What gives a display it's max resolution?

[Hummer]

I still have my first display which is a 15 inch HP LCD (when I bought it I wasn't worried about resolution) and I'm a bit disappointed that it will not go to a bigger resolution than 1024 x 768. On my PC I can hook it up and I will get an option to go bigger than what my monitor will take and it will look just fine until the monitor realizes it's bigger than it's supposed to be and cuts off. My ibook doesn't give me the choice to do this though which is what I'm using it for. Now I also have a 15 inch CRT and it can go to a way bigger resolution than my LCD which I spent a couple hundred bucks on. I've also seen 42 inch sony displays that only get a max res of that similar to 800 x 600. So I was just wondering what gives a display it's max resolution and is it possible to override my monitor making it accept a bigger resolution as when I choose the option on my PC it is just fine until the monitor realizes and shuts off.

 

[vniow]

On LCDs which have a finite number of pixels, the maximum they can display is the absolute maximum they have built in.

 

[Hummer]

On LCDs which have a finite number of pixels, the maximum they can display is the absolute maximum they have built in.

Would you happen to know why my LCD won't let me use a higher resolution when it works just fine? If you need to know my LCD is the hp pavilion f1503

 

[vniow]

Because your display only has 1024x768 pixels.

 

[wPod]

wikipedia has a good description of how an LCD works. the resolution is physically limited by the number of pixels on the screen. each pixel is made up of an RGB (red green and blue) element and with different variations of each, you can make any color.



what you see when it appears to have a better resolution is your video card sending the higher resolution. some of the pixels are displayed while others are not. after some time, the monitor realize it is getting many more pixels than it can actually handle and then dumps the extras and shuts off, or forces you to adjust until the number of pixels being output is the same as the number of pixels being input. i think some video cards can 'fake' better resolutions by averaging 2 pixels into one. so it may look like better resolution (larger pictures can fit on the screen) but you are deteriorating the quality of the image.