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I have a 3-monitor setup: a Dell Precision M4700 (max resolution 1920x1080) and two Dell P2210 monitors (resolutions 1680x1050). I'm running my external monitors at their native resolutions, but running the laptop display at its native resolution makes stuff very small in relationship to the other two monitors.

To get consistent sizing between all 3 monitors, I have to put the laptop monitor display at 1366x768, but this makes the display on the laptop monitor pretty blurry.

Is there any way to keep the three displays consistent with each other size-wise without sacrificing picture clarity on the laptop monitor?

harrymc
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Dang Khoa
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  • 1) Keep the resolution of a LCD on it native resolution or on whole multiples of native resolution (e.g. 960x600 on a 1920x1200 screen). 2) In windows can use the DPI settings to render things larger. I am not sure if you can apply that to a single screen though. (and making everything on all three screens equally bigger does not solve the problem). – Hennes Jun 12 '13 at 17:22
  • Seems like the solution is to set your monitors resolution to 1920x1080 instead of 1680x1050 – Ramhound Jun 12 '13 at 17:56
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    @Ramhound - 1920x1080 is not a native resolution for those monitors. Indeed, it doesn't look very good.. – Dang Khoa Jun 12 '13 at 18:12
  • @DangKhoa - What sort of graphics card do you have? Sounds like you are up the creek with a paddle if your monitors do not support the native resolution your laptop display supports. – Ramhound Jun 13 '13 at 11:00
  • @Ramhound - it's an nVidia Quadro K2000M. – Dang Khoa Jun 13 '13 at 15:03

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I believe this cannot be solved using the built-in tools of Windows. The natural solution of changing the DPI does not work in Windows because it is per-system and so applies to all the monitors. Only Linux has that capacity for the moment.

It is possible that third-party software could create differing profiles per monitor. You could try the trial versions of the two leading products, UltraMon and DisplayFusion, although the hopes are slim as both this UltraMon thread and DisplayFusion thread decline that capability.

There is a possibility that this might improve in Windows 8.1 (Blue), as described in the article
In Blue: Automatic Desktop Display Scaling.

harrymc
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