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Yes, I have searched through the forum and Googled this over the greater 'net as well.
I am setting this machine up to eventually run MythTV under Ubuntu Dapper, with my Samsung DLP HDTV as its monitor.
The machine is a 2.8GHz P-4 with integrated i810 onboard video, 2GB or RAM and a couple of 320GB SATA drives.
The TV's optimum res is 1280x720 at 60Hz.
I have tried changing the lines in xorg.conf to 1280x720 (only). I downloaded that little utility to generate a modeline, then added it to xorg.conf.
No joy. It still comes up at 1024x768 at 75Hz.
Just for sh*ts and giggles, I created an NTFS partition on the hard drive and installed Windoze XP. Once I installed the video drivers, it came right up at 1280x720...so I KNOW the combination is possible.
It was suggested on Ubuntuforums that I install 915resolution. I did, and configured it as suggested.
This "sort of" worked. I get what at first glance *looks* like widescreen 1280x720, but it's obvious that the screen isn't at optimal resolution (fonts aren't very readable, etc., as you'd expect on a regular LCD monitor that's not at the right resolution). When I hit the "display" button on the TV's remote, it's telling me that I'm at 1024x768 at 52Hz (or 73Hz, depending upon how I configure 915resolution). When running Windoze, it comes up with 1280x720 at 60Hz, where it should be.
Since it works fine in Windoze, my guess is that it doesn't need a BIOS upgrade.
Well, I've used a similar method to yours to get 1280x960i working on my 4:3 aspect ratio HDTV--a significantly more complex problem due to various overscanning issues and interlacing. I don't have a 720p HDTV, but I'm sure I'd be able to get it working no problem.
However, I'm not positive whether Linux's i810 driver is sophisticated enough to handle unusual resolutions. I've created custom modes with i810 for 1280x960 (progressive--the hardware definitely can't handle interlaced resolutions). But I've not tried 1280x720 myself.
You said that you downloaded a program to generate the modeline. X windows comes with it's own program that does the same thing called "gtf"
It is called like "gtf 1280 720 60 -x"
The output looks like:
# 1280x720 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 44.76 kHz; pclk: 74.48 MHz
Modeline "1280x720_60.00" 74.48 1280 1336 1472 1664 720 721 724 746 -HSync +Vsync above is only an example on my hardware not yours
However, I would drop of the ".00" from the name, and change the modes to "1280x720_60" in the display section.
You're right, it's gtf...didn't know it was there, downloaded the source from someplace into my home dir and compiled it. Anyway, took your suggestion, no difference.
I think I'm going to go bald from this experience. The box has only two expansion slots, both of which are being used (+ one PCI Express x1)...am I looking at having to buy an add-in vid card to get this to work???
As I said, 1280x720@60 works fine in Windoze with Intel's drivers, so it must be a problem with the i810 Linux driver. They (Intel) have Linux drivers for RHEL 3, SuSE and Red Flag Linux only, nothing for Debian and its offspring. I really don't want to switch to SuSE (and even if I did, there's no guarantees!)
When I googled for "Samsung DLP HDTV" the messages had a different resolution. Are there different models? You might want to search using the model number and a term found in xorg.conf. The result could be an example xorg.conf file. Also, read through the /var/log/xorg.0.conf file. It may indicate what the problem is.
I don't know if it is important, but I noticed that you don't have a display size entry.
I got the specs from the TV's manual (there's a section devoted to "using your TV as a PC monitor"). The optimum resolution is 1280x720 at 60Hz, which is 720p HDTV (which the Windoze drivers seem to handle fine - too bad we don't have something like ndiswrapper for video drivers). It will also do 1080i, but I'm not even going to think about that right now.
You have a different model than the one referred to that I found on the net. The horizontal and vertical refresh entries can be touchy. Something tells me that 40-90 for the vertical refresh isn't right; I think that 40-70 might work better. Also generate modelines for "1280 768 56 -x". 90 seems to high to me, but I'm just basing this on a feeling. Your resolution implies either a 5:3 aspect ration, or the pixels are not square. Perhaps you could use a "DisplaySize" entry in your xorg.conf file.
I have a 16:9 LCD display on my laptop. Its Device entry has the line: DisplaySize 332 207
If it is the ratio that is important, then the same entry might help, otherwise you could scale it up from my 15 " display. I looked at your model on the net and found that it has a 16:9 ration screen. However 1280/768 has a 5:3 ratio. That makes me think that you need the DisplaySize entry to keep the screen from being stretched vertically.
