# Change (reduce) screen resolution at run time

**URL:** <https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/change-reduce-screen-resolution-at-run-time/1740>\
**Category:** Builder\
**Tags:** screen\
**Created:** [January 12, 2017, 10:08am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/change-reduce-screen-resolution-at-run-time/1740 "2017-01-12T10:08:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jacanterbury](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/jacanterbury/32/853_2.png) [@jacanterbury](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/jacanterbury)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 10:08am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/change-reduce-screen-resolution-at-run-time/1740/1 "2017-01-12T10:08:49Z")

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I’d like to run my Builder experiment with a faster refresh rate than the monitor supports at the default (high) resolution.  
The monitor will support a faster refresh rate if the resolution is reduced but I don’t want to have to manually change the resolution every time before running (and back afterwards)

Can PsychoPy (or Python) change the resolution at runtime? [I’ve googled but not found anything helpful]

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**Author:** ![jon](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/jon/32/22_2.png) [@jon](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/jon)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 10:48am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/change-reduce-screen-resolution-at-run-time/1740/2 "2017-01-13T10:48:21Z")

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No I’m afraid not. There may be some platform-specific command-line tools to do this but PsychoPy doesn’t do it for you.

Also bear in mind that, with a flat panel, if you reduce the resolution you typically introduce a step of interpolation of your image because flat panels (unlike CRTs) cannot change their actual output resolution - they can only interpolate an input to fit their output.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jacanterbury](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/jacanterbury/32/853_2.png) [@jacanterbury](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/jacanterbury)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/change-reduce-screen-resolution-at-run-time/1740/3 "2017-01-14T16:29:30Z")

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Thanks for the info Jon. In my case any interpolation would not be a problem, I simply want to switch to using a higher refresh rate.

I’ve since found this  
[http://tools.taubenkorb.at/change-screen-resolution/](http://tools.taubenkorb.at/change-screen-resolution/)  
which enables the screen resolution and refresh rate to be changed from the commandline line (Windows), so I should be able to incorporate it into a batch script