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DESCRIPTION
SwitchResX is a tool designed to manage resolutions of all your monitors. Here's a quick summary: - As standard features: it gives you access to most of your monitor settings within its customizable menus (in the Menu Bar or with a Contextual Menu Plugin [currently not working on Snow Leopard] on the Finder Desktop). SwitchResX incorporates features relative to the Monitor Resolution, Color Depth, Video Mirroring, Display Rotation, Display Overscan into one single utility.
- Other useful features include saving desktop layout, ie positions of the icons on the desktop and positions of the windows of all open applications, and restore them automatically when the resolution is changed or when you plug or unplug an external monitor.
- You can disable or deactivate a monitor without having to physically unplug it, allowing you to use a laptop in clamshell mode with external monitor, keyboard and mouse
- Specialized features allow you to link your monitor settings with system events: Key shortcut pressed, Apple Scripts, Application launched.
- Advanced features lets you create and enable new resolutions for your monitor, HDTV, Plasma or LCD screen or Video Projector. This advanced feature is very powerful for users requesting complete control over their display resolution.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 4.0.3:
- Provides a new option to only let SwitchResX reactivate a display that was previously deactivated. This is useful when a TV is always plugged to the Mac, and if the TV comes out of sleep, and you don't want the TV to be visible to MacOS X.
- Uses GROWL, if available, to display new updates notifications. Even without GROWL, the look of the alerts has been changed.
- Should behave correctly if a bad EDID is reported by the system
- Should correctly report the resolution status, even if the resolution was added some minutes after reboot
- Should correctly reposition icons snapped to grid, when this option is selected
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
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| SwitchResX User Reviews (30 posts) | Write A Review |
 | Mar 4 2009 |
XENOPHILE This might actually be useful if it could store "sets" containing both resolution settings and colorsync profiles. For now I'll just keep using Apple's menu item to switch resolutions. Nice try, though.
(Version 3.8.6) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Jan 5 2009 |
XENOPHILE APE is a system hack that is unsupported by Apple, meaning that it mucks with system-level internals in ways that Apple does condone, and more importantly, ways that Apple has not rigorously tested. To be fair, there is some controversy among geeks who know vastly more than I about OS X as to whether APE destabilizes OSX. So when you're up against a deadline, or you've labored for hours on a complex project since last backing it up, if it gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling to contemplate a few OS X gurus arguing whether APE destabilizes your system or not, then go ahead and use APE. Me? I don't trust APE any further than I could throw a real ape.
(Version 3.8.5) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Sep 5 2009 |
CHIEFTED Have been using this for a couple of weeks and haven't had an issue with it. Even the beta 4.0 version for Snow Leopard works well. I didn't install APE though since it is only used to block some Without APE it works just fine. Yes wouldn't install APE if you paid me and as a former Mac Genius if APE is install that is the first thing a Genius will have you uninstall if something goes wrong.
(Version 3.8.7) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Mar 4 2009 |
VERYVITO How does this offer anything different from the "Show displays in Menu bar" setting already in the Displays Preference panel?
(Version 3.8.6) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Jun 2 2009 |
D9 It allows you to customize display settings for resolutions that Mac OS X does not support natively. As the description alludes to, a good example is 1920 x 1080 HDTV. The standard OS X solution is either to reduce your overall screen coverage or use its Overscan setting which unfortunately causes the menu bar and anything else around the screen edges to go out of view. Plus it allows for creating display sets so you can switch with a single click or even keystroke; helpful for notebook users who go from laptop screen to desktop monitor to presentation projectors. | |
| May 1 2008 |
REVCO Huh? What wrong with APE? Me APEd for many years with no problem. Don't point finger at APE. APE good not bad.
(Version 3.8.2) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Apr 30 2008 |
Unsanity APE is an unsupported hack that accesses Mac OS X processes that Apple has delcared off limits. All too often, I've identified APE as a cause of system instability or application weirdness when troubleshooting Macs. Any potential user of APE needs to ask themselves if they really need the functionality it enables, and if so, can they afford extra system down time as the price for this functionality?
(Version 3.8.2) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Dec 22 2007 |
SMTIPS Oh MAN!! I was just about to get this because for some stupid reason I can only get a 60Hz refresh rate through the Displays panel when my monitor supports 75Hz. I think it's stupid that a mac with a 256 Nvidia card will only show a single refresh rate available when the monitor will support higher. It's ALWAYS been a problem with Macs way back since System 7 that the res/refresh rates that COULD be supported weren't selectable in the system...DUHHHH on you apple!! Anyway....Unsanity APE has been known to cause FAR FAR too many issues. I refuse to use it, and you just lost my money...I was all ready to buy this til I saw the below comment...forget that APE CRAP.
(Version 3.7.11) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Oct 27 2007 |
JAMESKITTY Requires Unsanity's APE hack. I won't install it. Too bad the author can't find a way of programming this within Apple's rules.
(Version 3.7.10) | |
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 | Mar 22 2006 |
APPLECRYPT MODS i wish the interface was better, but you had my reg money a while back and now it even works on intel mac!! Xcellent!
(Version 3.7.2) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Oct 6 2005 |
ORION I *hate* the tendency of games to always select stretched 4:3 resolutions on my Cinema Display, thus making everything look wider than it should be, and making me slighly nauseous. I looked everywhere for a program that would remove stretched modes from the list of resolutions. SwitchRes doesn't do that. It does have a feature that "disables" certain resolutions but it doesn't actually remove them from the list. When a program tries to switch to a disabled resolution, SwitchRes makes the switch silently fail, keeping the previous resolution. This is a bad thing -- for games this often means a bunch of garbage on the screen. But what SwitchRes does allow me to do is "redirect" a video mode to a different one. So, for instance, if a program tries to switch to 640 x 480 (stretched), I can have it actually switch to 640 x 480 (not stretched). This works like a charm. Now I can finally play all my games with the proper aspect ratio! Oh, and it also has a displays menu that isn't crippled like Apple's, but that's really just a bonus. For the ability to remove stretched video modes from my life, SwitchRes was well worth the $15.
(Version 3.6) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
Replies:
 | Dec 9 2005 |
UMAROMC Edit the *.cfg files of most games and you can set the resolution to anything that supports 4:3, 16:9 or 16:10 ratios...
(Version 3.6.2) | |
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