EPIA on board gfx + 7" widescreen LCD = problem?

[phoTToniq]

Hi - I have been lurking for quite a while and have been trying to decide what hardware I should buy for my car pc. The machine will be used for sat nav/divx/dvd/mp3/showing off.

I was going to buy an EPIA m10000 and use the on board graphics, connecting it to a xenarc 7" widescreen display. However, I understand that the onboard S3 graphics does not support user defined resolution (i need 800x480) even if you use powerstrip.

Does this make the EPIA a bad choice if you are using a widescreen display? How have other people got round this problem? I was thinking you would have to go for an all in wonder solution.. is this right?

Would I be better off with a shuttle pc and a p4 chip? I was under the impression they use WAY more power and would be bad for my battery...

Sorry for the long first post - hope someone can help

phoTToniq

[akamikewatson]

I was questioning the same thing, it definatly does not support custom resolutions I have seen that on many boards. However I did see that they have windows ce drivers that support 800x480 ... http://www.via.com.tw/en/Solutions/wince.jsp (the chip set is ple133 I believe, do a search on that page for 800x480) So I assume that if they can do it on a wince platform that they should be able to do the same with XP, I think its just a matter of finding the right drivers or waiting for them to be released??

Personally I have decided to change my idea to use a microatx board by chaintech that has onboard gforce video which is the best for custom resolutions. (not to mention the board is actually upgradable, as opposed to the epia, but then it is bigger)

[phoTToniq]

There are lots of people around using the EPIA M platform with xenarc 7" widescreen displays. Could some of them please describe the picture quality? Are you perhaps using a PCI graphics card?

phoTToniq

[skoda]

I have the same problem here.
I just got in the TM-701L screen and hooked it to my epia-800 TV out and I’m not happy with the result.
The red is to red and there are lines running true the letters and pictures(difficult to explain in English).'
And then there is the no changeable resolution size problem.
Now i want to upgrade to a pci video card and was thinking about
Sapphire RADEON 7000 DDR, 32 MB
or
XFX GeForce2 MX 400, 64 MB

Are these cards any good ?
Have these cards the option of making it wide screen ?

Maybe someone has another solution or idea.

Thanks in advance
Gijsje

[CptnDipshit]

I think the newer screens will run @ 1600x1200, at least thats what their site says now. So, if you haven't bought one yet, the newer ones may work.

[phoTToniq]

captain dip**** - thanks - ill find out more about that.

skoda - ALL radeon cards work with powerstrip according to emtech. Another poster mentioned that the GeForce stuff works too.

THIS IS NOT A HARDWARE LIMITATION. It is just that Via have not put this capability into their windows driver!! IF you run linux you should be able to do custom resolution with the EPIA on board graphics.

WE SHOULD LOBBY VIA TO PUT THIS CAPABILITY IN TO THEIR WINDOWS DRIVERS TOO!!!!!



phoTToniq

[00CericaRuss]

yeah.. the problem resides in the graphics driver, not the xenarc.

I have a cappuccino type pc and a new xenarc that supports 1600x1200 and get get 800x430 (or whatever 16:9) is out of it for the life of me.

I couldn't do it w/the tv out nor the vga out of the built in intel 810e video chipset... so... yeah.. it's the friggn driver

[akamikewatson]

I can't say enough how much luck I have had with gforce cards. The drivers have to be the most customizable around. You can run bazarr resolutions and it still works. You just edit the driver before you install it and plug in the exact resoltion you want. Assuming the xenarc will take the out put you could tweak it down to single pixel resolution changes (800x480, 801x480 802x481 ... you get it)

Maybe its worth lobbying some of the programmers on the board here to make new drivers, via does have development kits available (I think)_

[skoda]

I bought a geforce4 MX440 today and tryed the custom resolution today with powerstrip.
When i put in 800 x480 and i select it the lcd goes to no signal and resets to the old settings.
I think the MX440 does no accepts the custom resolution.

It'going back on monday

[akamikewatson]

Well before you take the time and return it or what not try these ideas ..

1. Hook it up to a real monitor and test it, make sure its not the lcd having issues. (some laptop screens freak out when you try customer resolutions)

2. I can't speak for powerstrips functionality so I would definatly recommend manually editing the drivers and adding the resolution you want and reinstalling them and try without power strip.

3. Try different refresh rates, some resolutions will only work at some refresh rates (again, probably an lcd limitation)

4. Experiment with a few more custom resolutions, I think 840x488 is another common one (but I don't know for sure so look into some more to try)