Guide to VGA display

[sorenholm]

I am getting settled in with my Amix X50v (having migrated from Palms), but one area I haven't been able to figure out is using the screen at VGA resolution. I've tried OzVGA but find it too confusing. Anyone know of any introductions/guides available to help me along?

[Darius Wey]

Your device is already VGA-enabled, so what you're using by default is VGA at high DPI. What OzVGA does is enable true-VGA mode which brings it back to standard DPI settings, so you essentially get more screen space, but the VGA resolution itself (i.e. 480x640) won't change.

SE_VGA tends to be a lot easier to use over OzVGA, so you might want to give that a spin.

[Menneisyys]

I am getting settled in with my Amix X50v (having migrated from Palms), but one area I haven't been able to figure out is using the screen at VGA resolution. I've tried OzVGA but find it too confusing. Anyone know of any introductions/guides available to help me along?

Yes, as Darius has pointed out, ozVGA is very complicated at first. It also has quite bad doomentation. For example, I've only understood all its secrets when I understood how fonts are handled in the WM2003SE registry. (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40056) To begin, SE_VGA is the choice to go. Then, when you know more of how WinCE works (on the registry level), you'll, however, find ozVGA indispensable and much more powerful.

[JPD6825]

Darius,
Surely, it is not obvious to you, but even your answer must be pretty cryptic to the newbie - to - intermediate user. It would he hugely helpful to many if you could define some of the terms you have used. How about a short explanation of what you mean by "VGA at high DPI" and "true VGA mode" and "standard DPI settings". Or point the way to an explanation sitting out there...

[Darius Wey]

Darius,
Surely, it is not obvious to you, but even your answer must be pretty cryptic to the newbie - to - intermediate user. It would he hugely helpful to many if you could define some of the terms you have used. How about a short explanation of what you mean by "VGA at high DPI" and "true VGA mode" and "standard DPI settings". Or point the way to an explanation sitting out there...

Sorry, mate. :oops:

DPI is an abbreviation for "dots per inch" (the correct term in reference to displays is actually PPI - "pixels per inch", but the former is commonly used due to its similarities with DPI measurements in reference to printers). Quite simply, it is a measurement of resolution of the display. Your display being VGA (i.e. 480x640 or 640x480, depending on your screen orientation) will always have the same number of pixels. So in this context, what DPI refers to is the size of text and objects for the given resolution of your device. In reality, given the real definition of DPI, the use of the DPI term here is inaccurate, but is a term which has stuck for simplicity's sake. "Scaling" is probably a better word to describe it all, but I'll stick with DPI for now.

By default, a VGA Windows Mobile-device is configured at VGA high DPI - which if you've noticed, has larger text and essentially less screen space due to the compensatory mechanisms of high DPI. Here's an example:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/parekh/features/SE_VGA/SE-VGA.gif

What SE_VGA and Oz_VGA can do is enable a mode commonly referred to as "true-VGA", which is just a term used to describe VGA and normal DPI. The amount of screen space for a given area on the device's display increases, but the font sizes decrease, which can be a strain on the eyes. Here's an example:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/parekh/features/SE_VGA/SE-SmallVGA.gif

Between the two modes, your device will always remain at VGA resolution. Essentially, all that changes is screen space and text size.

In a standard Windows PC environment, you can play around with similar settings. Right-click the Desktop, and select "Properties". Next, select the "Settings" tab and hit the "Advanced" button. Then select the "General" tab and have a play around with the DPI settings to increase and decrease font sizes. Hopefully, that'll give you a general idea of what it all means.

[Sven Johannsen]

Do you guys remember a kid's toy called Lite Brite. It had holes into which you put colored pegs to make pictures. Imagine a set that has 240 x 320 holes. That is essentially a QVGA screen. You can make what ever pictures you can, by lighting each hole with whatever color you want.

Now imagine the same sized set, height and width, but make twice as many holes in each direction, 480 x 640. The light pegs are also 1/4 the size of the earlier ones. That is VGA. To get exactly the same picture with the VGA set as with the QVGA set, you have to put in four pegs in the VGA set for every one you needed in the QVGA set.

If you had made a triangle with big pegs/pixels

O
OO
OOO
OOOO
OOOOO
OOOOOO

You might now need to do this with little pixels

::
::::
::::::
::::::::
::::::::::
::::::::::::

To get the same result.

