Intel 865 custom drivers

**neilwozau** · 09-14-2005, 10:19 PM

HI folks,

Like some of you, I have been struggling with a way to get custom resolutions out of the Intel Extreme Graphics drivers (Powerstrip can't do much for the Intel drivers), which support the 855/865/910/915/945 chipsets.

Intel have been next to useless in providing any support, although they do seem to regularly update the driver (as recent as last week), and pass the blame back to the PC manufacturer etc etc... even though the PC manufacturers all link directly back to the Intel website for the drivers.

After some investigation, I came across a company called SciTechSoft, who specialise in producing video drivers for embedded computers, and linux distros. They also produce drivers for corporates who want a standard driver across their organisation, independent of hardware.

On their website www.scitechsoft.com they have an ability to register, and build a demo driver. This driver supports XP, and the above mentioned chipsets.... it also supports wide-screen resolutions natively... unfortunately just not the holy grail of 800x480.

Possible resolution: They have a downloadable driver development kit, which allows yo to build your own custom driver, and from what I can make out in the manual, add your own resolutions durng the build process. Now I havent strung togehter applications in a long time, and have no development environment.

Is there anybody out there with the skills, and the interest to give this a go, and maybe solve a problem bugging us Intel MB (i.e. Xenarc PC) carputer owners ?

Any thoughts ?

Cheers

Neilwozau

**amthar** · 09-15-2005, 09:32 AM

I'm a programmer, but certainly no device driver programmer, so I have no clue how to do it. But I'd love to have this driver, so I will contribute incentive to the cause. I'd be willing to throw some incentive in the form of cash to anyone who is interested in persuing this project.

**isaakian** · 09-15-2005, 10:54 PM

What would be really great would be to have native BIOS support on intel 865/855GME chipset boards for LVDS 800x480 so that we could connect direct from the Mobo to the display pannel without the intermediate controller board in the xenarc/liliput panels. This with driver support would be very clean, and mean less HW to break/clutter up the install.

I've searched my arse off, but no one seems to have found a way get this working;

So I'm thinking about developing a small custom FPGA board to convert the MOBO's 800x600 lvds output and scale it all digitally to 800x480 to allow direct connection to the panel and to allow native driver support. Sure it would distort the image but it would be clean.

I cant find the spec for the EDTCB18QEF panel yet though... (please refer me to it if you do)

I believe the LVDS pannel interface signalling format is OPEN -LDI (anyone know for sure?)

**Vinister** · 09-16-2005, 12:49 AM

The day my xenarc shows 800x480 on it I will literally crap a brick.

**Merzbow** · 09-29-2005, 05:48 AM

Let the crapping commence... I have a new Xenarc MP-FL8 with the Intel Extreme chips and drivers and I was able to get 800x480 at 60hz on a Xnearc 700TS using the PowerStrip settings on Xenarc's FAQ (on Windows XP). However one thing they don't mention is that your success in adjusting the custom timing depends on what resolution you 'start' with... you can't 'start' with 800x480 because it's not a selection. Instead, start with 640x480, then enter the recommended settings.

**SFiorito** · 09-29-2005, 09:08 AM

how did you set the custom resolution? my board with Intel graphics doesn't support custom resolutions in PowerStrip? I've been in contact with Intel tech support about my embedded board. They said their drivers support anything the monitor reports in it's EDID or in the Video BIOS Table. Well, the Lilly doesn't support EDID so the drivers just show the default resolutions. I contacted my mobo manufacturer about adding 800x480 in the VBT...

**Merzbow** · 09-29-2005, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by SFiorito

how did you set the custom resolution? my board with Intel graphics doesn't support custom resolutions in PowerStrip? I've been in contact with Intel tech support about my embedded board. They said their drivers support anything the monitor reports in it's EDID or in the Video BIOS Table. Well, the Lilly doesn't support EDID so the drivers just show the default resolutions. I contacted my mobo manufacturer about adding 800x480 in the VBT...

Just choose 640x480 in the 'Display Profiles' configuration page. Then go to custom timing. Then enter the values listed on the FAQ here:

http://www.xenarc.com/faq.html

Ignore the 'active lines' entries. Just try to get the other numbers as close as possible to what's in that picture. You should then have 800x480 at 60hz, but the resolution setting will still call itself 640x480.

**neilwozau** · 09-30-2005, 12:17 AM

Ok, I will give it a go... again.... would you mind posting a screenshot of your actual powerstrip settings? as by the sounds of it, they will be slightly different than the ones on the Xenarc site.

**SFiorito** · 09-30-2005, 08:54 AM

well, I got close... but the image was off horizontally and vertically (it was shifted) and kept flickering. The Lilly reported it as 848x480. So I'll just need to keep messing with it I guess. I also got a response from the manufacturer...

They said by using the Embedded Drivers: http://developer.intel.com/design/in...cs_drivers.htm

I can use some included tools to modify the Video BIOS myself. I've only done a quick once over of the manual so I haven't tried to do that yet. We'll see...

**Merzbow** · 10-01-2005, 03:16 AM

I think my method is wrong actually... I believe that WINDOWS still thinks the screen is 640x480, even though the video driver is telling the MONITOR it's 800x480. This means that the screen would still scale - and it does look like fonts are stretched lengthwise. Oh well.

I too have downloaded the Intel Embedded Drivers and will take a look... I'm a Windows kernel programming expert by trade and work at a company full of BIOS and hardware experts so I will figure this out eventually.