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I have a Windows XP (yes, XP) desktop that has a NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT graphics card, using an LG W2042TQ (20 inch widescreen monitor ). I always had a kinda “weird” display on that computer—not horrible—but everything like the start button and the icons are a bit stretched and wide.

I decided to try if I could have a better display (current resolution is 1280x768). And I saw that behind that computer theres a DVI to VGA converter plugged in the DVI port of the graphics card, and then a VGA cable link the monitor to that converter (weird setup).

I decided to buy a dual link DVI cable, I hooked it up, but I’m getting the exact same display, not even better. I tried changing the resolution to the highest possible (1680x1050) but then the display is even worse (everything is really small--icons, start button, ...), and display quality is kind of bad.

There are 2 DVI ports (side by side) behind the computer, I plugged the DVI cable on the same port the DVI to VGA converter was plugged in. Any solutions on how I could make the display more natural or it just has to be like that?

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    So you used your display with a resolution much lower than the native resolution for years. Now you’re confused by the “native” size of on-screen elements. Take a look again: Is the quality really bad? Or is it just different? Are the lines between comments on this page blurred in any way?
    – Daniel B
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 5:43
  • Well everything is soo small... like the icons on the desktop are so "skinny" the start button is really tiny
    – Martin B.
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 5:44
  • You can make those things larger using the control panel. Def. want a full-path of DVI to the monitor, just unplug the VGA cable.
    – Yorik
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 21:04
  • It’s not “soo small” but almost exactly 76%×73% of the original size. Earlier, you were using your 16:10 monitor with a 16:9 resolution, making everything appear taller than it was supposed to.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 11:38

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What's the native resolution of your monitor, does your graphics card (and its driver) support this resolution and what is the screen resolution setting in XP, because, from Display resolution:

One use of the term "display resolution" applies to fixed-pixel-array displays such as plasma display panels (PDP), liquid-crystal displays (LCD), Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors, OLED displays, and similar technologies, and is simply the physical number of columns and rows of pixels creating the display (e.g. 1920 × 1080). A consequence of having a fixed-grid display is that, for multi-format video inputs, all displays need a "scaling engine" [..] to match the incoming picture format to the display.

[Emphasis by me.]

If your monitor has to scale, effects you describe can be the result.

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