Resolution independence in win 7

[qwertz325]

Is it there? Does it work? What's the story?

[drdeutsch]

Do you mean multiple monitors?

If so, it's working fine. I have two monitors at different resolutions right now.

[heatlesssun]

I think you must be talking about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_independence

It's really dependent on the application. The support for it in Windows started with Vista I believe.

[MrkXCeL]

*offtopic* gotta love the mention of AmigaOS in the wiki

[heatlesssun]

*offtopic* gotta love the mention of AmigaOS in the wiki

Yeah I saw that too. I never used it but AmigaOS was well ahead of its time from what I've heard. Unfortunately like many other great ideas it never caught on.

[anss123]

Yeah I saw that too. I never used it but AmigaOS was well ahead of its time from what I've heard. Unfortunately like many other great ideas it never caught on.
Being resolution independent means that the OS looks "the same" on a 1024x768 monitor as on an 8192x6144 monitor - except that the latter is sharper/smoother.

Having used AmigaOS I'd say it's no more resolution independent than Windows 3.1 - and about as stable. Mind you, AmigaOS came out in 1985 and added only rexx, fonts, data types, gadgets and a new look after that. Had Commodore bothered they could have made the OS into much more – like fixing the broken clipboard and stopping the OS from seemingly freezing every time you hold down the right mouse button… not to mention what happens if you copy lots of files.

[anss123]

Having used AmigaOS I'd say it's no more resolution independent than Windows 3.1To clarify, both AmigaOS and Windows 3.1 have scalable fonts. That means that in theory you can make the OS usable at high resolutions by having it scale up its fonts (and widgets/gadgets)

On Windows 95 up to Vista you can try this out by setting DPI to 120 and larger. If you do this you'll find out why Windows 95 (duno about Vista) is not actually resolution independent as apps and even the OS will sometimes not look right.

In theory you should set the DPI setting in Windows to whatever your monitor is.

[qwertz325]

So there's nothing new? Just the stuff that was in vista?

[qwertz325]

duno about Vista

It's the same

[anss123]

So there's nothing new? Just the stuff that was in vista?If anyone with Win7 would up their DPI to 120+ they'd be able to tell. Does the OS and apps look the same?

I doubt it.

[stevember]

Yes Windows 7 handles custom font sizes a lot better.

[qwertz325]

Yes Windows 7 handles custom font sizes a lot better.

Ok, but how are GUI elements drawn? How much better is it exactly?

Is it genuine res independence? Do I get the same size picture on every res? I doubt it, but is it close?

[Mithent]

I think the problem with this in Windows isn't so much the OS but how well individual programs deal with the change? If the UI of a program is laid out with the assumption that the default sizes will be used then it's likely to break.

[heatlesssun]

Yes applications have to built with some type of resolution idependent approach. That's one of the problems that WPF addresses for Windows. It's a very different way of looking at the GUI than conventional methods.

[Klob]

It's really dependent on the application. The support for it in Windows started with Vista I believe.

It did? Can't find a way to do this with my 4870 in Vista and I want to run my LCD monitor and plasma HDTV at different resolutions. I just made a post to the video card group asking how to do it. If you have a Nvidia card it is easy to do it and is OS independent because Nvida cards have that feature in Nview. I've never used Nview before until recently but now that I am I am finding it pretty good. I never knew it had option for multiple desktops either but do now. Looks like I may have to put Nvidia cards on both my PCs if I can't get separate res for LCD and HDTV on my 4870.

[heatlesssun]

It did? Can't find a way to do this with my 4870 in Vista and I want to run my LCD monitor and plasma HDTV at different resolutions. I just made a post to the video card group asking how to do it. If you have a Nvidia card it is easy to do it and is OS independent because Nvida cards have that feature in Nview. I've never used Nview before until recently but now that I am I am finding it pretty good. I never knew it had option for multiple desktops either but do now. Looks like I may have to put Nvidia cards on both my PCs if I can't get separate res for LCD and HDTV on my 4870.

I can hook up a 1920x1200 monitor to my tx2z tablet that has 1280x800 native screen with an HD 3200 IGP and it works find with both monitors attached when its running Vista.