Thanks for the reply..

Good to know that my card will handle the res OK and the picture is great.

Its just point 2 (can I run 1024x768 without distortion in the middle of the screen somehow.). The reason I ask is that not all games support widescreen and as I play a lot of racing games framerates are important. I have heard that this is possible but just wanted to check if it actually is from a someone offical from Dell or at the very least someone like your kind self who has done this.

So.. is this possible ?

Thanks.

I don't know if this is going to confuse any issues for you guys but here goes anyway:

I have just got a 2405FPW monitor and set it up per Dell's recommendations. However, I found that at a resolution of 1920 x 1200 as Dell recommend, it is just too small to see in apps like Photoshop and InDesign etc. The screen view is adjustable but the program's pallets are not. So that wasn't suitable for my purposes.

So I dropped it to 1600 x 1200 and that didn't look quite right. Everythnig, icons on desktop were the giveaway, were a little out of proportion and stretched. It just didn't look right. So I did a little math and found that if you have a resolution ratio of 1.6:1 you will get the best picture out of this monitor. So taking the lower figure of the resolution (vertical) and multiplying it by 1.6 gives us the correct horizontal dimension - 1200 x 1.6 = 1920 which Dell recommends. So if you take the regular 1600 x 1200 resolution for standard screens it is fine, but for widescreens it is not. It just looked awful on my 2405FP. To get a 1600 to look right, you need the vertical to be 1000 - 1000 x 1.6 = 1600.

I was fortunate that my video card - a GE Force 2 has a resolution of 1680 x 1050 which is absolutely perfect for this monitor if you don't like the recommended 1920 by Dell.

But if you set your video card to, say 1024 x 768 on a widescreen monitor you are going to get a bunch of distortion. I have just set mine to 1024 x 768 and it looks God-awful. I can't see any feature to run it center screen taking the widescreen effect away. This monitor is best suited with a ratio of 1.6:1

I didn't want to confuse the issue but I just wanted to share my experiences so far on this monitor.

For Slippery Penguin

Just ran another check for you, and when I change the resolution on my nVidia GE Force 2 card, it takes full advantage of the monitor's size and uses it all. You do not get a black bar each side of the screen. You get the resolution you chose. If you go for 1024 x 768 that will be exactly what you will get using all the screen's width. Ut'll look bloody terrible too. This may be peculiar to my card only though. Don't know how other cards will handle this, but mine certainly takes all the screen's width.

Hope this helps.

To play a game that will not support the 2405's high resolution - set the monitor for 1024x768 and then open the monitor main menu (OSD) and go to Image Settings. Select Scaling at 1:1.

This is will preserve the aspect ratio and show that game at 1024x768 with a black border around the game area.

To make life easier I suggest you get these two programs:

RapidRes - allows you to change resolution from a menu parked on your task bar. It will also remember the scaling settings so you don't have to go through all the menu's each time.

WinTidy - Remembers the icon placement for each resolution you use. This way you can change resolutions and everything pops into place.

Both are excellent programs and make working with the 2405 much easier. Both can be gotten from PCMag.COM utilities section. Registration (and a fee) might apply. (I forget)

Have fun,

Courtney