Advice on LCD setup for user with poor eyesight

[PARUK]

I've just built a new PC for a friend who has rather poor eyesight. He's got a whopping great Acer 24in LCD monitor with a native res of 1920 x 1200 (he bought this himself), and I've been trying to set up both the monitor and the OS (XP) to provide the best possible viewing experience.

The monitor is running off a Radeon HD 2400 Pro via VGA cable ( the monitor does not have DVI input)

What I've done so far:
- Set Large icons, turned on clear type
- Set native res for monitor, but turned up dpi to 150
- Turned up the contrast
- Configured browser/email proggies to default to large fonts
- Installed a high contrast theme in XP

Can anybody think of any other settings that might help that I've missed?

 

[malcolm]

I set up a system for my 86 year old father using a standard 17" TFT. I set the resolution to 800 x 600 (intrinsic is 1280 x 1024 of course) but found the crapmed desk space too small, so used 1024 x 786. Despite the 'upscaling' my old Philips 170C coped very well and using a higher dpi (as you have done) the image was a lot easier for him to read.

There are lots of 'magnifier' programs to try, some follow the mouse, some use a band at another part of the screen, it's a case of horses for courses.

With such a large screen as your friend has I'd try halving the resolution to 960x 600 (if that size exists) so the pixel size is 2:1, just depends on how 'partialy sighted' your friend is. That would give really big details on the screen.

 

[PARUK]

Thanks malcolm - I'll give the half res idea a try.