I think that the pixels are longer vertically.
Remember that the "xorg.conf" file has its own manpage.
I think that 40-70 might work better. Also generate modelines for "1280 768 56 -x". 90 seems to high to me, but I'm just basing this on a feeling. Your resolution implies either a 5:3 aspect ration, or the pixels are not square. Perhaps you could use a "DisplaySize" entry in your xorg.conf file.
I have a 16:9 LCD display on my laptop. Its Device entry has the line: DisplaySize 332 207
If it is the ratio that is important, then the same entry might help, otherwise you could scale it up from my 15 " display. I looked at your model on the net and found that it has a 16:9 ration screen. However 1280/768 has a 5:3 ratio. That makes me think that you need the DisplaySize entry to keep the screen from being stretched vertically.
I think that the pixels are longer vertically.
I will try using different refresh-rate range and/or the DisplaySize entry.
I have looked at the xorg.conf man page, but will peruse it again.
The resolution I'm shooting for is 1280x720, not 768, which is 16:9. :-)
Is the flatscreen the only video device connected when you ran the "gtf" program? ( I don't know how you would use the program if you had 2 monitors connected. ) Also, it may be the case where you need to power down after changing a video output connection. My DVD/VCR, and Sony Stereo (with a/v switch) at home is even like that. If I change from s-video to video, I need to shut them down.
Does a 1024 * 720 or 800 * 600 modeline work?
I notice in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt, that the i810 device has two parameter restrictions
Code:
...
DRM Direct Rendering Management support is enabled.
HW Appropriate hardware is enabled.
...
i810= [HW,DRM]
...
Could you try loading in the drm kernel module before starting the x server, and loading the dri module (in xorg.conf)?
.....
I just discovered that the i810 driver has it's own manpage. Try reading "man 4 i810" for a number of options.
I noticed two things that stood out:
Quote:
By default 8 Megabytes of system memory are used for graphics. For the 830M and later, the default is 8 Megabytes when DRI is not enabled and 32 Megabytes with DRI is enabled. This amount may be changed with the VideoRam entry in the config file Device section. It may be set to any reasonable value up to 64MB for older chipsets or 128MB for newer chipets. It is advisable to check the Xorg log file to check if any features have been disabled because of insufficient video memory. In particular, DRI support or tiling mode may be disabled with insufficient video memory. Either of these being disabled will reduce performance for 3D applications. Note however, that increasing this value too much will reduce the amount of system memory available for other applications.
The driver makes use of the video BIOS to program video modes for the 830M and later. This limits the video modes that can be used to those provided by the video BIOS, and to those that will fit into the amount of video memory that the video BIOS is aware of.
So using the i810 driver, you may need to upgrade the video BIOS if possible to add support for the 1280x720 video mode.
One of the kernel source files, i810_dvt.c, contains a table of register values for various resolutions:
Quote:
/*-*- linux-c -*-
* linux/drivers/video/i810_dvt.c -- Intel 810 Discrete Video Timings (Intel)
*
* Copyright (C) 2001 Antonino Daplas<adaplas@pol.net>
* All Rights Reserved
*
*
* This file is subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public
* License. See the file COPYING in the main directory of this archive for
* more details.
*/
Maybe you could email Intel support and ask what the values should be for your resolution. Or use hexedit or od to dump out the windows driver and extract the values. Look for a sequence like "0x10 0x09 0xC7 0xC7 0x8d 0xcf 0x07 0xE0 0x10 0x40 0xb0 0x03 0xAF 0xC8 0xaf 0xE1 0x04 0x04 0x04 0x04 0x01 0x00".
Thanks for the come-backs. I have looked all over the Intel site and can't find a support e-mail address for regular peons (not developers or paid supporters) like myself.
I will try loading the DRM module before starting X, so see if that makes any difference. The DRI module is already in xorg.conf. I'm not on that machine at the moment.
800x600 resolutions all work. 1024x720? Haven't seen that one before but may give it a shot.
Tried adding "VideoRAM 65536" to xorg.conf but that didn't work. That should be plenty to get the X server up at 1280x720, but will try 131072K also.
Hmmmm. Going through the windows driver with hexedit...looks pretty tedious.
There's a PCI-Express x1 video card with the Radeon chipset going for aroung $100. I hate the idea of caving in and going that route, since I *know* this on-board chipset will do 1280x720, but I have only so much time to screw around with this. Will 1280x720 at 60Hz work with the Radeon drivers in Linux?
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