Minimum resolution

Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Solved by

Mar 29, 2011 06:53

Hi!

I have a widescreen monitor, and the only readable resolution is 1202x688. Since 688 is lower than 768, PD9 keeps saying I need to run at resolution 1024x768 all the time. I've seen several have posted about this before, but could not see any resounding successes in resolving it. (This message is cr*p anyway; What is resolution? Number of pixels on the screen. 1024x768=786,432 and 1202x688=826,976 pixels. Ie, I DO have a HIGHER resolution. What they're actually complaining about is Height, NOT Resolution... And in this day and age, to insist on a 4:3 ratio in a commercial video editing application I find astounding.)

I contacted tech support and got the usual standard answers that I'm sure everyone else with the problem has had. It felt quite rude actually, fobbing me off. Even though I had already said that any higher resolution than what I have, is unreadable, they said I should switch to 1920x1080 resolution. That resolution literally makes all text, including PowerDesigner, utterly unreadable on my monitor. Letters the size of ants heads.

But I have found a workaround I wanted to share. I noticed that if you start it in 1024x768, leave it open, and change the resolution back to what you actually want, it will work just fine. It will say "...supports 1024x768 or higher. Do you want to continue?" and if you press "Yes", it will indeed happily continue. I have not found any problems with that, except for only seeing half of the Start button on the Produce page, but I can live with that; I can still click it.

Then I discovered this tool: http://www.12noon.com/displaychanger.htm It allows you to change the resolution in a script. After a few hours of tinkering, I got a perfect workaround. I created this bat file:

C:
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\12noon Display Changer\"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\12noon Display Changer\dc64cmd.exe" -width=1768 -height=992 -depth=32 -refresh=30 -
fixedoutput=center -apply
cd "C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector\"
start PDR9.exe
"C:\Program Files (x86)\12noon Display Changer\dc64cmd.exe" -width=1202 -height=688 -depth=32 -refresh=60 -
fixedoutput=center -apply

It works like a charm. Running it, the screen turns black for a moment while searching for the resolution, and comes back with PowerDirector in the resolution I want - with no messages of any kind.

If anyone has a better solution, I'd be glad to hear it.

Brgds

Danny

Rocket-Scientist

Senior Member Location: HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA Joined: Apr 23, 2010 10:14 Messages: 288 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 10:54

windows 7 has the ability to map a higher nominal screen resolution to the monitor's native resolution, most ATI based graphics cards have an even more quality mapping, so you have choices of making windows do the work or force each software vendor to accomodate each monitor vendor's native resolution. RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
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Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 11:16

Hi!

"Map the nominal resolution to the monitor's resolution"? How do you do that?

Brgds

Danny

All vodi

Senior Contributor Location: Canada Joined: Aug 21, 2009 11:24 Messages: 1431 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 14:10

Right clicking the DESKTOP affords you a "Personalization" and "Screen resolution" option. That is what Rocket-Scientist is referring to. It works. And if you're serious about HD, 1920x1080 is the way to go. Win 10, i7

Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 14:23

Hi!

Then neither of you read my post. The issue is that I can't use those higher resolutions, as well as others according to the search I've done of this forum. The workaround I posted, made it possible to start PowerDirector in a "lower" resolution.

Brgds

Danny

All vodi

Senior Contributor Location: Canada Joined: Aug 21, 2009 11:24 Messages: 1431 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 14:34

Most of us have 1920x1080 screens and have no problem making our applications readable, thanks to Win7. (With earlier versions of Windows that was not practical.) And it's not necessary to do any special scripting as a result. Win 10, i7

Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 15:22

Hi!

Well, it just so happens that my native resolution IS 1920x1080. It's a 50" plasma TV. It still makes text unreadable at that size, especially considering I'm in a 10' experience situation.

Please refrain from saying I can change my DPI or buy a second computer/monitor to run graphics work on. You don't get my original post at all.

Brgds

Danny

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 15:50

Daniel Magnus

You have found one of Powerdirector's built in quirks.

If you set your computer display resolution to 1280 x 720 Powerdirector will throw the message that the screen resolution must be greater than 1024 x 768.

BUT, if you set your computer display to 1280 x 768, Powerdirector is happy.

Any screen resolution equal to or greater than 1024 x 768 works except for 1280 x 720, the relevant dimension is the 720, Powerdirector does not know that 1280x720 is greater than 1024x768, It is looking for a number equal to or bigger than 768.

My screen is 1280 x 768 for that reason.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.