Gentoo 2006.1 - Refining X Configurations

I'm a little lost with some parts of the Xorg configuration, and Gentoo and Xorg documentations haven't been much help, unfortunately.

My graphics card is an ATI Radeon 9600SE and I'm using the fglrx driver for it. My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 750s.

I've printed out spec-sheets for my monitor, and proceeded to configure X by hand (with a little help from xorgconfig).

The issue I'm having is that the only resolution, and colour depth, my monitor seems to accept is 1280x1024 @ 24-bit. The problem I have with this resolution is that everything looks "fuzzy," and I find it rather annoying.

My monitor saves itself saying "Sync out of range" if I try to use 16- or 8-bit colour with any resolution in (1280x1024, 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480). So, I guess I'm stuck with 24-bit colour.

Now, the only other resolution I can get (even if I set the default resolution to "1024x768") is 800x600; and at that resolution, the screen scrolls, which is even more annoying than the fuzzy resolution.

Here's my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with all the comments taken out:

Section "Module"
    Load        "dbe"  	# Double buffer extension
    SubSection  "extmod"
      Option    "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension
    EndSubSection
    Load        "freetype"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/misc/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/CID/"
    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/"
    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/local/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/freefont/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
#    FontPath   "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

#    ModulePath "/usr/lib/modules"

EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"

# Uncomment this to cause a core dump at the spot where a signal is 
# received.  This may leave the console in an unusable state, but may
# provide a better stack trace in the core dump to aid in debugging

#    Option "NoTrapSignals"

# Uncomment this to disable the <Ctrl><Alt><Fn> VT switch sequence
# (where n is 1 through 12).  This allows clients to receive these key
# events.

#    Option "DontVTSwitch"

# Uncomment this to disable the <Ctrl><Alt><BS> server abort sequence
# This allows clients to receive this key event.

#    Option "DontZap"

# Uncomment this to disable the <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> mode switching
# sequences.  This allows clients to receive these key events.

#    Option "Dont Zoom"

# Uncomment this to disable tuning with the xvidtune client. With
# it the client can still run and fetch card and monitor attributes,
# but it will not be allowed to change them. If it tries it will
# receive a protocol error.

#    Option "DisableVidModeExtension"

# Uncomment this to enable the use of a non-local xvidtune client. 

#    Option "AllowNonLocalXvidtune"

# Uncomment this to disable dynamically modifying the input device
# (mouse and keyboard) settings. 

#    Option "DisableModInDev"

# Uncomment this to enable the use of a non-local client to
# change the keyboard or mouse settings (currently only xset).

#    Option "AllowNonLocalModInDev"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier	"Keyboard1"
    Driver	"kbd"
    Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
    Option "XkbRules"	"xorg"
    Option "XkbModel"	"pc101"
    Option "XkbLayout"	"us"

EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier	"Mouse1"
    Driver	"mouse"
    Option "Protocol"    "PS/2"	# PS/2 Mouse
    Option "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"
    Option "ZAxisMapping"   "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Samsung 750s"
    HorizSync   31.5 - 48.5
    VertRefresh 50-100
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier	"Standard VGA"
    VendorName	"Unknown"
    BoardName	"Unknown"
    Driver     "vga"
EndSection

# Device configured by xorgconfig:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "ATI Radeon 9600se"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    #VideoRam    131072
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection


Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "ATI Radeon 9600se"
    Monitor     "Samsung 750s"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "800x600" "1024x768" "1280x1024" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "800x600" "1024x768" "1280x1024" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Simple Layout"
    Screen "Screen 1"
    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

I'm just not sure what exactly it is I have to change to get a lower resolution without having the screen scroll.

You will be better off using the monitors native resolution and adjusting the dpi. What wm are you using?
post
xdpyinfo |grep resolution
xdpyinfo |grep dimensions

When you say fuzzy, is it the fonts?

When I say it's fuzzy, I mean the whole screen looks fuzzy...like the camera effect you get from putting a thin layer of vaseline on the lens.

$ xdpyinfo | grep resolution
 resolution: 101x108 dots per inch
$ xdpyinfo | grep dimensions
 dimensions: 1280x1024 pixels (332x241 millimeters)

And I'm using Xfce4, so xfwm.

You could try X -configure and let nvidia handle it. It won't change your current xorg.conf

I've tried X-configure, several times, and each time it failed. Thus why I used xorgconfig.

And just out of curiosity, why let Nvidia handle it? I've got an ATI card.

opps I should have said fglrx
How did it fail with the mouse?

Sorry, I completely mis-understood you when you said "X-configure"...I though you were referring to "Xorg -configure".

I thank you for all your help, comprookie2000, but I think the fuzziness is just me experiencing a resolution that's much higher than what I'm used to (I usually stick to the 1152x768, 24-bit), and I'll probably just learn to suffer with it.

If you are getting "Sync out of range" that implies that your monitor settings are not right.
You need to make sure that the values for HorizSync (In kHz unless specified) and VertRefresh (in Hz unless specified) are correct.

Looking on the web, it seems you want
HorizSync 30 kHz - 70 kHz
VertRefresh 50 Hz - 160 Hz

If you want to run at 1152x768 (which is a weird resolution) then you will need to add that to the list of modes in the screen section of the file. Or is that a typo for 1024x768?

If you want to find out why it won't let you use 1024x768, then you need to check the X log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) which lists all the potential modes (a great many built in ones plus the ones you specify) and if the will be used. If the won't be, there will be a reason, e.g. not enough video RAM or whatever.

Sweet. Thanks for your reply, richardash1981.
I can't get to my system right now, as I'm at school, but when I get home, I'll check the Xorg log, figure something out, and post any results.

It wasn't a typo, by the way. 1152x768 is my resolution of choice; it's not too big, and it's not too small. Back about 10 years ago, when I was still running Windows, my resolution was always 1152x768, and that was on a 4MB video card. My current system has the ATI Radeon 9600SE vid-card with 128MB of VRAM.

Again, thanks. I'll post my results when I get home.

richardash1981 is right, the message "Sync out of range" from your monitor means you have to adjust one or both parameters HorizSync and VertRefresh with the correct values in your xorg.conf file; but usually, you should put a range (something like:
VertRefresh 90-120
..for the exact range values that should work, look at:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=301603
where the working values for a working Samsung Syncmaster 750s are claimed to be:
HorizSync 28-70
VertRefresh 50-160

1. You have two device sections in your xorg.conf. Remove the one with VGA.
2. You have an LCD I guess? So set your VertRefresh to 60 (instead of 50-100). Then X server is not going to try incompatible modes.

Thanks for all your help guys/girls, but I've just wussed out, and switched back to Mandrake (er, Mandriva as it's now called).

I'll keep all your suggestions handy for later when I decide to try Gentoo again.

Again, thanks for everything.

PS. Emerson, my monitor's a CRT, not LCD, and I didn't think to take out that VGA device as it wasn't being referenced, but I'll definitely remember it for next time.