How to connect PCs with different resolutions to XZ342CU without distortion Win11/10/XP

I'm trying to connect a new XZ342CU to my main Win11(64) PC, at 3440 x 1440, and two other older PC's both 1024 x 768 (Win10 and WinXP). The main PC has its HDMI cable plugged directly into HDMI1 on the monitor. The two older PCs have VGA → HDMI adapters and the HDMI cables feed into a KVM switch, which in turn is plugged in to HDMI2 on the monitor.

This worked well on my previous monitor. When I switched the monitor Input to either HDMI1 (at 1920 x 1440) or HDMI2 (1024 x 768), the monitor adapted to the correct desktop dimensions of the PC that was selected (for the older PC's, that was true regardless of which was selected by the KVM switch). For the lower resolution PCs, there were black bands on either side of the screen, but there was no distortion of any shapes or text.

With the new monitor, however, when I switch to the lower resolution HDMI2, the desktop is stretched across the entire width of the screen, distorting all shapes and text. There are no bands of black on the sides (or top or bottom, for that matter) to frame the desktop image properly.

How can I set my new monitor to respect the resolutions of all three PCs so that, regardless of which is selected - HDMI1 or HDMI2 - it displays the dimensions of the desktops properly and does not try to distort them?

Thanks in advance!

Bill Bowlus-Root

Accepted answers

BillBR

I found the answer to my own question.

I went into the OSG and on the System setting for Wide Mode, I changed "Full" to "Aspect". The result was that the monitor no longer forced the desktop of the input PC to fill the screen from top to bottom AND side to side. Instead, it used the aspect ratio of the input PC's resolution to display the desktop in the center of the screen, filling the sides with black bands.

Since the resolution for the main PC matches that of the monitor, it fills the entire screen when I'm viewing the input from HDMI1. Since the resolution of the other PCs, the ones I want to view from the HDMI2 input, is less than that of the monitor, the monitor displays the desktops as best it can while still maintaining the aspect ratio defined by the resolution, in this case filling the screen top to bottom and centering it between the left and right sides and filling the empty spaces with blackness.

Now everything looks normal for all three PCs.

Just what I wanted!

All comments

BillBR

I found the answer to my own question.

I went into the OSG and on the System setting for Wide Mode, I changed "Full" to "Aspect". The result was that the monitor no longer forced the desktop of the input PC to fill the screen from top to bottom AND side to side. Instead, it used the aspect ratio of the input PC's resolution to display the desktop in the center of the screen, filling the sides with black bands.

Since the resolution for the main PC matches that of the monitor, it fills the entire screen when I'm viewing the input from HDMI1. Since the resolution of the other PCs, the ones I want to view from the HDMI2 input, is less than that of the monitor, the monitor displays the desktops as best it can while still maintaining the aspect ratio defined by the resolution, in this case filling the screen top to bottom and centering it between the left and right sides and filling the empty spaces with blackness.