why 1280x1024?

[Chimowowo]

See topic. I've been curious for a while as to why so many people run 1280x1024 instead of 1280x960. Res's are usually 4x3 or 16x9, and 1280x1024 is neither.

 

[galdoes16]

Mainly because most 19-20" LCD's run at 1280x1024 native.

 

[saiyan]

See topic. I've been curious for a while as to why so many people run 1280x1024 instead of 1280x960. Res's are usually 4x3 or 16x9, and 1280x1024 is neither.

Because LCD monitors with 1280x1024 native resolution have 5x4 physical aspect ratio.

 

[Maad]

And to answer in another fashion altogether (probably in the way the OT meant):

because a lot of people that set their CRTs to 1280x1024 have absolutely no idea that's not the right resolution to set them to.

 

[Jerkstore]

i had no idea there was a "right" and a "wrong" res to set a crt to.

 

[Nettwerk]

whats crt mean?

 

[runbird05]

I thought this thread was going to ask why LCD manufacturers picked 1280x1024 instead of 1280x960 for the native res on 17 and 19 inchers, which might've been a better question. There's probably a reason behind it, but I'm in the dark...

Oh yeah, Cathode Ray Tube (google anybody?).

 

[Unknown-One]

...why LCD manufacturers picked 1280x1024 instead of 1280x960 for the native res on 17 and 19 inchers?...

I second that question.

 

[RawsonDR]

If the question is why a 5:4 ratio when it "should" be 4:3, then the answer is:
. For LCD's: LCD's are physically made with the same screen size ratio as their native resolution (5:4 for most 17/19 inchers). So it "should" be 5:4 in this case.
. For CRT's: There's a reason you are able to manipulate the screen size/position on CRT's. It should be set to the same ratio as your resoltion.
It doesn't matter what the resolution aspect is so long as the physical display is the same.

If the question is why that exact number (1280x1024) and not 1281x1022, then I have no idea. Just one of those things.

 

[lithium726]

whats crt mean?

cathode ray tube. theyre the big honkin monitors, non LCD type.

 

[Synful Serenity]

I'm not sure of the reasons why either, but I can definitely tell you that 1280 x 1024 somehow became a standard resolution many years ago when you could only buy CRTs...This also goes for video cards as well, as 1280 x 1024 at XX Hz became a standard max on those, as well as the monitors of the past, and not 1280 x 960. This explains why it is still showing up in LCDs 15+ years later. In other words, the precedent was already set....Then the question remains: who first thought of making 1280 x 1024 a standard resolution for CRTs?....The best reasons I can think of would be involving the "roundness" of 1024, which happens to be a perfect power of 2 (2 to the 10th). It could've been hardware-related, as maybe it was easier or more logical for the multi-scanning frequencies to use 1024 instead. Of course, they might've settled on 1024 even outside of hardware considerations solely due to its "roundness" for whatever reason. Either way, it seems more plausible when you consider 1024 shows up again in the most popular standard resolution before that, 1024x768. Or maybe it was just because it was in the capability of the circuitry to round it up to that, so they thought, why not....Another possibility, the industry was more hardware and raw specs oriented at the time, and vendors placed a lot more emphasis on competing over megabytes, megahertz, access time and such than they do today. So perhaps it could've even been so simple as a marketing decision to make the next main resolution comprised solely of 4 digit numbers, and 1024 is the smallest such logical number to use (hardware limitations might have had them push it over 1000 but still aim to stay as small as possible). Of course, settling on the smaller of the 2 dimensions being 1024, they couldn't use 4:3 since 1024 is not evenly divisible by 3....but it's divisible by 4! And dividing it by 4 gives you a nice even 256, which also amounts to a nice even 8-bits in hardware terms. And that's how much bigger 1280 is than 1024....256. So then they might've settled on 5:4 instead. Five 8-bit numbers to four. That's why I'd wager it's some unknown consideration, hardware or otherwise, involving this relationship or the numbers' roundness. But whatever the reason, once they created this resolution, they stuck with it.

 

[Black Ghost]

I'm not sure of the reasons why either, but I can definitely tell you that 1280 x 1024 somehow became a standard resolution many years ago when you could only buy CRTs...This also goes for video cards as well, as 1280 x 1024 at XX Hz became a standard max on those, as well as the monitors of the past, and not 1280 x 960. This explains why it is still showing up in LCDs 15+ years later. In other words, the precedent was already set....Then the question remains: who first thought of making 1280 x 1024 a standard resolution for CRTs?....The best reasons I can think of would be involving the "roundness" of 1024, which happens to be a perfect power of 2 (2 to the 10th). It could've been hardware-related, as maybe it was easier or more logical for the multi-scanning frequencies to use 1024 instead. Of course, they might've settled on 1024 even outside of hardware considerations solely due to its "roundness" for whatever reason. Either way, it seems more plausible when you consider 1024 shows up again in the most popular standard resolution before that, 1024x768. Or maybe it was just because it was in the capability of the circuitry to round it up to that, so they thought, why not....Another possibility, the industry was more hardware and raw specs oriented at the time, and vendors placed a lot more emphasis on competing over megabytes, megahertz, access time and such than they do today. So perhaps it could've even been so simple as a marketing decision to make the next main resolution comprised solely of 4 digit numbers, and 1024 is the smallest such logical number to use (hardware limitations might have had them push it over 1000 but still aim to stay as small as possible). Of course, settling on the smaller of the 2 dimensions being 1024, they couldn't use 4:3 since 1024 is not evenly divisible by 3....but it's divisible by 4! And dividing it by 4 gives you a nice even 256, which also amounts to a nice even 8-bits in hardware terms. And that's how much bigger 1280 is than 1024....256. So then they might've settled on 5:4 instead. Five 8-bit numbers to four. That's why I'd wager it's some unknown consideration, hardware or otherwise, involving this relationship or the numbers' roundness. But whatever the reason, once they created this resolution, they stuck with it.

