- Joined
- 2 Aug 2005
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- Cleveland, Ohio, USA
This past weekend I installed Windows for the first time on my MythTV box since I had the urge to replay Portal from the comfort of the couch using a wireless keyboard and mouse. I've been using it for about a year for watching movies and TV shows, browsing the web, and such.
A bit of background: I use the Mythbunbtu distro for this use because it's so easy and slick to set up. By default the non-MythTV bits are set up as a normal desktop. This means that all the application fonts, icons, etc. are too small to read from 15 feet away. This was extremely easy to fix; I just cranked the DPI setting up to 180. Instantly everything becomes huge, I don't have to fart around with the screen resolution (since I still want HD movies and TV shows to be rendered in full resolution). Firefox blows pages up to be readable in a few keystrokes then remembers that setting for the domain forever. Icons, buttons, menus, everything pretty much gets to be large enough to read from far away.
On the Windows side I need some help. I've cranked up the DPI, but it won't let me go higher than 120. This is too small. I can tell it to use extra large fonts, but that only seems to effect window decorations and a few other bits and bobs. Nothing seems to be comprehensive.
I tried setting a custom resolution. My brainstorm was that I could divide the resolution by 4 (1920 x 1080 becomes 960 x 540) so that every pixel it outputs would be mapped to a block of 4 pixels and as such the picture would remain sharp but ATI's CCC didn't seem to let me. There must be a more elegant solution than changing the screen resolution.
So I ask of ye Windows experts, what is the best way to make Windows easy to use from far away? Surely I'm not the only one trying to do this.
A bit of background: I use the Mythbunbtu distro for this use because it's so easy and slick to set up. By default the non-MythTV bits are set up as a normal desktop. This means that all the application fonts, icons, etc. are too small to read from 15 feet away. This was extremely easy to fix; I just cranked the DPI setting up to 180. Instantly everything becomes huge, I don't have to fart around with the screen resolution (since I still want HD movies and TV shows to be rendered in full resolution). Firefox blows pages up to be readable in a few keystrokes then remembers that setting for the domain forever. Icons, buttons, menus, everything pretty much gets to be large enough to read from far away.
On the Windows side I need some help. I've cranked up the DPI, but it won't let me go higher than 120. This is too small. I can tell it to use extra large fonts, but that only seems to effect window decorations and a few other bits and bobs. Nothing seems to be comprehensive.
I tried setting a custom resolution. My brainstorm was that I could divide the resolution by 4 (1920 x 1080 becomes 960 x 540) so that every pixel it outputs would be mapped to a block of 4 pixels and as such the picture would remain sharp but ATI's CCC didn't seem to let me. There must be a more elegant solution than changing the screen resolution.
So I ask of ye Windows experts, what is the best way to make Windows easy to use from far away? Surely I'm not the only one trying to do this.
