Why is image stretched vertically on widescreen monitor?

[Val]

Thanks for the reply, Stuart. 

Please forgive my inexperience with this subject, but I still don't
understand why the image gets stretched. If X assumes square pixels,
then the only way a 10x10 circle would look like a 10x12 (approx.)
circle is if the pixels on the LCD were rectangular, with height >
width. I thought that LCDs had square pixels... is that assumption
wrong?

Also, assuming that the pixels on the LCD are not square, if the X
server knew the height/width ratio of the pixels, couldn't it compensate
during the drawing operations?

I never tried widescreen monitors before, but it seems strange to me
that they would all have this drawback. The stretching is significant
enough that I can detect it by noticing that people's faces are too
narrow and tall when looking at photographs, which is very frustrating
for me...


-- 
Val <vace117 at yahoo.ca>

On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 13:35 -0700, Stuart Kreitman wrote:
> Val:
> 
> The X protocol assumes square pixels (1:1) so you should observe some 
> degree of squish on any non-square display. Its just that you have a 
> side by side comparison of 2 different aspect ratios that accentuates 
> the effect.  The DPI setting is for the use of clients that perform 
> their own drawing operations.


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