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  • Keep your PC's internals and externals in tiptop shape by following the sage advice of Contributing Editor Kirk Steers.
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Hardware Tips: Simple Tweaks for Peak PC Graphics Performance

Kirk Steers

Living in a Flat World

Notebook displays are fine-tuned in the factory to work with the system's other hardware; your desktop's flat panel likely isn't. And tuning an LCD isn't the same as tuning a CRT monitor. If both your LCD and graphics board support Digital Visual Interface connections, make sure they're using them. Vendors don't always ship a DVI cable with cards that produce both analog and digital signals, so you'll have to replace the analog cable. If your display supports DVI but your graphics card doesn't, upgrade your card.

Make sure your LCD is set to its native resolution. Many flat-panel displays don't look good at other resolutions. Unfortunately, some 15-inch LCDs have a native resolution of 1024 by 768 dpi, which makes text minuscule. The solution is to open Display Properties, click Appearance, and change the setting on the 'Font size' drop-down menu to increase the size of your text. (Most browsers include their own font-size settings.)

In Windows XP, open Display Properties, click Appearance, Effects, and check Use the following method to smooth screen fonts. Select ClearType to see a big improvement in the appearance of many of your fonts.

Click here to view past Hardware Tips columns. Send your tips and questions to kirk_steers@pcworld.com. We pay $50 for published items. Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor.
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