We compare several different ways of measuring the energy resolution for meV-resolved inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS): using scattering from poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA, using scattering from borosilicate glass (Tempax), and using powder diffraction from aluminum. All of these methods provide a reasonable first approximation to the energy resolution, but, also, in all cases, inelastic contributions appear over some range of energy transfers. Over a range of +-15 meV energy transfer there is good agreement between the measurements of PMMA and Tempax at low temperature, and room temperature powder diffraction from aluminum so we consider this to be a good indication of the true resolution of our ~1.3 meV spectrometer. We self-consistently determine the resolution over a wider energy range using the temperature, momentum and sample dependence of the measured response. We then quantitatively investigate the inelastic contributions from the PMMA and Tempax, and their dependence on momentum transfer and temperature. The resulting data allows us to determine the resolution of our multi-analyzer array efficiently using a single scan. We demonstrate the importance of this procedure by showing that the results of the analysis of a spectrum from a glass are changed by using the properly deconvolved resolution function. We also discuss the impact of radiation damage on the scattering from PMMA and Tempax.
