Display resolution question

[alexpb86]

Bit of a dumb question I know but I'll ask it anyway...

As a temporary solution to work around my 17inch imac's broken screen I've bought a 24 inch asus monitor. I've got it mirroring my imac but the display isn't quite as sharp as I was expecting. Is this because my old imac has a 1440x900 display and the monitor a 1920x1080 output?

I'm assuming the picture quality will be much better when I buy my new mac mini next week?

 

[Hellhammer]

Are you using the right resolution? What adapter are you using?

 

[spinnerlys]

It's because of the native resolutions of the iMac and the external display.

They both differ and the Asus has a bigger resolution, but as you only mirrored the iMac'd´s display, the resolution is scaled down on the external.

The 1440 x 900 get stretched to 1920 x 1080, that's why there is a visible distortion, one uses 16:10 aspect ratio (iMac) the other uses 16:9 (Asus), and because 1.296.000 pixel (iMac) get displayed by 2.073.600 pixel on the Asus.

 

[alexpb86]

Im using mini dvi to dvi which I understand isn't quite as good. In my list of resolutions there aren't any that exactly match between the imac and the asus. It's certainly not a poor picture - just not as sharp as my imac. I thought it must be because it's scaling up the resolution or something?

 

[alexpb86]

ah right, will the mac mini be better?

 

[spinnerlys]

ah right, will the mac mini be better?

Yes, as the MacMini does not mirror your resolution, because there is no display built into it.

It will support whatever native resolution you throw at it, especially one as low as 1920 x 1080.

 

[alexpb86]

It's not low for me!

Thanks a lot!

 

[hellfire88]

Turn off mirroring in your iMac display prefs (display to external monitor only) and the Asus should not show the 1920x1200 res.