Finally got a new monitor!

[Hi Ho]

I wasn't planning on buying a new monitor when I got out of bed this morning. However, after work on a payday is a dangerous time to walk into a store like Best Buy.

I ended up buying a Westinghouse LCM-20v5 20.1" LCD monitor for $230. It is a very nice piece of equipment and I am very impressed with it. It is lightyears ahead of my old CTL 17" CRT which I got for under $100 a few years ago. The contrast ratio was so bad on it that when I tried to calibrate it using the nVidia optomizer wizard, the shades of gray were one big black blob no matter how high the brightness settings.

Anyway, if you haven't noticed yet, I'm very happy with this monitor. I have noticed a few things, however, involving games. I have only tried Call of Duty United Offensive. The native resolution of the monitor is 1400x1050. The closest resolution in Call of Duty is 1280x1024. I know people go in and mess with the game files in order to create custom resolutions. Does anyone have any suggestions on where I would find this info? I would need it for games such as Medal of Honor Allied Assault, FEAR, Half Life 2, CS: Source, and Far Cry.

[Tin]

Hmmmm, 1400x1050 sounds like a very strange resolution for a 20.1" widescreen. Every one of them Ive seen is 1600x1050. Whats the exact model of your monitor?

[Hi Ho]

LCM-20v5 is the exact model. It is an odd resolution. I am not interested in ultra high resolutions. If I can't get games to run at the native resolution it's not a huge deal since it doesn't look bad at 1280x1024.

[juppy]

Congrats on the new monitor! Sounds nice! For Half-Life 2, you can force it to run at different resolutions by using a couple command line parameters. In this case you'd use the -width and -height commands. For instance "-width 1400 -height 1050" (without the quotes, of course) should make it start up in a 1400 x 1050 resolution. Might have to add the "-fullscreen" parameter too if it starts up inside a window and you've got a blue box around the whole thing.

[Hi Ho]

Thanks for the reply Juppy. I started up Half Life 2 and CS: Source right after making this post and discovered that 1400x1050 is already an option so it appears that games running on the Source engine are covered.

[juppy]

Oh really? Cool. I didn't know that resolution was in there. Guess I need to open up my control panel in HL2 a little more often, huh?

[Hi Ho]

I think it automatically added it when it showed up in the Windows control panel. That resolution wasn't anywhere to be found on my PC until I plugged in the new monitor. I installed Halo tonight and it has the correct resolution as well.

Medal of Honor is a bit fuzzy. The highest resolution I can get it to run at is 1280X1024. When I try to go to 1600x1200 it gives me an OpenGL error. It would be nice to find a way to create custom resolutions for MOH and COD.