Have you been meaning to modify the resolution of your Windows 11 PC? In that case, this should be an interesting read as you will learn how to change resolution on Windows 11.
Option 1: Modify Resolution From the Windows Settings
Do you know you can set basic display resolution as well as advanced display resolution on your Windows 11 PC? Well, you can – below are steps to do so using Windows Settings.
1. How to Set Basic Display Resolution
- Launch Windows Settings by right-clicking the Start icon on the taskbar and selecting Settings.
- When the Settings window opens, ensure that System is selected on the left pane.
- Then, click Display on the right pane.
- Finally, on the Display page, scroll down to Display resolution under Scale & layout category.
- Afterward, click the drop-down arrow and select your desired display resolution from the list.
2. How to Set Advanced Display Resolution
To access advanced display resolution settings, follow the steps below.
- Right-click anywhere around the desktop area of your computer, then click Display Settings.
- When the Display settings window opens, scroll down and click Advanced settings under the Related settings sub-menu.
- If you use multiple displays/monitors, click the drop-down under Select a display to view or change its settings. Then, choose the preferred monitor/display that you wish to make resolution modifications to.
- Thereafter, under Display information, click Display adapter properties for Display #
- When the Display adapter properties window opens, the Adapter tab is selected by default. Hence, go to the lower left of the window and click the List All Modes button.
- From the list of display resolutions and refresh rates on the List All Modes page, choose a resolution and click OK.
- Finally, click OK when it returns to the display properties window to save the changes.
Option 2: Change Resolution with CMD
Windows 11 doesn’t come with a command-line tool for display resolution modification. Hence, you will require a third-party tool, QRes, to change the display resolution in Windows 11 using cmd.
In that regard, this section guides you on how to download and unzip the QRes tool. Also, you will learn how to change your display resolution with QRes and cmd.
Step 1: Download and Unzip Qres
- Open this link – Sourceforge.net page for QRes (the link opens in a new browser tab).
- When the web page opens, click the huge green Download button to begin downloading.
- When the Save As window pops up, select the folder you want the zip file to be saved in and hit the Save button.
- When the QRes tool is downloaded on your computer, you will need to unzip the file.
Step 2: Use QRes to Change Resolution With CMD
- Start by opening the command prompt by pressing Windows key + S and typing “cmd” in the search box. Then, select Run as administrator.
- When you do that, the User Account Control prompt will appear, asking to allow the app to make changes to your PC – click Yes to proceed.
- On the command prompt window, type the command below to change the directory to the unzipped QRes folder in your drive C:
cd "C:\QRes\qrescd\sample-cd\qres"
I renamed it “QRes”. Also, “qrescd\sample-cd” are sub-folders in the main “QRes” folder.
- For the final task of changing the Windows 11 resolution with cmd, type the command below and hit enter.
QRes.exe x=XXXX y=YYY
Replace the XXXX with the resolution width and YYY with the resolution height. For clarity, I will use the numbers in the marked portion of the screenshot below for an illustration.
- The command below will adjust the display resolution width to 800 pixels and height to 600 pixels.
QRes.exe x=800 y=600
Immediately you input the command, press Enter, and your display’s resolution will change.
Frequently Asked Questions
The reason you are unable to change your resolution on Windows 11 may be a result of graphics driver misconfiguration. In essence, it is possible that the graphics driver and display are not compatible.
As a result of that, the display chooses a lower resolution to maintain proper functionality. So, if you have an issue like this, try to update the computer’s graphics driver.
Also, you can try rolling back to the previous version of the driver.
If you are having display resolution issues on your Windows 11 PC, do the following:
a) Try checking for available windows updates
b) Reinstall or update the display driver. When updating the display driver, ensure that the installation is in compatibility mode.
c) Troubleshoot hardware and devices
d) Use the graphics card control panel to calibrate the display resolution and scaling.
In simple terms, a display resolution is the number of horizontal and vertical pixels of a display. Hence, the more pixels a display has, the clearer images and information are going to appear.
Computers with HDR fare better in gaming due to HDR’s positive effect on the display’s color accuracy and brightness. So, yes, HDR is good for gaming on Windows 11.
To know what graphics card your computer uses, follow the procedures below.
a) Right-click the Start menu on the taskbar and select Task Manager.
b) When the Task manager window opens, switch to the Performance tab. Supposing your PC has more than one GPU, it will be labeled GPU 0, GPU 1, etc.
c) Select a GPU and see the name and performance.
Conclusion
The importance of resolution on display cannot be overemphasized. Essentially, you can make your computer display bolder or smaller content with resolution adjustments.
On that note, I believe this guide has taught you how to modify resolution on Windows 11. Besides, we discussed two methods on how to achieve that in this guide.
First, I showed you how to change display resolution via Windows 11 Settings. Also, we discussed how to perform the task using cmd (command prompt).
I hope you found this guide helpful. If so, click on “Yes” beside the “Was this page helpful” question below.
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Finally, visit our Windows 11 How-To page for more Windows 11 guides and fixes.