Xorg.conf Woes

magicdanw · 03-12-2009, 05:14 PM

I've tried for quite a while to get some Windows games running on my Ubuntu installation using WINE. Many of them run fine in a window, but if I try to run them full-screen in their native resolution, the games invariably quit, complaining that the required resolution (usually 640x480) isn't available. I've tried to configure xorg.conf to support them, but it doesn't seem to work. One thought I had is that my laptop has a widescreen display, so perhaps that causes trouble with displaying classic resolutions?

Anyway, here's my xorg.conf file. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Code:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport 0 0
		Depth 8
		Modes "640x480" "1280x800"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport 0 0
		Depth 24
		Modes "640x480" "1280x800"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport 0 0
		Depth 32
		Modes "640x480" "1280x800"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load	"glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver	"nvidia"
	Option	"NoLogo"	"True"
EndSection

Chromezero · 03-12-2009, 06:50 PM

Hello and Welcome to LQ!

Your wide-screen monitor may not support this resolution. Have you tried to put the game into a resolution that matches a widescreen format rather then a 4:3 format? Many games will give you an option to specify what resolution it runs at. As far as I can tell, your xorg.conf looks correct, if your monitor and video card support those resolutions.

magicdanw · 03-12-2009, 07:35 PM

Unfortunately, the games don't offer that kind of configuration. If it helps, they are Kudos2, Gemsweeper, and Abe's Odyssey.

Chromezero · 03-13-2009, 09:45 AM

Just a quick thought here...To test that your system can support the 640x480 resolution, try setting your desktop to this resolution. It's going to look terrible and stretch really bad but at least you'll know that your video card and monitor can support it. Also, can you give some info on what laptop and video card you have?

magicdanw · 03-13-2009, 10:13 AM

I've got a Lenovo T61 with Quadro 140 graphics card. The NVidia control panel doesn't list any non-widescreen resolutions as selectable...

Chromezero · 03-13-2009, 01:46 PM

When you installed the nvidia drivers, did you run nvidia-xconfig? This will generally do a pretty good job of configuring X, and should add all or most of the modes that your video card can handle. After a little research, I don't see any reason why your setup should have problems with this resolution. The only exception is possibly the monitor itself does not support 640x480.

magicdanw · 03-14-2009, 02:44 AM

I ran nvidia-xconfig, and it added some fields to the config file, but it pretty much left the display section alone, and it didn't help. Does anyone have experience with settings widescreen displays to use standard resolutions?

Chromezero · 03-17-2009, 09:53 AM

I was hoping someone would jump in here with a solution. I can't think of any reason specifically why this wouldn't work, but there may be something I'm over looking. I suspect that either you system won't support that resolution, or the game itself is trying to go to a widescreen format when you go full screen. Chances are, the games you're referring to won't support widescreen and therefore bomb out. I'm out of ideas at the moment but if I think of something else, I'll post back.

Chromezero · 03-18-2009, 03:17 PM

I just saw this on another thread and thought I might mention it to you. Try this and see if it helps...

Code:

system-config-display

magicdanw · 03-18-2009, 03:21 PM

Ubuntu doesn't seem to have that installed...

hellodio · 03-19-2009, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by magicdanw

Ubuntu doesn't seem to have that installed...

Debian Lenny neither. I also run Suse 10.3 quite often (dual boot) and I noticed that a lot of the utilities that the official Xorg configuration help page mentions do not ship with Xorg 7.4 anymore. They did w/ Suse 10.3. Those utils are:

xorgcfg
X -configure (still works, but not for your monitor or graphics card driver)
xorgconfig

Even 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver xorg' does not configure the video driver and monitor like ye 'ol 'xfree86config' did. What utility can we use to configure X now-a-days?

Editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf by hand may be acceptable, but one needs a good example of all options... I'd rather have a good utility, though....

chrism01 · 03-20-2009, 12:22 AM

How about

X -probeonly

hellodio · 03-20-2009, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

How about

X -probeonly

Results in:

Code:

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
        If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
        and start again.

So 'X -probeonly' seems not to be a configuration utility either...