If you’re like most people, you probably have a monitor that’s only resolution 768x480. If you want to use the full resolution of your monitor, you’ll need to upgrade to a new monitor. But how do you do that? There are a few ways to upgrade your monitor:

  1. Buy a new monitor. This is the most common way to upgrade your monitor, but it can be expensive and it may not be compatible with all of your existing software.
  2. Use an external graphics card. This is a way to upgrade your monitor without buying a new one and it can be used on many different types of computers.
  3. Use an app called “MonitorMate.” This app will let you change the resolution of your computer’s screen using the monitors in your house and it’s free for both Mac and Windows users.

Having a monitor with a very high resolution is awesome, but what do you do when Google Chrome and Internet Explorer refuse to make appropriate use of all that resolution real-estate? Today’s SuperUser Q&A has some possible solutions to one reader’s resolution dilemma.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

The Question

SuperUser reader curtis needs help to make his browsers use the full resolution of his monitor:

Is there a way for Curtis to get his browsers to make use of the full resolution of his monitor?

On Chrome it is showing as 1280720, and on Internet Explorer it is showing as 1600900. According to whatismyscreenresolution.com, it is showing different values for different browsers. I took a screenshot of both and verified that my resolution is 3200*1800 since that is the size of the image in pixels.

I am on a laptop with no monitor plugged in and my zoom setting for both browsers is set at 100%. I have tried zooming below 100%, but then the text is unreadable and pixellated. I have tried restarting Windows 8.1. I have tried the Chrome extension OptiZoom, but it does nothing. document.body.clientWidth makes the resolution 1247 pixels, but I want to make it 3200.

The Answer

SuperUser contributors Boaz and Daniel B have the answer for us. First up, Boaz:

Followed by the answer by Daniel B:

This is most likely an issue caused by the Window 8.1 “Display Scaling” feature. You can see a relevant post in the Google Chrome forum.

Possible Solution

Try disabling this feature for your browsers. For example, locate the Chrome executable which is commonly found in %ProgramFiles(x86)%/Google/Chrome/Application/. Right click on the file, select “Properties”, and then under the “Compatibility” tab tick the box saying “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”.

Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

  1. Disable DPI scaling in Chrome’s compatibility settings (Properties on executable or shortcuts) – a last resort “solution”.

  2. Go to chrome://flags and enable experimental Windows HiDPI support. (Gone now, apparently.)

  3. Load the following .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5. 00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\Profile] “high-dpi-support”=dword:00000001

A word of warning though. HiDPI is under development and has issues. If you can not live with that, I suggest you try an alternative browser like Firefox. It is supposed to have better DPI scaling support.