Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD
Edited by Grimm, Rushell, Eng, Crystal and 3 others
23 Parts:
...More
Contents
- 1 SwitchResX Preferences
- 2 Steps
- 3 Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD SwitchResX Preferences
- 4 General Settings
- 5 Steps
- 6 Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD General Settings
- 7 Display Sets
- 8 Steps
- 9 Video: Use SwitchRexX to Change Mac Display to HD Display Sets
- 10 Applications
- 11 Steps
- 12 Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Applications
- 13 Setting up Menus
- 14 Steps
- 15 Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Setting up Menus
- 16 Desktop Management
- 17 Steps
- 18 Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Desktop Management
- 19 Color LCD
- 20 Steps
- 21 Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Color LCD
- 22 Questions and Answers
- 23 Comments
SwitchResX Preferences
You're watching VisiHow. In this series of tutorials we will show you how to control and manage the settings and options for the SwitchResX application on the Mac OS X Yosemite.
Steps
- 1To get started, we need to open the System Preferences panel to access the SwitchResX option, which can be done by placing our cursor near the bottom of the screen until the doc opens.
- 2Then click on the "System Preferences" icon.
- 3We can also click on the Apple icon at the top left-hand corner of the screen.
- 4Then select "System Preferences" from the menu.
- 5Either way will open the "System Preferences" window.
- 6We will find "SwitchResX" on the fifth row at the bottom of the window.
- 7Click on "SwitchResX" once to open it.
- 8Using the menu on the left, we have the option to either learn "About SwitchResX", view and modify "General Settings", "Display Sets", "Applications", "Menus", "Desktop", and "Color LCD".
- 9Launching the Daemon will enable the options on the left side that are currently grayed out and disabled.On the main part of the window on the right side, we can also check for updates, "Install helper tools", "Uninstall helper tools", and "Launch Daemon".
- 10However, we strongly discourage using the built-in interface to "Register with Kagi", as it does not work well. Instead, we have a separate tutorial on purchasing "SwitchResX", which can be found here on VisiHow. For now, we'll go over the other functions, and later we'll demonstrate how to enter a serial number after we've purchased.At the top, we can also "Register with Kagi" and purchase the application, and "Enter serial number".
- 11To "Check online for update", click on "Check now" on the right, and it will automatically check for updates.
- 12We are currently running the latest version though.
- 13If we'd like to install the helper tools, we can click on "Install helper tools..." on the right.
- 14A small window appears, informing us of "SwitchResX helper modules".
- 15We have "SwitchResX Contextual Menu", which works in "Finder".
- 16We also have "SwitchResX Extensions", which enhance "SwitchResX features".
- 17Let's check both of these and click on "OK".
- 18Then we'll need to enter an administrative password.
- 19Once we've entered our administrative password, the helper tools will automatically be installed.
- 20However, we don't need to do that.To uninstall them, we can click on "Uninstall all helper tools".
- 21Now, in order to enable the remainder of menu options, we're going to click on "Launch Daemon".
- 22We have the option to "Cancel", "Show Web Page", or the source page where the application is from, or "Open".Clicking on "Launch Daemon" will open a small window, depending on our security settings, and ask whether or not we are going to allow the application to run.
- 23In this case, we can click "Open"
- 24Now, we can see all menu options on the left side are available.
- 25This indicates, "This copy of SwitchResX is not registered. You can try it and use it for 10 days. After that, if you find it useful, please consider registering." It also gives us the option to enter a serial number by clicking on a link if we have a serial number.We'll also see a pop-up window at the bottom left of the screen.
- 26We're going to click on the white circle with a black "x" at the top left-hand corner of that small window to close it.
- 27This concludes this tutorial on the basic options for the "SwitchResX Preferences". Please make sure to check out the rest of our tutorials, and ask us any questions, or leave any comments you may have in the section below.From here, you will be able to follow the rest of our tutorials on what to do for each of the menu options.
Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD SwitchResX Preferences
General Settings
You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are continuing our instructional series on using the SwitchResX application on your Mac, running OS X Yosemite, to switch to true HD or other screen resolutions. In this tutorial, we are going to go over the "General Settings", which is the second option on the left-hand side menu. To learn how to open or access the "SwitchResX Preferences" panel, please view the first part of this series of tutorials, which will show you how to use and open it.
Steps
- 1For now, let's go over to "General Settings" on the left side of the "SwitchResX Preferences" window and click one time.
- 2This option allows us to set shortcut keys to use for quitting the "SwitchResX Daemon".
