Follow up questions about external display resolutions...

I had asked about getting widescreen monitors to display on a standard 4:3 external screen and use the full screen instead of being letterboxed, which seems to be no problem.

I went to the local Best Buy and was messing around with some laptop screens there, and the only resolutions they have listed in their "Display settings" dialog seem to be the widescreen resolutions (except the occasional 1280:1024 and the always available 800:600).

If I hook a 4:3 monitor up to my laptop will the Display Settings automatically populate with 4:3 resolutions? Will I have to install monitor drivers and then select the monitor from a list to get the right settings available? Or do I just have to make sure I get a laptop that supports some reasonable 4:3 resolutions?

 

In display properties click advanced click monitor in monitor setting make sure “Hide modes that this monitor cannot display” is not checked, now you can see what the card can handle. If you could of just attached the external and clicked on it windows probably would of showed other choices, no drivers needed.

 

I have run an external 4:3 monitor on a widescreen laptop before with no issues. As said above, this'll be because the widescreen monitor on the laptop is not intended to display 4:3 resolutions. When an external monitor is connected the settings for it would display resolutions available for the external which would be the resolutions the external can display.

Hope that makes sense and helps!