The operating sytem takes care of most of this for you. With more pixels (dots) you can get better detail, and more clarity. Potentially you can also get more stuff on the screen. If you made the triangle with the same number of small pixels as large ones, you would get something like

:.
:::.
:::::.

Half as big in each direction.

The OS maps the normal 240 x 320 screen that you are used to seeing onto twice as many pixels on a VGA PPC. There are always 480 x 640 pixels. If you trick the OS into not doubling, you would map the 240 x 320 dots onto the top left 240 x 320 pixels on the 480 x 640 screen covering only the top left quadrant.

With the VGA hacks, fortunately it doesn't work quite like that. The top bar is half as tall as normal, but does extend all the way across the whole PPC. The menu bar is all the way at the bottom, extends all the way across, but is again half as tall. At the top and bottom, the icons are half as big vertically and horizontally, so really 1/4 sized. To me they are hard to see and hard to hit. Between the bars you could get twice the number of rows and columns in a spreadsheet, because each cell is a quarter as big as it used to be.

The OS inherently has the ability to adjust the text size on the standard screen. That's because more pixels gives you more flexibility in how you create things with the dots. It is however basically 240x320 pieces of info, on 480 x 640 dots. The hacks, force the OS to treat the screen as the 480 x 640 dot screen it really is. The better VGA hacks give you some control on how you want the OS to handle portions of the screen, so that you can keep things legible, but still get more stuff on it, by not doing the automatic doubling that is normal.

This is over simplified a great deal, but I hope it gives some insight on what is going on.

[SteveHoward999]

The amount of screen space for a given area on the device's display increases, but the font sizes decrease, which can be a strain on the eyes.


Just wanted to point out that since the screenshots have been reduced in size to appear as if they were PDA-sized, the fidelity of the images has been lost ... so the text looks a lot more blurred than it does on the actual devices. The actual devices can show twice as many pixels in the same screen area and so the text is much clearer than suggested by the screenshots.

So far I have not found reading even at the smallest text sizes a strain on my eyes at all. I know many people may, but since I am approaching 40 I cannot blame lack of eyestrain on my youth, so I sadly have to blame it on excellent screen clarity.
:-)

[Hx4700]

Good thread guys. :lol: :D :lol:
Ron...

[sorenholm]

Good thread indeed! I am a little overwhelmed by the responsiveness and friendliness. Thank you all!

[kaitanium]

yup good thread, i too didnt know that the x50v was already vga enabled and that you couldnt change it...i thought 320x240 actually looked that good =P on new devices since my last pda was months and months ago. se_vga stopped working on my x50, its not even starting up anymore, not even after a uninstall/reinstall. dunno whats up.

[Darius Wey]

So far I have not found reading even at the smallest text sizes a strain on my eyes at all. I know many people may, but since I am approaching 40 I cannot blame lack of eyestrain on my youth, so I sadly have to blame it on excellent screen clarity.
:-)

I'm in the same boat - young eyes, good strain tolerance. :lol:

[Sven Johannsen]

i too didnt know that the x50v was already vga enabled and that you couldnt change it.
Yea, the number of pixels across and down is what it is, 480x640. What the OS/OEM does with those pixels is what you see.

Have you ever hard reset and started over from scratch? Might give that some thought. If you go that route, might be worth looking at the ROM updates if you haven't.

[kaitanium]

im holding out until dell sends me the wm5 upgrade. ill do it all at once. its not that long of a wait hopefully.

[JDTagish]

When you go to do your hard reset, you may want to consider this:

Get all of your passwords/registration codes entered for your programs after installation. Adjust your settings to however you like them. Then, make a clean backup, and store it in a separate location from your PDA, and keep a copy of that backup with your travel kit. This way, if you ever want to hard reset again and go with a "clean" restore, rather than restoring from a recent backup, you have done most of the work already.

I also keep an excel spreadsheet with the software name, version number, installation location (Main Memory, File Store, SD or CF Card) website/download location, email address used to purchase and registration number. This makes is a whole lot easier to re-enter those numbers, and to keep track of version changes, and once it has been put together, is easy to update, especially since I can store a copy on my PPC as well.

Not much to do with the VGA topic, sorry, but hopefully useful to someone.

[jhennig]

I love OzVGA and more directlt TrueVGA display mode as it makes the internet explorer a much more worthwhile program doubling the size of viewable pixels.