Xenarc and Via M (display issues)

aggie300zx · 03-19-2003, 02:22 PM

I just received my Xenarc (700YV-non touchscreen) screen and set it up on my Via M9000 system. Currently, this monitor is displayed as a "Default Monitor" in the OS settings. Should this be someting different for the Xenarc? Are there device drivers for this monitor? I did not see any on the Xenarc's web site.

The reason why I think something isn't right is their are a lot of artifacts and lack of color when playing videos (either DVD or MPEG). This is not an issue when the system is hooked up to a regular 17" CRT monitor.

Does anyone have any experience with properly setting up this monitor in the OS.

FYI....I'm using Windows2000 Pro. I've ran into this issue when viewing resolutions of 640x480, 800 x600 and even 1024x768.

Thanks!
Scott

abz123 · 03-19-2003, 03:46 PM

Can you select from Wide screen, normal screen, cinema, and another that I can't remember?

The Fareneheit is the same way the picture gets stretch to where it looks like it artifacting with movies. If you change the display type it gives you a better picture....usually normal screen (non-wide) looks good but you get the black bars on the side. Wide screen looks ok too without the black bars.

phoTToniq · 03-21-2003, 01:40 AM

You might be getting this problem because it is impossible to set up the onboard graphics on the EPIA (it uses S3 graphics) to output 800x480 resolution, which is the resolution of your screen.

Even powerstrip can not make the S3 chipset output user defined resolution.

I might be wrong about this causing your problems - but i know you can not use a user define resolution with the EPIA onboard graphics. Would be interesting to hear from other EPIA/7" widescreen users as I am sure there are many.

phoTToniq

aggie300zx · 03-21-2003, 09:15 AM

Yeah, I tried powerstrip but like you said would not allow me to define a custom resolution. I'd like to think an update driver in the near future might help this but who knows.

phoTToniq · 03-21-2003, 09:41 AM

I got a REALLY fast reply from the great people at emtech (creators of powerstrip). They seem REALLY knowledgable and did not hint that a driver change was expected any time soon.

I almost scrapped my ideas of going the EPIA route because of this. However, I think all of the ATI Radeon based cards (non Radeon ATI cards wont work btw) can be configured by powerstrip. Ati released a pci based one which also has a tuner card in it - the all in wonder radeon 7500 VE. I am thinking if sticking to the EPIA board but using this card for gfx. Not ideal since it burns up the only PCI slot but at least power consumption will be low.

If TV tuner is not important for you btw, from what I have read a pci based geforce 4 would be your best choice.

I am new to this game so please pardon me if I got anything wrong. Also double check all of my advice before acting on it!

phoTToniq.

aggie300zx · 03-21-2003, 10:03 AM

Thanks, this is very good advice. I had thought about using a PCI video card until I found you could change the shared memory for the video card to 64mb in the bios. That made a big difference in video performance.

phoTToniq · 03-21-2003, 11:36 AM

Hi -

Can you tell me if the quality of the output from M9000 onboard graphics on a Xenarc 7" screen is acceptable now that you have increased the memory for the graphics?

Is the picture squashed or stretched? Have the artefacts gone? Do you have black bars because you are using the wrong resolution?

The reason I am asking all of this is because you can not buy a radeon pci all in wonder card in the uk any more

I might be forced to dump the EPIA platform altogther and go for a pentium solution unless I feel like I can get a good picture from EPIA to Xenarc

Only other option is to use a GeForce PCI card in the slot and then use a USB TV Tuner - but I heard USB TV Tuner is crap - can anyone confirm this?

phoTToniq