Powerdesk Win2k Resolution Manager

[Galvin]

I was able to change my desktop to 115hz
in 1024x768 much nicer. But quake3 is
still limited to 85hz, the utility doesn't fix this ?

[MarkV]

Galvin, I'm not sure why the changes do not work in Quake 3. I will try this tomorrow and get back to you.


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Mark Veneziano

[Galvin]

Stupid me I am running quake3 in 800x600.
I am going to try the changes for 800x600 then i'll post here if it worked. so far everything is fine. Excellent utility.

[Galvin]

Ok I got 800x600x135 and 1024x768x115 working perfectly. Quake3 runs at 135hz strangly quake3 still caps at 90fps for some reason.

Lucky I wrote down the max refresh rates for my monitor so I could set them again,I preset my monitor a while back for these refrsh rates. For hitach superscan elite 751
I use the following
res pix clock V refresh H refresh
1024x768 127857 115 93
800x600 89273 135 85
640x480 63523 150 76

This may be useful for anyone using this
monitor. again this utility is awesome

[glarec]

just out of curiosity.. is there a downside to play game in high refresh rates? i mean does it damage the monitor in a long run, even if the monitor supports it? if not, then why would people want to turn vsync off?

for example, i have a hitachi 753 monitor and it supports up to 120 hz(i think.. i need to find the manual), i was afraid i might damage the monitor(it's so freaking expensive for a 19". of course i bought a NEC 5FG 17" for $1200 when it was still popular.. but then it was off my parent's money :P). should i switch it to say 100 hz with dxdiag to improve my UT's frame rate?

thanx for the info in advance

[Mindjammer]

OK, here is the situation.

My monitor is an Intergraph fixed-frequency workstation monitor, model number Intervue-21. It has a 13W3 connector, and I'm using a 13W3-to-VGA cable. It is not plug and play. I don't have an INF for it, and Intergraph does not provide one. I'm using the "Default Monitor" INF. To get it to work in Win95/98/NT one uses the Matrox monitor customizations, and selects Intervue-21 from the Matrox list.

It supports two fixed horizontal frequencies, 31.5 and 100.7khz. This way it can display VGA modes like the BIOS screen, DOS games, and 640x480 60hz. If you don't use either of these two frequencies it won't sync up. Since Matrox monitor customizations don't work in Win2K, I've used your program to customize the Matrox driver to use the same timing parameters I was using under Win95.

Ok, here's the problem: Whenever I switch video modes - this includes both 3d games and just adjusting them with the resolution slider - the new mode will default to 75hz, causing my monitor not to sync up. To switch modes I have to go into Display...Settings...Advanced...Adapter...List All Modes and select the mode and refresh rate I want from the list.

[Galvin]

About the hitachi monitor, if you go out of sync the monitor will turn the screen off so don't worry about over syncing it it has protection for that. This monitor is expensive partially because it supports high refresh rates. So use them for two years that I had this monitor I never used anything lower than 115hz unless I had to I am always using 1024x768 for desk at 115hz it looks nicer, you see less tearing and better on the eyes. at 800x600 it's 135 which decreases the tearing effect even more great for games.

[MarkV]

Hi Mindjammer,

Now I am beginning to understand your problem. This seems to be Windows 2000's default behavior. Whenever you switch from one resolution to another, if 75 Hz is available for the new resolution, it will default to that, and you will have to change it manually to something else. Windows 2000 also doesn't seem to have a very good memory. If, for example, you manually choose 1600x1200x85, and then change to 1024x768 temporarily, and then back to 1600x1200, it will be 1600x1200x75, unless you change it again manually.

I don't think there's much I can do about this behavior. Have you tried replacing all the lower refresh rate modes again, but this time with uniquely different garbage values? I'm hoping that will eliminate the BSOD issue you had. If you back up your most current known-to-be-working g400m.sys before you make this change, then if you still get the BSOD you can restore the backup without losing all your customizations thus far.

A good way to back up the driver file is to just make a copy of it called g400m.bak right there in SYSTEM32\DRIVERS. Then if you need to restore it because of a BSOD, you can boot to a Windows 2000 Command Prompt from the startup options menu without ever getting into the Safe Mode GUI (and hence not even needing to restore the VGA drivers). Simply CD to C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS (or wherever you have Windows 2000 installed) and COPY G400M.BAK G400M.SYS. Reboot and you should be back to normal.


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Mark Veneziano

[Mindjammer]

I've tried that. I replaced each lower refresh rate with 1152x864 w/ a different refresh rate for each one. Basically went down the list and changed them to 1152x864 60hz, 61hz, 62hz... since 1152x864 does not work on my monitor. I still got the BSOD.

Since when I customized it originally I altered all the 85hz modes to my new refresh rate, I think maybe I should restore the original G400 driver, and alter the 75hz modes instead this time.

[MarkV]

That sounds like an interesting tactic. I'll try loading up on the 1152x864s and see if I can duplicate the BSOD.


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Mark Veneziano

[glarec]

galvin: thanx for the reply. i guess i should use the monitor to its full potiential now since i spend so much money on it heh. also, since i can turn my monitor's vsync all the way up to like 115 or so.. i guess there's no point in trying to disable vsync now(i did see 115 fps in UT when i am in a dark corner, but when i do a timedemo. the result was still the same.. so i guess unless you are in a dark map. there's no benefit with high vsync fps wise.)

thanx again



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Glarec
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bp6-(2)433(oc488) celerons, g400max, ibm ultra scsi 9.1g, sb-live value, hitachi ss-753 19", plextor 32x, etc, etc, etc...

[Mindjammer]

I've got it working now.

I think the problem is that the driver will BSOD if the video modes are out of order. What we were doing before was changing our lower-refreshrate-modes to different resolutions. You need to keep it at the same resolution.

So, whereas before I had:

640x480x60
640x480x72
640x480x75
640x480x191

now I have:

640x480x200
640x480x200
640x480x200
640x480x191

So, the trick of it is to set all your lower refresh rate modes to higher refresh rates than the mode you want to use. I think what happens is a 75hz mode will be used if present, otherwise something lower than 75hz will be used. Something higher than 75hz will not be used unless it is the lowest refreshrate for that mode.

Everything works great now - refresh rate behavior is equivalent to the behavior of Monitor Customizations under Win95.

[MarkV]

Cool! I'm glad you got it working.

Now, when you say you got the BSOD when the video modes are out of order, what exactly do you mean? Do the modes need to be in increasing order by horizontal resolution?

I only ask because I have a made-up resolution 1232x978x106 between 1600x1200x85 and 1792x1344x75 (it replaced 1792x1344x60) and I don't get a BSOD.

This is definitely something I'll have to play with over the weekend, as if there is an order that needs to be enforced, it would be very easy for the program to shuffle the resolutions around accordingly. If I find this to be the case, I'll add it along with some other user suggestions and release version 1.1 as soon as I can.


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Mark Veneziano

[Mindjammer]

Dunno, I'm just guessing about the order thing. Maybe there's a limit to how many different refresh rates a mode can have. It'd be good to look into though.