DaveMiddleton

I have a widescreen Acer Travelmate laptop with "state of the art" everything.
However when drawings or photos are displayed on the wide screen , they distort.
Other than continually changing resolution manually, is there a way to show normal screen?

TopBanana

Sounds like a prob with your video driver. It shouldn't be changing resolutions unless you ask it to. You're using a widescreen res by default I take it?

NWMark

you need to set the screen resolution to a widescreen setting so that the 4:3 image isnt stretched across the screen making photos look distorted.

If your using one of the following 4:3 resolutions 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1600x1200. or some use a 5:4 resolution like 1280x1024, 1600x1280. you need to change it to a widescreen setting.

The spec sheet from your laptop should tell you the native resolution of the screen, use that one as it wil be the most clear.

If not try some of the following if available in the display property window, these are all 16:9 widescreen resolutions. 1280x720 (this is 720p resolution in HiDef terms), 1368x768, 1920x1080 (and this is 1080i in HiDef terms)

Mark

EDIT: just re-read the question and msread the last line doh!!

NWMark

Most laptops ive installed will just stretch any resolution you set it to so that it fills the whole screen space.

the only way youll get a true 4:3 resolution on a widescreen monitor is to have the sides of the screen not used at all, i.e. a black bar either side of the image, but whether or not your laptop will allow this i just dont know.

there might be some software outthere that will enable this, might be worth a google.

Mark

TopBanana

It's 1080p, but laptops are more likely to be 1920x1200.

If the driver is installed properly, it should go to the native (i.e. max) resolution by default.