- 3We also have the option "For opening SwitchResX Control" panel, again by using our own special shortcut keys.
- 4In this case, we'll click on the box next to the option, "For quitting the SwitchResX Daemon".To set a key, click in the box next to that option.
- 5Now, Q is the key that will be used to quit the "SwitchResX Daemon".Then we can press any key, for example, "Q".
- 6We can do the same thing by clicking on the box next to "For opening SwitchResX Control".
- 7Note that clicking outside of that small window will not work, and we must click inside the small window that reads, "Press the key shortcut for this action..."However, if we change our mind and decide not to change the shortcut key, we can just click on the small window to cancel.
- 8The "Startup settings" option allows the Daemon to be launched automatically after logging in.
- 9We will discuss these custom resolutions in a later tutorial. Those will appear in this section.In addition, we can choose which resolutions are applied when the Daemon starts.
- 10There are some other "General Settings" options as well.
- 11We can "Remember administrator password in Key chain".
- 12We can only allow SwitchResX to enable a screen that has been disabled or a screen size.
- 13We can "Quit the Dock when reenabling a screen".
- 14We can "Try to keep mouse cursor on active screens".
- 15The last four options all deal with a secondary monitor. We will not be discussing how to use a secondary monitor in this tutorial; however, later we will demonstrate how to do that. Simply look into our tutorials on display sets, desktops and color LCDs.Finally, we can put monitors to sleep after disabling them.
- 16Thank you for choosing VisiHow. If you have questions or comments, please let us know in the section below.This concludes this tutorial on setting up the "General Settings" for the SwitchResX preferences on a Mac running OS X Yosemite, so that you can change or enable screens and screen sizes and resolutions to get true HD.
Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD General Settings
Display Sets
You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are showing part of our series on how to use and manage the SwitchResX Preferences.
Steps
- 1Click "Display Sets" one time.In this tutorial, we are going to be discussing "Display Sets", which appear third on the list of options on the "SwitchResX Preferences" menu.
- 2This option allows us to add, remove or edit different Display Sets or us to switch and move between. This is particularly helpful when using a laptop and connecting it between different offices or different areas where we may have a number of external displays that are not the standard 16:10, which most Macs are. Instead, they may run on the more common 16:9.This will open the "Display Sets" area on the right.
- 3The first thing we want to use the "Display Sets" option is to click on the plus sign at the bottom of the window.
- 4This will open a window where we can create a "New Display Set".
- 5We can title it, so let's call it "Display One".
- 6In this case, we're going to set it as "opt + 1".Then we can set a "Keyboard shortcut".
- 7We also have scripts that we can execute if we would like.
- 8Clicking on the blank line next to "Execute script" will bring up a series of scripts that may have been saved, which should be run or used.We are not going to use a script, but this is the screen where we could set that up if desired.
- 9For now, we will just click on "Cancel" at the bottom, since we're not setting up a script at this time.
- 10There is currently no SwitchResX menu set up at the top of the screen, nor under the "Menus" option on the SwitchResX Preferences menu. We get into "Menus" in more detail in another tutorial.Next, we have the option to "Show this Display set in the SwitchResX menus".
- 11This will allow the system to remember our files, folders and other things that may be set up on the desktop.Next is the option, "Use this Display Set to remember desktop settings".
- 12This one is an LCD display, specifically "1280 x 720". It could also be an HDI display, which is larger and might not fall under the "Color LCD" option.We can choose what kind of display it is.
- 13Also, depending on the "Resolution" chosen, we may have different display options, options set up for scanning, changing the orientation, and changing the color profile.
- 14Personally, I prefer my own color profile that I have set up.The "color profile" we have listed that we could select is the standard one for Mac.
- 15Once we're finished setting up the Display Set, click on "OK" at the bottom.
- 16This is a new Display Set, and our hotkey will automatically switch us to it.Now, we have "Display One" set up.
- 17This is an icon of two rectangles. This will create "Display One - copy".We can duplicate the display by clicking on the duplicate button next to the plus sign at the bottom of the window.
- 18This will remove the display. There is no confirmation for removing a display, so be careful when doing this.To remove one, we can simply click on the minus sign.
- 19Finally, we can click back on "Display One", and click the pencil icon.
- 20This will allow us to edit the display.
- 21If we change our mind on the editing, we can click "Cancel".
- 22To delete the Display Set entirely, we'll just click on the minus sign at the bottom.
