[SOLVED]How do I achieve higher resolution than physical resolution of an LCD?

xrandr --current

In short, you want something like

xrandr --output LVDS --scale 1.28x1.28

xrandr -s <width>x<height>

do the trick? Well, yes it does. But the problem is that when I restore my display to its original size, all exiting window are shifted, jam-packing the upper left corner of the display, and even gnome menu icons are shifted two. That’s awful.

Quick answer:

To reduce to a smaller display size,

xrandr --output VGA-1 --mode 1503x845 --panning 1366x768

This will reduce the size of my display to a smaller size (640×480), while keep the virtual size of my display to my current size. To view the other virtual display area, just panning with the mouse.

To get a list of display size can be used, use xrandr. Here is output of mine:

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm panning 1920x1080+0+0
   1920x1080      60.0*+
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0
   1440x900       59.9
   1280x800       59.8
   1152x864       75.0
   1024x768       70.1     60.0
   800x600        60.3     56.2
   640x480        66.7     60.0
   720x400        70.1

It shows that the smaller sizes that I can use are, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1280×800, …., 800×600, 720×400 and 640×480.

BTW, There is also an old X11 trick to change the screen resolution, Ctrl-Alt plus + or – from the number pad. That’s the trick that I’ve been playing for years. However, as you can tell, it’d be tiresome to do it now, because previously there’s about 3 modes that I can switch in between, and now it is tiresome to cycle through all the display mode above.

To restore,

xrandr -s 1920x1080

$ cvt 1360 768 60
# 1360x768 59.80 Hz (CVT) hsync: 47.72 kHz; pclk: 84.75 MHz
Modeline "1360x768_60.00"   84.75  1360 1432 1568 1776  768 771 781 798 -hsync +vsync
$ gtf 1360 768 60 -x

  # 1360x768 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 47.70 kHz; pclk: 84.72 MHz
  Modeline "1360x768_60.00"  84.72  1360 1424 1568 1776  768 769 772 795  -HSync +Vsync

$ xrandr --newmode "1360x768_60.00"  84.72  1360 1424 1568 1776  768 769 772 795  -HSync +Vsync
$ xrandr --addmode VGA1 "1360x768_60.00"

Almost as soon as I posted this, I looked somewhere else and did this:

$ xrandr --addmode VGA-0 1280x1024_60.00

And then I could do this:

$ xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1280x1024_60.00

So the whole process from start to finish looks like this:

$ gtf 1280 1024 60

  # 1280x1024 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 63.60 kHz; pclk: 108.88 MHz
  Modeline "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync

#copy everything after "Modeline"
$ xrandr --newmode "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync
$ xrandr --addmode VGA-0 1280x1024_60.00
$ xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1280x1024_60.00