SOMEone's either had too much caffeine, or rides the subway all day. I'm going to go with the idea put forth that 1024 is the smallest logical four digit number. And people are still suckered in by higher numbers, as opposed to higher performance.

 

[_jd_]

because a lot of people that set their CRTs to 1280x1024 have absolutely no idea that's not the right resolution to set them to.

you're right that they have no idea, but it's not that it's not the right resolution for CRT- just that they stretch the image to fill the whole screen and thus screwing the proper aspect ratio

 

[_jd_]

I thought this thread was going to ask why LCD manufacturers picked 1280x1024 instead of 1280x960 for the native res on 17 and 19 inchers, which might've been a better question. There's probably a reason behind it, but I'm in the dark...

yeah, that's what I thought too. And I hope they have a really good reason for it because I really hate the fact that this stupid resolution is standard on 17"/19" LCDs

 

[Unknown-One]

It could just be that the difference between 1024 and 768 is 256, so they use 256 more pixels both directions to get the next resolution up.
1024+256=1280
768+256=1024

Although, NO other resolution fallows this rule...The strange thing is, you would expect scaling the resolution equally in both directions would produce the same aspect ratio.

 

[NickN]

It's not scaling equally in both directions when you do that though.

256 is 25% of 1024
256 is 33% of 768.

You're making it 25% wider and 33% higher. Eventually the aspect ratio is gonna change.

 

[Synful Serenity]

And to look at it another way, the values being added have to be in the same ratio as the originals to preserve it and can't be the same number, so adding 256 and 256 is 1:1 and alters the proportion, or you could also look at it as above. But adding 256 to each side of 1024 x 768 is certainly plausible for the industry to have done in arriving at 1280x1024. They could have come to their senses on the way to 1600 x 1200 and realized that adding linearly like that would progressively square the screen, in that case (the next rung up, 1536 x 1280, would be 6:5, then 7:6, then 8:7, and so on. Interestingly, that number, 1536, is part of another main resolution, 2048 x 1536, which is the same as 8x256 x 6x256. There's gotta be something at work here).

I think we can pretty much state that 1024's and 256's significance in binary has at least *something* to do with it.

SOMEone's either had too much caffeine, or rides the subway all day.

Heh I usually drive, but you're right on the caffeine part

 

[ikellensbro]

I dunno exactly why I use 1280x1024 on my 19" cRT, but it just <feels> better somehow to me. You really have try it out yourself gaming, word processing, etc. to see which you like more. Yes, I know that this resolution is technically stretching everything up more, but I just like 1280x1024 over 1280x960. I don't get why every 17" lcd has 1280x1024, but it could be the extra vertical pixels you get from 1024 over 960, or maybe the manufacturers like their displays to either be wide or square with nothing inbetween. Maybe this is one of those questions that falls in the same category as why hot dogs come in bags of 10 but the buns only come in bags of 8 the world may never truly know...

Speaking of caffeine, it's 2:30 here, so I really need to go to bed (but hey, it's summer ).

 

[kurtlim]

it puzzle me for years too on why monitor use 1280x1024 when CRT is in 4:3 aspect ratio. i still remmember i had to spend 3 DAYS to get the damn Radeon 64 DDR to display 1280x960.

i could care less for LCD to use 1280x1024 since its in 5:4 physically anyway. i dont see any cons on having the extra screen estate too. anything that dont support 1280x1024, is easily overcome with "fixed aspect ratio scaling" in display properties.

if you think 1280x1024 is abnormal, try the 1680x1050 on widescreen 20" LCD. it isnt 16:9 like widescreen movie and neither res are found anywhere else too.

 

[Chimowowo]

Nice reply's. It was just one of those things I've been wondering about for a while. I even ran in that res for a while till I finally thought out the math and figured out it was wrong. Not that there is anything wrong with running that res, it really doesn't look that off when running in that res. And I guess it doesn't matter much as we creep on by. I prefer 1600x1200 anyways.

I think the adding of 256 to 1024x768 to push it over 1000 sounds the most correct to me. Especially if this was so long ago that numbers like that would have been impressive. Not that I'm saying a company would ever mess with standards to make their product seem more impressive than it really is.

 

[Pyrolistical]

Nice topic.

