LCD for someone with BAD eyesight?

[Drajakur]

Google has been totally useless.

I bought a decent LCD monitor for my in-laws, but they couldn't see anything because the native resolution was too high. They basically need to run things in 640*480 or 800*600 MAX. But of course no LCDs I know of can do this.

Anyone know of an application that can somehow 'downscale' the screen...or else a monitor that would be suitable for people with bad eyesight? I am kinda fucked because they have no space for a CRT in their new apartment.

Very much thanks to anyone who can help them via helping me!

[Blumpster]

Find an old LCD. I had one with 1024x768 native a few years ago.

Oh, and of course, the easy fix, get a CRT.

[Drajakur]

I tried that, but they couldn't read 1024*768 on a 19'' (which was the only version I was able to find with that resolution). And I would just go back to a CRT but they really don't have space in their tiny little PC room (and fuck me for throwing their old monitor out).

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions...if anyone else has any, would much appreciate.

[Szlia]

Accessibility options of Windows should fix the size problem no? Big Icons, big fonts etc...

[AladainAF]

Why not just up the DPI settings for larger fonts? Unless I'm missing something ?

[Hachima]

What LCD can't do this? You aren't forced to use the native resolution on an LCD. Text looks fine when set to 800x600 too. In fact when you install windows its the default resolution used for installation now.

[brekk]

get a monstrous monitor with a really high resolution, and set the computer resolution to half of it.

It wont have pixel scaling issues.

[Drajakur]

Whenever I've tried to use the non-standard resolution on an LCD, the screen gets blurry and the fonts are hard to read, effectively counteracting the gains of going to a lower res.

Accessibility/DPI options reduce the problem somewhat, but don't solve the problem either - mostly because the main thing they do with the PC is play bridge/chess using web apps that don't scale or have pre-set rendering sizes.

In any case, thanks for the feedback guys. It helps to know I am not missing something dumb and obvious.

Brekk - I think that is what I am going to have to do.

Cheers.

[Salshun]

Originally Posted by Szlia

Accessibility options of Windows should fix the size problem no? Big Icons, big fonts etc...

Yeah, Windows does have some options for people with poor eyesight, read up on them.

[Lucifar]

Yea I tinkered around with changing the default DPS settings on my laptop with 1920x1200 a few times.

Generally things were OK, but there are some windows programs out there that seem to define pixel counts for fonts and bars etc, and so you wont be able to see all the parts of a non resizable window in those non complient apps - can be a show stopper if you need such a program.

IE handled DPI scaling properly, but firefox didn't. I'm not sure if fixefox has fixed that in the last 12 months.

[Drajakur]

Well I have it sorted out now via a new LG monitor (24''), a lower resolution which is an integer of the native resolution, custom DPI settings, and some changes to the way Firefox displays pop-ups.

Shouldn't have been this difficult but I am putting this shit behind me now!

Thanks again guys.

[Brutul Tarew Marr]

Too too late but you could always get a small HDTV. They have very low native resolutions for a PC monitor.