Psychtoolbox>Screen.{mex*} subfunction

oldResolution=Screen(‘Resolution’, screenNumber [, newwidth][, newheight][, newHz][, newPixelSize][, specialMode]);

Query or change display settings for screen “screenNumber”.
Returns a struct “oldResolutions” with the current settings for screen
resolution, refresh rate and pixel depth. Optionally sets new settings for
screen resolution “newwidth” x “newheight”, refresh rate “newHz” and framebuffer
pixel depth “newPixelSize”. Providing invalid or incompatible settings will
raise an error. Especially the color depth “newPixelSize” should usually not be
set to anything else than its default of 32 bpp or 24 bpp, iow. it should be
best left alone. Other settings can impair alpha-blending on some systems, a
setting of 16 bpp will disable alpha-blending and create drastically reduced
color resolution of 5 bits per color channel. A setting of 8 bpp is not
supported at all on MacOS/X and will create artifacts on all other systems. Use
a size of 32 bpp even for clut animation. This function may not work on all
MS-Windows setups, your mileage may vary…
On Linux/X11 with the classic X-Server, the function only switches display
settings in the conventional sense on a single-display setup, or on a
multi-X-screen setup with one display per X-Screen. On a
multi-display-per-X-Screen setup, this function only changes the total size of
the framebuffer, ie., ‘newwidth’ and ‘newheight’, the other parameters are
silently ignored. You can create X-Screens and fullscreen onscreen windows that
are bigger than what is actually displayable on your attached displays. This
allows for some interesting special tricks if you know what you are doing, but
can also cause quite a bit of confusion. We recommend using this function on
setups with a single display or a single display for each X-Screen (as listed by
Screen(‘Screens’). On Linux/X11 setups with multiple attached displays per
X-Screen, the video settings of each individual display, e.g., resolution, video
refresh rate, panning, can be queried and changed via the
Screen(‘ConfigureDisplay’) function instead. This allows for more flexibility,
e.g., you can have a framebuffer bigger than the combined resolution of all
displays and only show a fraction of it. You can change the relative position of
all physical displays, configure “mirror modes”, “side by side”, or “on top of
each other” display configurations.
Psychtoolbox will automatically restore the systems display resolution to the
system settings made via the display control panel as soon as either your script
finishes by closing all its windows, or by some error. Terminating Matlab due to
quit command will also restore the system preference settings. On a
multi-display Linux setup, display settings are never automatically restored.
If you call this command without ever opening onscreen windows and closing them
at some point, Psychtoolbox will not restore display settings automatically.
You can query a list of all supported combinations of display settings via the
Screen(‘Resolutions’) command. “specialMode” is a flag you must not touch,
unless you really know what you’re doing, that’s why we don’t tell you its
purpose.

###See also: Screen(‘Resolutions’)