relevance does that have to screen resolution ?
Absolutely zero ....but it has everything to do with coding .

Update#2: I just changed resolution to 1024 X 768 and refreshed both pages , the text formatting anomaly which appears at 800 X 600 disappeared , and the pages displayed identically ( and correctly ) with regards to formatting , so indeed it would seem that this website is already optimized at 1024 X 768 ( or higher ) as a default . That is plenty high enough and setting it higher will cause misery .

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=2465&a...





More generally , there seems not to be an adaptation where the page size can " flex " to fit differing resolutions as reported by the browser , interacting with the forum software .

In conclusion , I would say if you have just some general
forum software selection option for
" website best viewed at " ........
absolutely set it for no higher than 1024 X 768 . That will likely cause the least problems for most people ( if my understanding of this is correct ) .

At that resolution and image width limitation around 625 pixels should keep everybody happy and not disrupt the formatting even for those of us blind old bats who are viewing at 800 X 600 , and keep a pair of reading glasses
and a magnifier within reach ...along with the accessibilty
magnification .

Another thing I noticed is that changing the browser view>text size>larger does not seem to negotiate and
change in the displayed text size on this website using
IE6 browser , even after closing and reopening the page ,
the text size stays exactly the same .

The option is working , because on connecting to Google for example the change in text size is displayed immediately ,
even without refreshing the page .

[Edited on 15-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]

12AX7 - 15-5-2007 at 14:15

I put down 1280x1024, but I don't browse full screen, so 1024x768 would be more accurate. To be fair, the vote does say "or lower".

Tim

indigofuzzy - 16-5-2007 at 12:43

Screen resolution? Which screen? I have 2 :D

1680x1050 on smaller one (20" LCD)
2560x1600 on the large one (30" LCD)

Variable

MadHatter - 16-5-2007 at 13:00

My monitor starts at 800 X 600 and gets up as high as 2048 X 1536. I have a hard time reading
it anything other than the lowest setting. Even 1024 X 768 strains my eyes.

[Edited on 2007/5/16 by MadHatter]

Mr. Wizard - 16-5-2007 at 16:30

I'm using a Mac G5 with two monitors, a Digital HP w22 LCD 22" display set at 1680x1050 @60 Hz and a Samsung 22" CRT set at 1280x 960 @ 75 Hz. Both will display much higher resolution, but the detail will suffer unless I sit closer to the monitors. I find sitting about 30-36" away is most comfortable.

I love my Mac; it will display two monitors right out of the box.
Any other Mac users on the forum?

indigofuzzy - 30-6-2007 at 21:32

<---- Mac Geek here. Powermac Dual G5 (2.7 GHz), Dual Monitors (Apple 30" Cinema HD Display, Apple 20" Cinema Display)

Organikum - 1-7-2007 at 01:36

Quote:
Originally posted by Sauron
Give a care to those of us who are visually impaired.

I simply can't read a screen at more than 800x600. My display adapter and monitor can go way beyond that but my eyes (or I should say eye) won't.
I have bad eyes too. My monitor runs at 1600+1200 though as I use OPERA and simply hit + as often as needed for me to read whats on the screen.

It is obviously a browser question and a question to be able to use it.

tito-o-mac - 2-7-2007 at 04:42

Hey guys maybe you should check out this program: http://www.bytegems.com/resman.shtml you set the gamma ray level, brightness or contrast so you won't have to suffer from squinting eyes. Unfortunately. it's only a trial version:(

Phosphor-ing - 2-7-2007 at 06:06

1680 X 1050 on a 20" widescreen LCD monitor

tumadre - 7-7-2007 at 03:33

1280 by 800 on a wide screen laptop

I found that by rotating the screen 270 or 90 degrees reading PDFs are much easier because the entire page will fit on the screen.
Anyone else do that?

Taaie-Neuskoek - 9-7-2007 at 08:32

@ tumadre- yes I do, but not on my laptop (that'd look silly). I have a nice 1280x1024 monitor at work which I use in 'portrait mode'. Its so much more useful, and makes a LOT of sense...

tito-o-mac - 20-7-2007 at 06:03

Yeah, my laptop works perfectly wiht that!:o