Modeline blues.

June 3, 2006 3:46 PM

I got a DVI -> HDMI connector to connect my computer (Gentoo, Xorg 7, Geforce 7600GS) to my HDTV (Philips 30" CRT). It'll only display in 720x480 with awful overscan... regardless of what's in my xorg.conf. Help!

So, here's what I've tried.

I first connected a Windows box to try PowerStrip. While I never got it perfect, I came close (and with much higher resolutions than 720x480). PowerStrip reported the following Modelines:

Modeline "1440x900" 96.500 1440 1504 1536 1760 900 903 906 912 +hsync +vsync
Modeline "1920x1080" 63.975 1920 2008 2052 2206 1080 1081 1095 1125 interlace

Now, X will *start* with the above modelines, but I always end up with a 720x480 display, even though that's not defined in xorg.conf at all. I'm sure I'm using the right xorg.conf -- editing the other options will indeed affect what happens when I start the X server, just not the resolutions.

Other pertinent info from the xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
Identifier "NVidia Graphics Adapter"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP"
Option "IgnoreEDID" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "NVidia Graphics Adapter"
Monitor "Philips30"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1080" "1440x900"
Depth 16
Modes "1920x1080" "1440x900"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

posted by I EAT TAPAS to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Have you tried the [Ctrl][Alt][+] chord (Is that the right one? Whichever one it is.) to step through resolutions?
posted by Orb2069 at 7:54 PM on June 3, 2006

Response by poster: Have you tried the [Ctrl][Alt][+] chord (Is that the right one? Whichever one it is.) to step through resolutions?

The machine was only displaying 720x480 regardless of the resolutions set in xorg.conf -- [Ctrl][Alt][+] would do nothing.

So, I've mostly got this working. The magic configuration options that allowed me to start using my own Modelines were:

Option "UseEDID" "0"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"

And after endless fiddling, I've got a non-overscanned 720x480 display. I'm still having trouble finding Modelines for higher resolutions that will display on my particular Philips, but I'm sure that will come (that's easy enough to Google for).
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 11:26 PM on June 3, 2006

FWIW, my 1080p tv won't accept anything higher than 1080i on the HDMI port. you may run into the same wall on your setup. That is, no matter what you send it, it'll always downscale.
posted by Four Flavors at 11:39 AM on June 5, 2006

Apparently my Toshiba 37WLT58 won't allow an image in its native resolution of 1366x768 via HDMI - you have to use the VGA port.

Perhaps it's a more common "feature" across several brands of TV?
posted by Chunder at 3:56 AM on June 6, 2006