FrameMaker and LCD Monitors

Question

Hello,
Just wanted to get your thoughts/opinion(s) as writers in using FrameMaker on LCD monitors. Specifically, I've used word processing and desktop publishing programs on CRT monitors for years. I've never had any problems whatsoever. Recently, my employer provided me with a 20 inch widescreen LCD monitor. I'm now having a difficult time with it because of the higher resolution (e.g., headaches and the like). As you all know, a lower resolution only distorts or stretches desk on LCD monitors (which is why I guess I've avoided these monitors for so long). Please note, I have bad eyesight and wanted to see if others may have ideas to address this issue. I've given the monitor two weeks and things haven't improved. I'm just concerned/frustrated because I know the world is going in the direction of LCD monitors.
For a solution, I've thought about a square like LCD monitor; maybe at 17 inches to address the problem. But I'm wondering if I'll still be at the mercy of the native resolution. Just to let you know, I've tried all the display scenarios to address the problem (i.e., appearance, settings, dpi) without success. Just miss the 800/600 resolution I had in the past due to my bad eyesight.
Any ideas or thoughts are most appreciated. Thank you very much for your time.
Paul

Answer 1

Paul...
Here are some ramblingthoughts on your issue. They expand on the good advice you've already received, and thus do not dispute what others have said.
Make certain your drivers for the graphics card are the latest and greatest. This is the first step you should take. You probably have already done that. If not, go do it. But check the next paragraph first.
If your graphics card has a DVI output, by all means use it. If it doesn't, opt for a different graphics card, preferably one with two DVI outputs, known as a dual-head graphics card. I address this again below.
Life is too short to drink cheap wine. It's also too short to spend a professional career working with inadequate computing resources, especially when you consider the cost of the capital outlay versus the salaries and the wasted time fooling around trying to make things right. If your employer has artificial limits on spending, go make a business case for better gear.
You already seem to understand the concept of the monitor's native resolution. High resolution monitors are best for image processing, when programs like Photoshop are used to edit photographic images. For text-based work, they're the wrong way to go, as you've discovered. Part of the problem is that many web pages and all operating systems seem to be stuck with a one-size-fits-all set of icons, menus, page sizes and the like. With Windows, you get two choices of text size, but those choices don't apply to all text instances and only in the operating system, not in the applications that run on top of the application. So driving a high resolution monitor at its native resolution results in tiny text, icons and the like. I get some email messages that I cannot read because the very popular marketing company that creates them uses what must be 4 point typefaces.
I have dual 20.5" Samgung monitors with 1600x1200 native resolution on two of my workstations. They're beautiful monitors, but I would trade even-up for the same monitor with 1280x960 native resolution. One thing that's nice about LCDs, by the way, is this. If you get ones that pivot clock- or counter-clockwise, and many do, you can easily run them in portrait mode by rotating them and changing the settings for the driver. My FrameMaker workstation has one monitor set to landscape orientation and the other to portrait mode. Try setting a 17" CRT on its sidegood luck!
LCD monitors will ONLY look their best when the image is displayed at their native resolution, or perhaps in some cases, at a submultiple of the native resolution. For example, a 1600x1200 monitor might look OK when the graphics card is set to 800x600. In my case, that makes the icons and windows appear too large, though. Something in-between is best for me. I doubt, however, that you have a 840x525 choice, but if you do, try it.
Sheila asks about your video cable. An LCD monitor *should* be driven by a graphics card with a DVI (digital) output. Otherwise, the signal must be converted to analog (VGA) and back to digital for display purposes. Since the image is inherently digital to begin with, converting to analog video and then back to digital has its obvious drawbacks. I'm not sure if a modern graphics card can properly identify the connected monitor though a VGA cableit's been so long since I used a CRT and a VGA card that I've forgotten.
A CRT monitor also has a "native resolution" based on the pitch of the phosphor triads and the shadow mask in the tube. Because that was an analog interfaced world, and CRTs are relatively "soft" compared to LCDs, the effects of non-native scan rates and resolution settings were not as troublesome or as obvious as they are for LCD screens. Once you get the settings right on your LCD display, though, you will NEVER consider going back to a CRT display.
It's probably too late to lobby for this, but if I were you, I would strive to get a "dual-head" graphics card, one with two DVI outputs, and put two identical monitors side-by-side. Once you've experienced a dual-monitor setup, you will never be happy with just one screen.
Setting the graphics card resolution for a 16:10 aspect ratio in any other than the native resolution of the monitor will result in "aliasing" artifacts, which may be what you mean by "distortion." The simplistic way to describe the aliasing effect is that some elements of a character inevitably fall in the "cracks" between pixels. When the image resolution setting matches the native resolution, the video data from the card "lines up" perfectly with the pixels, giving the most accurate representation. The other type of distortion that you may be referring to is due to a mismatch of the aspect ration associated with an image resolution setting versus the aspect ratio of the screen. In such situations, a "truly" round circle would appear elliptical on the screen. This is what Winifred is describing. You cannot expect acceptable results with any graphics card setting whose resolution aspect ratio is , relative to the display, mismatched. You must use a setting that corresponds to the 16:10 ratio.
Another way to understand the artifacts associated with aliasing is to imagine viewing a checkerboard through a piece of wire fencing with a square pattern laid on top of it. When the size of the squares in the fencing material are the same as the checkboard squares, you can make things line up and see all of the checkerboard. If the screen wire is a different size, then there's no way to place the wire over the checkerboard without covering some of the squares with wirethat is, unless the pattern in the fence is twice the size of the square, ot four times, and so on.