[solved] VIDEO_CARDS intel mobile 4 series chipset

elmar283 · Last edited by elmar283 on Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:16 am; edited 1 time in total

I'm wondering witch generation my video cards belong. http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Intel is not clear about this.
I now have VIDEO_CARDS="intel" on my /etc/portage/make.conf.
That is for GEN1 and GEN2. But it might also be VIDEO_CARS="intel i915".

Does anybody know what is right for my card?

Here is some info:

charles17 · Advocate Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 3664

elmar283 · Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:15 am Post subject:

Thanks, I'll do that.
I will set this topic as solved.

javeree · Guru Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 453

@ charles17

I don't see how the info in your link can help determining the correct setting. In fact, by looking up the ID 8086:2a42, I get results back claiming thet the chipset should be GM45. According to the table behind your link That would mean the chipset is Gen4, and that the line should in fact be "intel i965".

Maybe I just misunderstand this table.
I have in make.conf only VIDEO_CARDS="intel", and driver i915 is loaded.

elmar283 · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 4:37 pm Post subject:

The i915 is for media-libs/mesa.
You're right that a kernel driver does not mean that should also be argument in VIDEO_CARDS or even that I have loaded the right kernel driver.
That is my confusion in the whole mater.
The wiki is not clear about outputs that do not give a generation back to the lspci |grep -i VGA command.
(It also does not tell howto set other intel chips as eg Pauslbo (kernel driver gma500, VIDEO_CARDS="modesetting") , that I have on an other gentoo computer)

What I do know is that my screen gets fuzy somtimes, with stripes on it. So it isn't ideal jet.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

Regarding the screen fuzzy with lines on it; one thing you may want to check is if it still happens at a lower resolution. I had the same thing happen to one of my monitors, in that when I try using the 1600x1200, I encounter that problem but if I switched to 1680x1050 or a lower resolution it doesn't. In my case it was due to the refresh rate mismatched; my video card (tried different video cards with same effect) outputs 60hz, but my monitor could only handle 59.95hz. Sad part is the monitor says it wants 60hz anyways, I believe it's due to a rounding issue (possibly in the EDID?).

elmar283 · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:56 pm Post subject:

@ct85711: Do you have you're xorg script where you have set the resulution and hz?

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

I changed my resolution while I was already logged into XFCE (should have a similar option in gnome/kde/or which ever WM) so I didn't modify need to change my x11 config. As for the hz, you can't really do much on changing that as it's already set within the video drivers/monitor's internal information. The frequency mismatch causes the video tearing (hence the lines in the screen), and that's a issue with the monitor directly

You should be able to find some old guides on google on how to make a xorg config to specify the resolution (the structure hasn't changed from way back, you just don't need to have everything now days).

charles17 · Advocate Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 3664