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Old 05-28-2004, 12:01 AM   #1
Luke727
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Registered: Aug 2001
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X croaks at 640x480, but Windows works fine.


I'm running Debian Woody with xfree86 4.1.0 and KDE 2.2.2. Currently using the nv driver (but the problem is there with vesa and nvidia as well). Got a NVidia TNT Vanta PCI video card with 16 MB vram and a really old monitor. The monitor's max resolution is 1024x768. In Windows 98, 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 all work fine at all color depths. Under Debian, however, 640x480 chokes. The display is all garbled and makes a hissing sound. I know I've got the sync rates correct (taken from online sources and the Windows driver). There are no errors or warnings in the X log file, so I don't know what to do. Perhaps it is the refresh rate? If anyone has some suggestions, I would be very happy to try them.
 
Old 05-28-2004, 01:01 AM   #2
haimeltjnfg
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you might want to try installing the nvidia drivers, although chances are that's probably totally unrelated.
 
Old 05-28-2004, 01:08 AM   #3
Luke727
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Yeah, the problem is still there with the NVidia drivers.

Another wierd thing is that under X the viewable part of the screen gets shifted to the right. So if under Windows the screen is perfectly centered, when I start up X the screen will go past the right boundary of the monitor. I can control it with the knobs on the monitor, but at 800x600 the shift is so much that even with the knobs all the way turned there is still a very small part of the display that is not visible (blocked by the plastic of the monitor).

If I wasn't so poor I might get a new (but still old) monitor.
 
Old 05-28-2004, 01:34 AM   #4
haimeltjnfg
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does 800x600 or 1024x768 work? try running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and playing with different settings.
 
Old 05-28-2004, 02:00 AM   #5
Luke727
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800x600 and 1024x768 work fine, except for the shifting effect at 800x600. I have tried everything I could think of in the XFree86 configuration options. Tried using/not using framebuffer, different color depths, etc, and the problem is still there. This wouldn't be that big of a problem, but a few games I'm trying to play run fullscreen at 640x480 and nothing else, so they are unplayable for me. I just think it's bizarre that 640x480 works fine in Windows but blows the big one in X.

The one thing I haven't tried is messing with the vertical/horizontal sync frequencies. But I'm afraid that changing them will probably make things worse rather than better. Still, it's worth a shot I guess. It's real late, though; I think I'll wait until I wake up to try messing with the frequencies.
 
Old 05-28-2004, 11:57 AM   #6
Luke727
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Registered: Aug 2001
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Well, I have gotten some success. It seems the information I got from one of the Windows drivers was incorrect. I found the correct hsync and vsync values and now 1024x768 and 640x480 work just fine, and are even mostly centered in the monitor as they are in Windows.

800x600 "works", but it is shifted even more to the right of the screen and it overwlaps itself (hard to explain - about 1/4 of the image goes off the right side of the screen, and then comes back mirrored from the right side of the screen over itself ). The knobs on the monitor can take care of it, but I really don't want to have to mess with them every time I do something that requires 800x600 resolution. I'm going to keep messing around with the configuration and see if I can get all 3 modes to work at the same time. I guess having to mess with the knobs is better than not having the resolution at all, though.

Is there a way to use different hsync and vsync values depending upon what resolution you are running? I just don't want to mess up the beautiful 1024x768 and 640x480 that are working right now...
 
Old 05-28-2004, 07:19 PM   #7
haimeltjnfg
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try playing around with xfree86 -configure.
 
  


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