Simple question:
How do I get the boot and system loading screens to run in my HP laptop’s native resolution (1200x800)?
It’s not so simple! 
what kind of video card do you have? ATi, nVidia, Intel? I’d assume if it were Intel, the card would have been properly detected and had the proper resolution, but I have been wrong before…
Are you referring to the boot menu screen, the bootsplash screen while the kernel loads, the login and KDE splash screens - or the actual screen resolution once the KDE or Gnome gui is up?
The boot menu screen.
Oohh…almost forgot…the same question in addition to the installation screen. So is there a way to enable my laptop’s native resolution during the DVD installation?
The grub menu, bootsplash, and installation screens must all use “framebuffer” (this is true for any OS) because the video driver is not yet running (as the OS is not yet running). To see which framebuffer modes your video device supports, in a terminal as root do:
hwinfo --framebuffer
First just try a different vga parameter in the Boot Options, that works with your device. It may scale as necessary. Here is instructions on changing what is available (the theme is in /etc/bootsplash/themes) Custom splash screen - openSUSE.
I’m having a similar issue on both 11.0 and 11.1.
I would like to boot into a high resolution console (on boot) but the highest allowed is 1280x1024. The result is that all splash screens are centered in the middle of the screen instead of filling it.
Hardware Class: framebuffer
Model: "Intel(r)GM965/PM965/GL960 Graphics Controller"
Vendor: "Intel Corporation"
Device: "Intel(r)GM965/PM965/GL960 Graphics Controller"
SubVendor: "Intel(r)GM965/PM965/GL960 Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS"
SubDevice:
Revision: "Hardware Version 0.0"
Memory Size: 7 MB + 448 kB
Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xd076ffff (rw)
Mode 0x0307: 1280x1024 (+1280), 8 bits
Mode 0x031a: 1280x1024 (+2560), 16 bits
Mode 0x031b: 1280x1024 (+5120), 24 bits
Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+832), 8 bits
Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
I found an interesting post on the subject here.
Anyway to add a new mode??? Esp., 1680x1050 (native resolution of my 6710b)