How do I determine what resolutions my screen can display?

[PastaFeast]

I have my PC hooked up to a 1080p LED 32" TV by Sharp. Everything looks great, but it was kind of a budget buy ($200) and only later on did I find out it is somewhat limited in what resolutions it's capable of displaying. I can hook a PS2 up to it and it'll display, but if it has to emulate a PS1 disc or if I hook the actual PS1 up to it, the screen turns all black with a box that says "MODE NOT SUPPORTED" and it just stays there. I read up on it and it looks like PS1 still used ~240p while the PS2 used 480p.

So my main concern is I got a graphics card coming in the mail and now I want to play some old PC games from over a decade ago that I missed out on. I have no idea if I'll be able to play them on this TV. I tried playing Doom on GZDoom and it gave me the same black screen, unsupported mode message. I don't know what resolution that starts up in, but it got me spooked for other games like Doom 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Hitman 2, and some 2D ones like the Commandos series and SimCity 4. I read you can adjust the config file to force a higher res, but if I can't even start the game so the config file gets created I'm still out of luck. After that black screen comes up there's no way to get back to my desktop so I have no choice but to just manually cut the power to the PC, which I don't like doing.

I got the manual for the TV (model LC-32LB261U) and it says this:
HDMI suggested resolutions: 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i
Component video suggested resolutions: 1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i

But when I go in to adjust screen resolution settings on my PC it gives me these options not listed above:
1920 x 1080
1600 x 900
1280 x 720
800 x 600

There's some more technically listed that are interspersed between them (like 1400 x 1050, etc), but I don't know exactly if they're supported or not (I'm hesitant to click it, find the screen goes dark, and then can't get back to 1080). So overall I just want to know what is the minimum resolution this TV can display because I am worried about buying some of these games only to get told the TV can't support them. And honestly I tried searching for some of those games to see what resolution they default launch in and I can't find much, so it's all a gamble right now as far as I can see. :/

 

[ronintexas]

1920 X 1080 = 1080i/1080p
1280 x 720 = 720p
640 X 480 = 480p

The easy conversion is the 2nd number (height) of the screen is the resolution for video broadcast. 480p was the standard TV mode before HDTV, 720p/720i and 1080p/1080i are the HDTV resolution modes.

P = progressive scan, I = Interlaced.

Interlaced scan: Traditional TV systems (such as NTSC, the standard TV system in the United States) use an interlaced scan, where half the picture appears on the screen at a time. The other half of the picture follows an instant later (1/60th of a second, to be precise). The interlaced system relies on the fact that your eyes can’t detect this procedure in action — at least not explicitly.

Progressive scan: In a progressive-scan system, the entire picture is painted at once, which greatly reduces the flickering that people notice when watching TV. Progressive scan is available throughout a range of TV types.

 

[PastaFeast]

Yeah it works with all those as far as TV signals go. I'm just worried how low a res it can support for PC. Like the 800 x 600 I know for sure can be displayed (thought it has faint horizontal lines scrolling from top to bottom). It sounds like that's still higher than 480p, right? Would changing the input from VGA to HDMI give me more options that could be displayed or is it something that is already set in stone and built into the TV? I read in one post someone said the video card lets you set the resolution options more precisely, but I don't have it yet so I don't know how it works.

 

[ronintexas]

HDMI should allow you to go to 1080p (best resolution). Sometimes the VGA port displays better on TV's - other times the HDMI does.

 

[Eggz]

Just use an HDMI cable and set your computer to 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz (i.e. 1080p). That's the intended resolution of that display and the intended cable. Using anything else won't display as well, even if you can technically get it to work.

 

[PastaFeast]

I know, that's not really what I'm asking. I can get 1080p to work no problem, I'm just worried if I get an old PC game from 1996 that doesn't run in 1080 and instead uses god knows what (just throwing a number out since I have no idea what games then used) 400x200 then regardless of what resolution my PC is set to display it'll switch over when I boot the game and the TV will refuse to show it. At least that's what happened last night with Doom. I just need to know if there's a menu somewhere I can pull up that will tell me how low my PC/TV setup is configured to go. I'm on Windows 7.

 

[Eggz]

If you are using an HDMI cable, it will support 1080p and lower resolutions. So the limiting factor will only be the screen (i.e. make sure you have the right connection).

Assuming you have that in place, open Nvidia Control Panel (or Catalyst Control if you have an AMD GPU, or Intel's graphics control panel if you have integrated graphics). From there, you will be able to set custom resolutions. Enter the resolution that the game should be using. It will either work or not. If not, just wait for about 30 seconds. The screen should revert back to the working resolution unless you press enter or click "yes" to keep the lower resolution.

If you have trouble attaining the lower resolution of your choice, then you should be able to force the old game to run in windowed mode. There are hacks for that you can look up online. Good luck!