- 23If you have questions or comments, let us know in the section below.This concludes our tutorial on creating, managing and editing Display Sets for the SwitchResX option, which allows us to change our Mac default screen from 16:10 to 16:9 or a number of other resolutions.
Video: Use SwitchRexX to Change Mac Display to HD Display Sets
Applications
You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are continuing our series on how to use the SwitchResX application to change, monitor, manage or otherwise modify the standard screen resolutions, allowing us to get 1280 x 720 p, or 1920 x 1080 p, or any other variation that's different than the 16:10 which comes standard on most Macs.
Steps
- 1To get help finding "SwitchResX Preferences", please view the first part of this tutorial, where we demonstrate how to access it.What we need in this tutorial is the "Applications" option on the "SwitchResX Preferences" menu.
- 2It has the image of a letter "A" icon on two sheets of paper.For now, we're going to click on "Applications", which is the fourth option on the left-hand side menu.
- 3Clicking on "Applications" will open a largely empty area on the main part of the window.
- 4This allows us to select a particular application that will launch in a different resolution or in a different setting. This is particularly useful if we have an application that is launched by default, which we plan on creating a YouTube video for. In this case, it should be 720 p. However, it shouldn't be the standard 1152 x 720 p, which Mac uses. This will cause black lines to appear on the sides of the screen. Therefore, in order to create a true 720 p, which is 1280 x 720, we need to set the application up.We can check or uncheck the option to "Monitor Applications" at the top.
- 5In this example, we have "All applications" selected, which is the default.
- 6We can select a "Display Set" by editing it, which is done by clicking on the black pen icon at the bottom.
- 7This allows us to choose a "Display Set" when we have one set up from the previous area on "Display Sets".
- 8We can also create a new "Display Set" by clicking on "Create new Display Set".
- 9On the right side of the "All applications" window, we can adjust "Sound Level".
- 10Further down toward the middle of the window, under "Application settings" we can have our display settings automatically reset when the application is done.
- 11We can also have thing set up to hide, including "the Dock" or "other applications".
- 12This is important. For example, we may have a game setup that runs on one application, with one resolution, and we may have something else, such as a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation, that's set in another resolution. We may want to set them all up to automatically function.Also, "When this application requires a resolution change", we can choose to "Change the resolution", "Change the resolution but don't save desktop", "Don't let it change the resolution", or "Change only color settings" by selecting one of these options from the drop-down menu.
- 13Let's go ahead and click "Cancel" on this window, since we haven't made any real changes.
- 14To add a new "Application", click the plus sign option at the bottom.
- 15It may open another folder as well.This will open the "Applications" folder.
- 16In our demonstration, we're going to scroll down and click on "Firefox", to set it to open a particular way.
- 17This will open the "Firefox" window.The browser itself is not launched. We simply have the management window open. This will allow us to change the resolution to suit a particular setting when we open Firefox.Click on "Open" in the bottom right corner.
- 18Then the display will default back to where it was before when we exit Firefox.Click the box next to "Reset display settings when application ends".
- 19When we're done, we can simply click "OK" at the bottom right.
- 20Now, we have "Firefox" set up in our list.
- 21Now, Firefox has been removed.To remove it, we can click on the minus sign at the bottom.
- 22When we uncheck this option, SwitchResX no longer looks for these applications running.If we want to turn of things without removing it, we can uncheck the box next to "Monitor Applications".
- 23If you have questions or comments about this tutorial or any other part of it, please let us know in the section below. Otherwise, thanks for choosing VisiHow.This concludes our tutorial on setting SwitchResX to automatically change screen resolution based on which applications you are opening or using.
Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Applications
Setting up Menus
You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to set up and manage the menus and menu items used in SwitchResX to change the screen resolution on your Mac running OS X Yosemite.
Steps
- 1To learn how to open this window, be sure to review our earlier tutorials on how to do that.To get started, we need to have the "SwitchResX Preferences" open.
- 2Then we need to click on the "Menus" option on the left-hand side one time.
- 3This will allow us to have access to our menu up there.Now, we are going to create a "Menu Extra" up on the upper right-hand side of the screen, near the icons for the battery and WiFi connection.
- 4It will pop down when we click it, as the icon shows on the right-hand side under "Contextual Menu".This will be our contextual menu.
- 5These include "Detect displays", "Desktop saving", "Resolutions", "Colors", "Color profiles", and a number of other options as well.Also on the right side, we have several different options we can set up.
- 6We are going to simply click on the check box on the left side next to "is active and contains".
