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The Mountain Man
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 Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 5:25 am Post subject: Refresh rates seem wrong with VESA drivers |
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I am currently forced to run my system using the VESA drivers as nVidia drivers for my new GeForce FX 5700 Ultra are currently unavailable (hopefully nVidia will remedy this soon). However, the refresh rate seems off as my screen flickers in the most annoying fashion, almost as if it's displaying an interlaced image. Is there any way to tweak the VESA drivers to fix this? VESA seems to be the only option as X's nv drivers do not appear compatible with this particular card.
Thanks for your help.
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Last edited by The Mountain Man on Tue Dec 02, 2003 12:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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kraylus
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 5:27 am Post subject: |
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only thing i can think of is to manually set the horizsync and vertrefresh under the monitor section and make sure it's within the specs of your monitor. copy and paste your X config file, maybe that'll give us a better idea of what we can change 
ryan
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The Mountain Man
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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No, it's not that. My monitor settings are exactly the same as with my previous card. The only change I've made is to set the driver to "vesa" instead of "nvidia" or "nv". I've changed nothing else in XF86Config.
Anyway, here's my monitor section:
| Code: | Section "Monitor"
Identifier "ViewSonic A75f"
# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY. REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
HorizSync 30-70
# HorizSync 30-64 # multisync
# HorizSync 31.5, 35.2 # multiple fixed sync frequencies
# HorizSync 15-25, 30-50 # multiple ranges of sync frequencies
# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY. REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection |
and I've confirmed those refresh rates in my ViewSonic manual. Now here's my graphics driver section:
| Code: | Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia"
#Driver "nv"
#Driver "nvidia"
Driver "vesa"
#VideoRam 128000
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
Option "CursorShadow" "True"
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "25"
Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "3"
Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "2"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection |
and finally:
| Code: | Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "nVidia"
Monitor "ViewSonic A75f"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection |
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lurid
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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The problem is that Vesa only supports a refresh rate of 60hz by default. This will kill your eyes. Luckily someone decided to do something about it. You can patch your kernel with the fix availible here. Just follow the instruction carefully, the thread itself has a lot of useful info as well. I've been using it without a problem for a long time now. Good luck. 
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The Mountain Man
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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Sweet! Thanks for the link.
Edit: O.K., I've been reading over the thread and have a quick question. How do I use this with LILO? Is there a place in LILO to specify the VESA mode, or will X take care of this on its own?
And here's hoping the FX 5700 Ultra chipset is VESA 3.0 compliant!
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agent_jdh
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| The Mountain Man wrote: | Sweet! Thanks for the link.
Edit: O.K., I've been reading over the thread and have a quick question. How do I use this with LILO? Is there a place in LILO to specify the VESA mode, or will X take care of this on its own? |
That patch linked to is for the kernel vesa frame buffer driver, not for the X Windows vesa driver. It is possible to use this patch with your kernel, and pass a Lilo option to select which vga resolution/screen depth/refresh rate your system boots up with. Then, you could use the fbdev X driver instead of vesa.
Alternatively, afaik you can still use the X vesa driver in conjunction with the patched kernel vesafb device and set the X vesa driver option "UseFBDev" to true.
I'm not sure if the native X vesa driver can go above 60 Hz without some frame buffer support.
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lurid
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry, I just assumed that if he was using Vesa he was using a framebuffer as well. Its probably the best choice anyway.
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The Mountain Man
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| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2003 12:38 am Post subject: |
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| agent_jdh wrote: | | Alternatively, afaik you can still use the X vesa driver in conjunction with the patched kernel vesafb device and set the X vesa driver option "UseFBDev" to true. |
Sorry, but how exactly would I go about doing this?
(I also seem to have this wacky problem now where my screen is stuck at 800x600 and I can't get it to change back to 1024x768!)
Edit: Never mind. After I read what you wrote a couple times, it became pretty obvious. Thanks for your help.
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The Mountain Man
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| Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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O.K., I'm having some problems with this: I've installed the patch mentioned in the other thread and recompiled my kernel. Then I set "vga=0x518" in lilo.conf and at boot time, the monitor switches resolution but the screen is blank until X comes up. Unfortunately, X is still using 60Hz. Here's what I put in XF86Config:
| Code: | Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia_VESA"
Driver "vesa"
Option "UseFBDev" "True"
EndSection |
Anybody have any suggestions?
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agent_jdh
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| Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Then I set "vga=0x518" in lilo.conf and at boot time, the monitor switches resolution but the screen is blank until X comes up. |
That shouldn't happen. I don't use the frame buffer myself so I don't know what values to select, but you want to be using one that at least shows the system booting as normal. If you're getting a blank screen it's indicating there is a problem with the mode you're trying to use.
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lurid
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| Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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The vga setting with the patch is different from the standard framebuffer setting. Be sure to read the thread or the readme that comes with the patch to be sure you're using the right one.
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