Applications have wierd problem with screen resolution

[Hlingler]

Originally Posted by dave370

Now whenever I change resolution the desktop appears to change resolution but the monitor says its still at 1680x1050. I think this is because of "Metamode" but I don't know how to change it so that when I or an application want to change the resolution the computer can actually change the resolution!!!

Reading man xorg.conf is like trying to decipher Klingon, but I think that the answer is in there, and has something to do with "Modes". The is a huge pile of documentation that comes with the nvidia drivers too. A brief surf through them revealed nothing to me, except for the sheer volume of verbiage. Have fun.... Surely someone else has faced this issue? Nothing turns up on a Google-Linux search? How about the nvidia forums? http://www.nvnews.net/

V

[dave370]

Tried Google, Recently posted at Nvidia Linux forum (URL: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=109446), don't seem to be getting anywhere. The problem appears to only effect fullscreen applications . I have solved the problem of switching resolutions with the Nvidia and Kdesktop utilities if you look at my Nvidia posts (It appears to be unrelated and this wasn't much of a problem anyway because I want my Window Manager working at 1680x1050 always but old games which use 4:3 resolutions in fullscreen should go to their desired resolution rather than this weird behavior). I haven't read through man xorg.conf or any Nvidia documentation yet but I'll give that a go soon. I'm hoping someone at the Nvidia Forum or someone at this forum can help me though before I have to go through all that documentation.

[dave370]

Okay, I just downloaded the Fedora 8 64bit DVD (I was previously running 32bit). Once I had installed the Operating System on my computer I updated the Kernel to the latest via pup, installed livna, installed Madwifi packages (I need these for my wireless card), installed latest xorg-x11-drv-nvidia and installed Wine (Not Cedega or Crossover). I then installed Star Trek: Armada 2 on Wine (Actual Wine) and went to play and the problem occurred again!!!

This is extremely annoying. I'm going to now remove the xorg-x11-drv-nvidia package and see if the problem occurs on the open source driver (I tried this before with my 32bit installation and this fixed the problem but of course the game was too slow to play). If this works it's pretty obvious this is a bug with the latest Nvidia proprietary driver and I will bug the Nvidia software developers till they get fixed.

My Video card is a Nvidia Geforce 7600GS and I am using a 1680x1050 monitor. If anyone has a similar configuration to me (Such as having a Geforce 7 series card with a widescreen monitor) they should be able follow what I have done above with a Fedora 8 install (32 or 64 doesn't appear to matter) and confirm the problem. I will post this post on the Nvidia Forum later on.

[dave370]

I've ran smolt for people who would like to know more about my computers specifications. Here is the URL: http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pu...4-914ab690bbf4

[dave370]

Attached is my Nvidia Bug Report (I had to change the name from nvidia-bug-report.log to nvidia-bug-report.conf because this forum doesn't like the LOG file extension)

[Hlingler]

This is getting complicated....

> What is the purpose of the "Twinview" call in xorg.conf? Are you sure that this is necessary and correct?

Here are some things you might try:
> No, the nvidia drivers are not all exactly the same, although in theory they should be. The original nvidia binary is not recommended (long story...), and the re-packaged Livna driver is slightly different than the re-packaged FreshRPMs driver (because human error and personal preferences are involved). You could try removing all the Livna driver stuff, and install the FreshRPMs dkms-based driver instead. FreshRPMs repo is down at the moment, however, so see: http://forum.fedoraforum.org/forum/s...0&postcount=26 to get version(s) 169.09 just for now. Install with: yum localinstall --nogpgcheck path-to-packagename; dkms package should be dragged in as dependency if not already installed. There is even yet another repo offering this driver, but leave that for last resort....
> Something recently seems to have broken auto-detection of monitors WRT nvidia drivers, so it might help to have the custom EDID specified. How to use the nvidia-settings "Acquire EDID": save file; copy (as root user) to /etc/X11/edid.bin; edit xorg.conf as shown, but use your monitor type instead of CRT:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        VendorName  "NVIDIA Corporation"
        BoardName   "GeForce 6150 LE"
        Option  "CustomEDID" "CRT-0:/etc/X11/edid.bin"
EndSection

This seems to have made some difference in the available resolutions on my machine, but I wasn't really paying attention when I did it to know for sure....