- 7Once we do that, we'll note that a monitor icon automatically appears up on the upper right-hand side of our screen.
- 8This will will allow us to simply click on something and change the display automatically to the display that we would like. We have 16:10 displays listed, 16:9, and 4:3.When we click on that icon, we will get a complete drop-down menu.
- 9Near the bottom of the menu, we can use the "Rotation" option to rotate the screen.
- 10We can also adjust the "Color Profile".
- 11Finally, we can easily access the "SwitchResX Preferences" menu from there as well.
- 12Click back on the "SwitchResX Preferences" window.
- 13Click on "About SwitchResX" on the top of the left side menu.
- 14Now if we click on the "Quit Daemon" button at the bottom right, the Daemon will quit.
- 15SwitchResX has detected that the display configuration has changed. All unsaved preferences are this invalid and have been discarded." This is because we have not saved anything.A message will pop up stating, "The Display configuration has been modified.
- 16Click on "OK".
- 17Now, several menu options on the left have grayed out.
- 18More importantly, on the upper right-hand side of the screen, our actual menu is gray.
- 19To quickly correct this, we can "Launch SwitchResX".
- 20We can also open "SwitchResX Preferences" from that top menu.
- 21From that window, we can once again click on the button at the bottom right to "Launch Daemon".
- 22If we are not registered, we might get a pop-up window, so just click on the "x" at the top left corner of that window to close it.
- 23Now, our menu on the left side of the "SwitchResX Preferences window as well as the menu under the monitor icon at the top right side of the screen are both back and undisturbed.
- 24These can be changed or adjusted as much as we desire. Turning on and off certain options will enable or disable others. For example, plugging in another monitor will give us the option to choose "Main display" or "Video mirroring".Click on "Menus" in the "SwitchResX Preferences" window, and we'll see that our menus are all still functional.
- 25If you have questions or comments, please let us know in the section below, and we'll be happy to make sure they are answered for you.This concludes our tutorial on setting up menus for quick access and management of the SwitchResX Preferences and options with the additional toolbar menu.
Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Setting up Menus
Desktop Management
You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to set up the Desktop options for SwitchResX, so you can quickly and easily control desktop settings and make sure you keep menus, icons, and other things you may have set up and personalized on your system more or less the same way between different screens. This tutorial is for Mac OS X Yosemite, but it also works on on a number of other Mac versions.
Steps
- 1This can be done a number of different ways, which we've discussed in our earlier tutorials. In our last tutorial we learned how to set up menus.First, we need to open the "SwitchResX Preferences" window.
- 2Therefore, if we have that contextual menu set up at the top of the screen, we can simply click on the monitor icon and scroll down to the bottom of the pop-up menu to click on "SwitchResX Preferences".
- 3Once click on "Desktop" will bring up those options in the main part of the window.Since we already have it open, we'll now go down to the sixth option on the left, which is "Desktop".
- 4At the top we can have "Resolutions" that are "saved per monitor".
- 5We may have a display on the left and a new display on the right, which is considered a set of two displays and how they are laid out. We also may have more than two displays, depending upon the setup.Alternatively, we can create "Display Sets", which will give us a layout of displays.
- 6In the next section, we can create "Icons on the Finder desktop".
- 7We can also have "Windows" set up that will save the options and details.
- 8They need to set up and "enabled in the System Preferences", or they will not work. The reason we mention this is that there are a number of people who use SwitchResX for Assistive Device Technology, particularly those who have visual impairments..If we have "assistive devices", it is important to note the message near the middle of the screen on the right side.
- 9This will automatically save them into the SwitchResX setting.We can save all of our desktop options by simply clicking on the "Save desktop items now" button.
- 10We can "Snap icons to a grid".
- 11That grid can be changed depending on our personal preferences.
- 12This is the original spot where our icons may have appeared.We can "Keep icons positioned relatively to their parent Display (anchor)".
- 13If that folder was actually in the center of the screen, then it would maintain more or less a central position.For example, consider the "Great Thoughts" folder at the top right corner of the screen used in this demonstration.
- 14Back to the Desktop options, we can "Restore previous items settings when SwitchResX Demon starts".
- 15We can set this up by first checking the box.
- 16Then we can choose the amount of time, whether that's 5 seconds, 6 seconds, 4 seconds or whatever.
- 17We will click again to uncheck this option for now.
- 18This sends us back to the way we were before.We can "Restore saved settings" by clicking on that option.