And if anybody's friend doesn't believe you ath 1280x1024 should not be used on a CRT, open up paint on their computer and hold down shift while drawing a circle.

The circle should be perfectly round, but at 1280x1024 on a CRT, it won't be

 

[Unknown-One]

Pyrolistical=MS Paint master

...did you remember that off the top of your head, or do you have a cheat sheet? (If its a cheat sheet, I want a copy )

 

[Zovreign]

Nice topic.

And if anybody's friend doesn't believe you ath 1280x1024 should not be used on a CRT, open up paint on their computer and hold down shift while drawing a circle.

The circle should be perfectly round, but at 1280x1024 on a CRT, it won't be

Depends on the monitor calibration. I've been using 1280x1024 since the SGI Indy/Indigo 2 days in the mid 90's and today on my linux box at work.

My workstation is set to 1280x1024, and my circles are circle, but my monitor is color, gamma and geometry calibrated every week by a guy because of my effects work.

As a result my display does not take up the entire viewable space on my display [I got black bars on the right and left sides of my display] but I'm not permitted to adjust my monitor once its calibrated, infact I'm locked out of the adjustment controls .

I can use a higher display resolution if I wish but the sybex display extender at my desk only gives a clean video signal at resolutions up to 1280x1024, past that I get noise .

 

[ikellensbro]

Fro those too lazy to try this out themselves:

No, both monitors are not perfectly calibrated, but it kinda shows the point. The circle on the left is on my Samsung 997DF @ 1280x1024 while the circle on the left is on an old Tektronix @ 1152x864 (same proportion as 1024x768). I simply lined up the paint screens close the the center between the monitors (997DF on the left) while I made a circle while holding down shift then copying it to the other screen. I personally don't really see that much distotion from 1280x1024, but that's because my eyes are probably just used to it by now.

 

[Black Ghost]

Fro those too lazy to try this out themselves:

No, both monitors are not perfectly calibrated, but it kinda shows the point. The circle on the left is on my Samsung 997DF @ 1280x1024 while the circle on the left is on an old Tektronix @ 1152x864 (same proportion as 1024x768). I simply lined up the paint screens close the the center between the monitors (997DF on the left) while I made a circle while holding down shift then copying it to the other screen. I personally don't really see that much distotion from 1280x1024, but that's because my eyes are probably just used to it by now.

Well, the reason that you don't see much distortion right now is because they're the same NUMBER of pixels in each dimension. But when you LOOK at the circle in 12x10, sideways especially, then it's squished. Only way you'd get a reliable comparison is if you took a digital camera and took a picture of each. Then overlayed them or something.

 

[Rix2357]

I tried that MS Paint thing and I wasn't able to see the distortion, but I was able to measure it with a ruler. On a 2 inch diameter circle, it was off by 1/4 inch. I have my picture completely filling the max viewable area. Nice effect about it is that it makes girls look skinnier so it sort of takes off that 10 lb effect of the camera.

 

[1c3d0g]

yeah, that's what I thought too. And I hope they have a really good reason for it because I really hate the fact that this stupid resolution is standard on 17"/19" LCDs

Well fucking said! The person who invented that stupid, illogical, non-standard 5:4 ratio should be taken out back and shot...

 

[_jd_]

...I have my picture completely filling the max viewable area. Nice effect about it is that it makes girls look skinnier...

uhmmm... you might want to think about that one again

 

[Rix2357]

uhmmm... you might want to think about that one again

The circle at 1280x1024 is taller than it is wide so it makes girls look skinnier, unless you like looking at them in portrait mode.....

 

[Yonzie]

The circle at 1280x1024 is taller than it is wide so it makes girls look skinnier, unless you like looking at them in portrait mode.....

No. You put 1024px in the space where ther should only have been 960, thereby squashing it vertically making them look... eh... heavier.
That's of course provided you use a 4:3 screen.

 

[Pyrolistical]

Pyrolistical=MS Paint master

...did you remember that off the top of your head, or do you have a cheat sheet? (If its a cheat sheet, I want a copy )

Just something I picked up years ago.

 

[Ruffy]

1280x1024 always looked better on any 19" CRT I''ve used compared to 1280x960

As for aspect ratio and 5:4 shit. Not all tubes are 4:3

As for exact circles. I've printed screenshots of blueprints(Program I had wouldnt print properly, so I took pictures instead)
Anyway I retraced with a rule and all aspect ratios and sizes were fine.

 

[postalcop]

Learn something new every day. I've been running games at 1280x1024 ever since I got my 6600gt a couple of months ago. I though 1280x960 was for widescreen. I've got a 19" samsung 955df crt. Guess I'll try the 960 res.

 

[Rix2357]

No. You put 1024px in the space where ther should only have been 960, thereby squashing it vertically making them look... eh... heavier.
That's of course provided you use a 4:3 screen.

Well, let me clarify then, on my screen at 1280x1024, my circle is nearly round and it is taller than it is wider. For a 2 inch circle, I am off by less than 1/4", which isn't much and why I had to bust out a ruler and measure that biatch