On the topic of screen resolutions: Q or Q?

Warning: this post may contain scenes of a geeky nature.

So I’m looking for a new monitor. Actually, two new monitors – one for work, and one for home. On my PCs, I love a huge resolution, running a 19″ Iiyama VM Pro at 1600×1200 at work, and a 22″ Iiyama VM Pro at 1920×1440. Mmm, screen real estate. Thanks to the aceness that is Expos‚àö¬©, I manage happily with “just” 1280×800 on my MacBook, but on a Windows machine, I need the extra space.

The problem is, my eyes hurt. Giant CRT monitors flicker and burn. But they’re cheap, so you get more space for your money. Until recently. Now I’m in the market for a couple of big TFT screens, and in my research I’ve found a cheap HP L2045W, which is 20″ and does 1680×1050. It looks pretty good, and will replace my work monitor just fine. Then I noticed that there’s a 30″ equivalent – the LP3065 – which does a staggering 2560×1600. All that space! Just imagine how many windows I could have open next to each other on that!

Of course, there’s a cost. Two costs, in fact – the price, and the fact that humongous screen resolutions like that require what’s known as a “Dual Link” capable graphics card. Looking up the specs of my GeForce 5600FX online revealed nothing about it’s Dual Link abilities. Perhaps looking at the supported resolutions might help?

Someone suggested that 2560×1600 was also known as “WQXGA”. “Nonsense!” I said “XGA is 1024×768, so Quarter XGA must be 512×384! And Wide Quarter XGA would be 640×384 or something!”. Oh, how wrong I was, and here is the main point of this post.

My logic was thus: VGA is 640×480. QVGA, as found on many palmtops, phones and digital camera video formats, is 320×240 – “Quarter VGA”, you see? But no: the Powers that Be, whoever they are, have decreed that the Q in QXGA means “Quad”, not “Quarter”. Even though QVGA and QXGA come from the same bloody naming system.

Whilst finding all this out, I came across all sorts of names for various screen resolutions. Did you know, for example, there’s a QQVGA? That’s “Quarter-Quarter VGA”, or 160×120. At the other end of the scale, there’s WUQXGA – “Wide Ultra Quad XGA”, which weighs in with a slightly alarming 3840×2400. It doesn’t stop there either – with WHUXGA (Wide Hexadecatuple Ultra XGA) having a resolution of 7680×4800. I’d need a video wall for one of them.

The upshot of all this numeric excitement, however, is that I still haven’t found out if my card can support Dual Link and so the whole idea of buying a large display is on hold. Bah.