- 19If you need additional help with SwitchResX, be sure to check out the rest of our great tutorials on this application. Otherwise, thanks for using VisiHow. Let us know your comments and suggestions in the area below.This concludes our tutorial on managing and controlling the "Desktop" options for the SwitchResX application on the Mac running OS X Yosemite.
Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Desktop Management
Color LCD
You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we're continuing our series on using the SwitchResX application to control or manage the display settings on your Mac, running OS X Yosemite. In this part, we're going to focus on the color LCD panels, which is the main part of the application. This is the most important set of functions.
Steps
- 1Make sure the SwitchResX Preference window is open.
- 2When we click on this, we will see that there are a number of settings and options here. Some of these may be confusing, and that's okay.Click on the bottom (7th) option, "Color LCD".
- 3It gives us any custom settings for our vertical and horizontal frequency ranges, should we choose to check or enable them. It allows us to set up pixel blocking. As a general rule, unless you're an expert in this, we do not recommend changing this. It also shows us our current default resolution. Ours is 1280x720.The first thing that we need to understand is that the top option, "Display Information", tells us what's happening now.
- 4Again, unless you're an expert, we do not recommend doing this. Part of the reason we don't recommend doing this is that if we set up a resolution or frequency range that is not supported by the product (which is the current Apple color LCD, "Vendor: App-610", "Product: A020", in this case. Your product number might be different on a different Mac), we'll get a black screen, and we'll need to go into the system settings holding down the option key, and it's not easy to fix it. If you're just trying to set this up to play a game or make a YouTube video, we're going to recommend that you don't modify these settings.To change the resolution manually, we need to check the box next to "Default Resolution".
- 5We recommend skipping these unless you need to use them.Other options include setting the brightness to minimum when the display is deactivated, fading the display, and using custom display names system-wide.
- 6This shows the list of resolutions that we can set up to choose on a desktop. Note that we have "Desktop" checked for 1280x800 and we can also check any of the desktop boxes for any other resolutions.The next button is "Current Resolutions".
- 7It allows us to quickly change things. Our currently active display is 2560x1600. This is the Mac retina display. It has all of our different options listed here, and at the bottom we can see that we've scaled it to 1280x720.We can click the eye at the bottom to bring up more options.
- 8Again, don't make changes there unless you know what you're doing or you could cause your system to come up with a black screen and not function.Click on "OK" to accept any changes.
- 9This is the list of resolutions that are scaled. Note: We do have the option to go to 3360x2100 if you want to have the smallest possible Mac screen and have really good eyes. Or, we can go all the way down to 640x480 if we have issues with vision and want to be able to see a really big screen.Finally, we have "Custom Resolutions".
- 10We can also export the EDID. We don't recommend exporting unless you've purchased it. Refer to our tutorial on how to purchase SwitchResX on VisiHow if you're interested in that.We can also click on "Restore factory settings" if we ever need to restore the settings.
- 11These are the display options that will be set up through the color LCD panel should we choose to change them.Note that these color LCD options will appear in the upper area as well by clicking on the display icon.
- 12If you have any questions or comments about this or other parts of the tutorial, let us know in the section below and we'll be happy to help you. Thank you for choosing VisiHow. Have a great day.This concludes the tutorial on how to use the color LCD options and set them up.
Video: Use SwitchResX to Change Mac Display to HD Color LCD
Questions and Answers
Status custom res in switchResX not activated?
How to activate the custom resolution (2560x1440 HDPI). I have tried: Installed and activated a higher custom resolution without problem and is activated. This one isn't.. I think it was caused by: Don't know.
VisiHow QnA. This section is not written yet. Want to join in? Click EDIT to write this answer.
Just trying to up the resolution on a Mac PRO 2012?
I know it's capable of more than 1024 x 768. But it's not connected directly to a monitor. I don't know, I haven't finished it yet. Still watching when the pop-up came on screen.
VisiHow QnA. This section is not written yet. Want to join in? Click EDIT to write this answer.
The Display configuration has been modified, Custom resolutions installation 3840 * 1080?
我想安装 3840 * 1080 的分辨率,但无论在 custom Resolutions 如何添加 点击 立即生效, 都是无用的,一直弹窗,. 如果你知道答案,你可以给我发邮件:
VisiHow QnA. This section is not written yet. Want to join in? Click EDIT to write this answer.
If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.
Comments
Article Info
Categories : Macintosh
Recent edits by: Sherlyajith, Doug Collins, Crystal
