Thread: Quest for 800x480

Originally Posted by damageboy

Hey...
Has anyone tried using the XFree Server with non standard modlines to get 800x480 working? I'm just curious if the onboard video's fault is at the driver level or the hardware level...

I'll be doing a *lot* of testing with this once I get all my hardware. Xenarc monitor should be on its way, I'm just trying to decide on a case to buy now before I get the motherboard.

This might not be anytign at all, but has anyone tried using a program called powerstrip? I used(and still do) on my htpc which runs to my 26" widescreen hdtv. It allowed me to find a few resolutions that were 16:9 and worked on my tv. I think it might be able to help some of you guys out, try adding in 800x480 and see if it adds it, if it does try screwing around with some of the other settings. Good luck I'm sure I'll be here all freaking out once I get my lcd this week.

-Matt

Check it out-
http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm

Originally Posted by mattdisaster

This might not be anytign at all, but has anyone tried using a program called powerstrip? I used(and still do) on my htpc which runs to my 26" widescreen hdtv. It allowed me to find a few resolutions that were 16:9 and worked on my tv. I think it might be able to help some of you guys out, try adding in 800x480 and see if it adds it, if it does try screwing around with some of the other settings. Good luck I'm sure I'll be here all freaking out once I get my lcd this week.

Several times, within this thread even, the use of Powerstrip has been discussed. I hate to be a jackass, but

I have to apologize, I was in a rush to get out to work. I will most likely be reading this thread at the time of you reading this. my bad.

-matt

Originally Posted by damageboy

Hey...
Has anyone tried using the XFree Server with non standard modlines to get 800x480 working? I'm just curious if the onboard video's fault is at the driver level or the hardware level...

I have tried using the modeline out of the FAQ @ xenarc.com, but no success. From what I have read, the opinion is that it is the hardware, but I've also read that it would be possible with help from Via and an updated BIOS.

FWIW, I picked up a Jaton PCI nVidia Geforce2 (45$ shipped from newegg) card and I am able to get Powerstrip to push it @ 800x480@60 and also under Linux X can push it with the FAQ modeline. I haven't tried converting the modeline to a fb.modes style yet. In brief testing with the nVidia drivers (a TNT2 on a PC @ work), I couldn't get rivafb to push 800x480...but as I said, I haven't tried this with the geforce2 yet.

--m

Thanks a gazillion minuo.
I guess that's the way to go.
I was just really hoping to get the whole thing working
without a PCI card.
Too bad.
That's life for ya.

@Minuo
Please explain your set more. Do you have a lilliput or Xenarc? That is the card that i am looking at to get and would like to know your progress. Please update us

Originally Posted by antimatter

800x640.... thats great...exactly what we are all trying to get here

800x480

sheesh

800x480.. thats what i ment.. it supports 800x480.. sorry about that...

Originally Posted by damageboy

Thanks a gazillion minuo.
I guess that's the way to go.
I was just really hoping to get the whole thing working
without a PCI card.
Too bad.
That's life for ya.

Originally Posted by antimatter

@Minuo
Please explain your set more. Do you have a lilliput or Xenarc? That is the card that i am looking at to get and would like to know your progress. Please update us

antimatter-
The whole setup (so far ) is:
The system is a epia m10000 Nehemiah with a Xenarc 700TS. The card as I said before is the Jaton Geforce2 from newegg, here is a direct product link @ newegg (card). I chose this based on the fairly low price (45 shipped) and that the nv X drivers worked for a TNT2 @ work. I haven't yet tried the actual (binary only) nVidia drivers, acceleration is still low on my list of things todo (software dev starting now that the display is showing its native res.)

damageboy-
I too want to do this without a PCI card...seems a waste of my only slot considering the onboard vid is [well, should be] an excellent solution...


Small update: I tried a converted modeline (using a modeline2fb perl script I found ) but it gave me an 852x480 res...writing past the edge of the panel Maybe with some tweaking or a better way of generating the fb modeline....here's the one I used (you can see all the numbers from the powerstrip settings in it, but I don't know enough about modelines to tell whats wrong here):
X: Modeline "800x480" 31.746 800 860 940 1000* 480 508 511 525 -hsync -vsync

FB:
mode "800x480"
geometry 800 480 800 480 32
timings 31500 60 60 14 28 80 3
hsync low
vsync low
endmode


How about a new (I think, feel free to blast me with a if this has been discussed before) thought thrown out for anyone's comment/shootdown/compliment/....:

When I redid the BIOS image I made an 800x480 tif, then I resized(image, not canvas) to 640x480 (squished looking on my pb). Works perfectly in that the PC boots and the Xenarc stretches the 640 to 800 and the image is not squished anymore. Now, a couple minutes ago I tried a little SDL test with the same squished style of image as a background using a 640x480 vesa FB. Again, Xenarc stretched it and all seems good. My thoughts go like this: If you "squish" all the carpc frontend images by the same ratio as the bg (640/800=.8), they all should be stretched by the xenarc without any issue. As for text being off kilter, shouldn't the same stretching apply to a bitmapped font? The screen would still show 640x480 is the OSD, but I don't really care so long as the text is readable and the aspect ratio is clean (ie, it looks good ) One thing I'm not sure about would be mapping the coordinates for the touchscreen (buttons, etc.)

This probably wouldn't help users of MediaCar/FP/whatever without at least some new skins and maybe some dev changes, but devs that are rolling their own should be able to make this work, or am I missing something? I will be playing with this some in the next 24 days (newegg return is valid for 30 ), and see where I get, but I wanted to throw the thought out so I can get a "yeah, that would work" or a "no, you're being dumb and forgetting <whatever>" from someone who may know more about this kind of stuff than I.

--m