When using an LCD screen, set the resolution to native mode or native resolution. Native mode has the same number of pixels that the monitor has. If you do not use native mode, the monitor does not produce the best picture.
You can change the display settings with the Display Settings utility. You can change the appearance of the desktop by modifying the resolution and color quality, as shown in the figure. If the screen resolution is not set properly, you might get unexpected display results from different video cards and monitors. You can also change more advanced display settings, such as the wallpaper, screensaver, power settings, and other options.
With Windows 7, use the following path:
Start > Control Panel > Display > Change display settings
With Windows Vista, use the following path:
Start > Control Panel > Personalization > Display Settings
With Windows XP, use the following path:
Start > Control Panel > Display > Settings
You can adjust the following features in Windows 7:
- Screen resolution - Specifies the number of pixels. A higher number of pixels provides better resolution and picture.
- Orientation - Determines whether the display appears in Landscape, Portrait, flipped Landscape, or flipped Portrait orientations.
- Refresh rate - Sets how often the image in the screen is redrawn. The refresh rate is in Hertz (Hz). The higher the refresh rate, the more steady the screen image.
- Display colors - Specifies the number of colors visible on the screen at once. The more bits, the greater the number of colors. The 8-bit color palette contains 256 colors. The 16-bit color (High Color) palette contains 65,536 colors. The 24-bit color (True Color) palette contains 16 million colors. The 32-bit color palette contains 24-bit color and 8 bits for other data such as transparency.
NOTE: You can also access the display settings in Windows 7 and Windows Vista in the Display link of the Personalization control panel utility.