Hope this helps,
V

P.S. Note that the dkms-based driver has no kmod: the kernel module is built by dkms at boot time against the booting kernel, so no updating kmods! (but it takes a little extra boot time to build the module...)

[dave370]

I think twinview has to do with dual monitors (I only have one so this is unnecessary) but in my new 64bit Fedora 8 install this line is no longer in my xorg.conf file anyway and I am still having the problem.

I'll now try what you said with the nvidia FreshRPM's and see if that works.

[dave370]

Okay I removed the Livna Nvidia Driver, rebooted, Downloaded and installed the FreshRPM Nvidia Driver, rebooted again and then started Armada II, no difference. I then removed the FreshRPM Nvidia Driver, rebooted and then ran Armada II again and it worked correctly. But like before the Open Source driver is dead slow and makes the game unplayable.

Looking at what you have written it does appear that the different Repository Distributors do change parts of the Nvidia Driver code, but this bug must effect all Nvidia Proprietary drivers (Latest ones anyway) as I should have gotten a different result when I used the FreshRPM.

I will now try your idea with the EDID for xorg.conf

[dave370]

I made the EDID file with nvidia-settings, copied it over to the directory you specified as root, added the extra line to xorg.conf and rebooted. When the PC got into the Window Manager, the monitor said it was displaying at 1680x1050 (Native) but the desktop was stretched horizontally to twice it's width i.e I could only see the left part of the screen. I then went into the KDesktop utility and changed the resolution to 1024x768 and back again and this fixed it so the Window Manager would display properly. I then attempted to play Armada II and it still had the same problem

[Hlingler]

Sorry dave370, I'm out of ideas. Unless you can find a solution elsewhere, or nvidia comes up with a fix, or someone else more knowledgeable can offer suggestions here, I don't know what more can be done.

P.S. FWIW, the custom EDID does give me (a couple) more resolution options in KDE desktop display settings. But I can't confirm with system-config-display because I'm running KDE-only, so that app is not installed on my main box. Nor do I have a wide-screen display to compare with yours....

Good Luck,
Vince

[dave370]

Yeah, I don't think mucking around with EDID and xorg.conf is going to fix this problem though as switching resolutions in my Window Manager without these changes works perfectly. The problem must effect all of the latest Nvidia binaries with a conflict most likely my chipset or video card.

To further diagnose this problem, over the next couple of days I'm going to put my Geforce 7600GS into my Dad's PC (This is an AMD system, mine's Intel, lot of other different specs) and install fresh Fedora 8. My brother also has a 7300GS which is excellent because I can see if this effects the entire Geforce 7 series or just 7600GS. As I said earlier, I can make this problem occur with a fresh install of Fedora 8 (32bit or 64bit doesn't matter) so it shouldn't be too much of a problem for someone to confirm this bug (For more details about my current system see the smolt URL I provided).

[dave370]

Okay, now I've half fixed the problem. I added the line

Option "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling = aspect-scaled"

to xorg.conf. I had done this before with my 32bit Fedora Installation and it didn't work (Also through the Nvidia Utility).

Now when I go into Star Trek: Armada II (I haven't tested any other games yet), the intro movies at the beginning of the game which I believe attempt to display at 640x480 work (i.e. At 4:3 on a 16:10 monitor black bars to the side, exactly how I like 4:3 games to work). But when it attempts to go to the Menu the right side of the screen and the bottom part are both cut off. I believe this is because it went from 640x480 to 800x600 but the screen is only showing 640x480 pixels (Sort of like my previous problem except now with 2 4:3 resolutions).

Also just like before, the Monitor is reporting that it is at 1680x1050 even when I go to the 4:3 resolutions fullscreen. I hate this strange functionality and would prefer that if an application wants to change to it's desired resolution, it should do so. This functionality is what is probably causing the problem anyway.

[dave370]

I finally found someone else who has a slightly similar problem to mine.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-434609.html

Now that I've put the scaling option in X I'm going to put the extra modes in again and restart X like it says. Maybe this will now fix the problem.