Video setup for nVidia

[Turgidson]

New installation of 11.1 on a mainboard with the NVidia nForce 430 video. It recognizes my widescreen viewsonic monitor with the correct aspect ratio (16:10), but the screen resolutions available all indicate 4:3. All the people on the screen look really wide and fat. Can anyone help me return those people to their normal thin selves?

Thanks

Paul

[smpoole7]

Originally Posted by Turgidson

New installation of 11.1 on a mainboard with the NVidia nForce 430 video. It recognizes my widescreen viewsonic monitor with the correct aspect ratio (16:10), but the screen resolutions available all indicate 4:3. All the people on the screen look really wide and fat. Can anyone help me return those people to their normal thin selves?

Thanks

Paul

Trying running nvidia-settings. If the desired resolution isn't offered there, it probably means that your monitor isn't reporting the resolutions in a form that the NVidia driver can understand (the so-called EDID info). This is a known issue, and the cure (unfortunately) (gack, yuck) is to manually add the needed modeline to your xorg.conf file.

Which (also unfortunately) doesn't always work, either.

NVidia gets snaps and props for providing drivers to the Open Source community. They get a few "boos," however, for how difficult it is sometimes to get them working properly.

[Turgidson]

Thanks. So I need to edit the config file to add a screen resolution that is not being reported? Is this a shortcoming of the monitor, or of the video card (on-board video in this case)? Can this be fixed by adding a video card? Does the new ATI stuff do any better?

Thanks

Paul

[smpoole7]

Originally Posted by Turgidson

Thanks. So I need to edit the config file to add a screen resolution that is not being reported?

Yes, but I'm not an expert on modelines. Someone else will have to pitch in on that.

Is this a shortcoming of the monitor, or of the video card (on-board video in this case)? Can this be fixed by adding a video card? Does the new ATI stuff do any better?

Unknown, unknown, and possibly (although ATI has its own issues under Linux). From what I've seen online about this, it's the NVidia driver. Something about EDID versions -- the newer monitors (naturally) use a newer reporting format, and NVidia's driver doesn't really understand it. I can't swear to that, though.

Hate to tell you this ... but there was another poster in this forum a couple of weeks ago with the very same problem. Even after adding a modeline for the wide-screen resolution, he/she couldn't get nvidia-settings to use it. My built-in GeForce 6100 card works fine in Suse 10.3 with my wide monitor (1680 pixels wide), but your mileage will obviously vary.

For kicks and giggles, you could download an older version of Suse (10.3 is still available) and try that. That would take a little time, though .. .. . and if you do that, I STRONGLY recommend against using the KDE 4 pre-release stuff that came with 10.3. That thing was a nightmare. Stick with KDE 3.5.

[Turgidson]

Thanks. We actually have some machines running 10.3 at work, and I've never seen this issue... but then I haven't mucked around with them much.

I'll go home and try opening the xorg.conf file first. Is there an alternate driver? The monitor is an older widescreen lcd, so I was not expecting trouble. The computer is one put together from old parts for our kid.

P