Hi, my monitor says it's "max res" is 1280X720 however most older games don't offer that option, however they do let me go to other higher resolutions such as 1280X960, usually when I run at that res my monitor "auto adjusts" for a few seconds then the image looks better than what I would have to run the game at (1024X768) however there is a small back bar on the right.

Can running at a higher res than the monitor is designed for damage it? (this is a widescreen lcd)

What is the native resolution of your monitor?

"max res" and "native" according to the manual is 1280X720 but windows will let me jack it up all the way to 1280X1024 but it looks all distorted and compressed to fit on the screen.

You should run your monitor at its native res, and the reason it looks distorted is that the difference between 1280x720 and 1280x1024 is that one is for Widescreen and one is not. Set your accordingly.

DigitalStorm, Stacker 830, XP Pro sp2, nForce 680i SLI, Kentsfield, 2gb, 2 8800GTX'S, X-FI Fatal1ty, 244T