Parhelia and Widescreen Resolution Support

[warped]

Hey all.

I was hoping there would be an odd chance of anyone else out there with a Parhelia and a widescreen monitor who could share some thoughts on forcing the card into an unsupported widescreen resolution.

Here's the deal, I have a Parhelia-128 and a Sony 24" Widescreen monitor, yet when I use the Parhelia, I cannot access any of the widescreen resolutions like 1600 x 1024 or 1920 x 1440. Without widescreen support, the Parhelia is somewhat useless to me, as the image looks awful when you try and use a "normal" resolution and the Parhelia stretches it out to full-screen.

I looked through the 226 driver INF, and I can actually see additions in the driver for these resolutions, yet they are not available. On the contrary, nVidia's GeForce4 cards have no problem with this res.

So basically, does anyone know how to force a new resolution a Parhelia board?

Thanks!

[TdB]

have you tried to reinstall the inf-file for your monitor?

you must be one of the first people in the world who has a parhelia, so i don´t think anybody here can help you much(with the possible exception of the betatesters), yet.

maybe you could try the tech support forum tomorrow:

http://forum.matrox.com/cgi-bin/mgaforum/Ultimate.cgi

I have heard there is a utility comming, where you can add your own custom resolutions, don´t know when though.

Is 1920*1440 a widescreen resolution?

you could try powerstrip:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/getfile.php?file=718&site=3

AFAIK you can add custom resolutions with that.

[Wombat]

I believe that one of the Beta testers here has that exact monitor. I bet an answer will be here for you soon.

[warped]

Thanks for the heads-up about Powerstrip. I've used it before, but I didn't even think of using it for Parhelia (even though I doubt it has Parhelia support, maybe I can get around and try to force it to use widescreen resolutions).

By the way, Parhelia's 16x FAA is extremely nice. From an actual user with a board, I have been very, very impressed by low-resolution gaming with 16x FAA. Even 800 x 600 looks just as good as 1280 x 1024 in most titles.

Of course, Parhelia plays awful in Grand Theft Auto 3.

I searched through the threads and saw someone at Matrox was testing the Parhelia with an SGI 1600SW, which is a widescreen LCD with 1600 x 1024 resolution support. I would love to know how they did that.

[Indiana]

Originally posted by warped
Of course, Parhelia plays awful in Grand Theft Auto 3.

Of course it does. GTA3 must be one of the worst coded games ever. It has problems and runs like crap on nearly ALL chipsets.
It ran like crap for a friend of mine with a GF, this is solved by now.
It ran like crap on the Radeon7500/8500 this is only partly solved by now.
So no wonder it runs crappy on the Parhelia as well. But I'm sure the fault here doesn't lie with Matrox.

[[Ch]amsalot]

Warped,

Just make double sure that your OS is recognizing the SONY as the GDM-FW900 and not as a default monitor, otherwise the OS may not list the resolutions, thinking that the monitor can't support it.

If that doesn't work, then....

...as the owner of a FW-900, I'd be extremely interested to know if Powerstrip does the trick, or if there is some registry editing or .inf tweaking that can be done to enable the 1600x1024 resolution.

As you noted, NVIDIA GF4 cards can do it out of the box, although most companies won't list that resolution as one of the supported resolutions.

With respect to SGI's 1600SW flat panel, I have one of those in my office too and it was a bitch to use until I finally was able to locate (1 left) of the original Revolution IV cards with the special interface the 1600SW uses (I ferget exactly what it was called... DFI or something with an "F"). The 1600SW has weird-timing issues so not mant cards support it properly in the default mode (and alternate mode sux).

-[Ch]ams

[Kruzin]

The card should work at the resolutions you need. As you mentioned, those modes are listed in the mtxparh.inf. As long as the monitor is set up properly, you should have access to those res's.

You need to make sure you have the correct monitor drivers installed from the driver mfg. If the monitor drivers are wrong, or if the monitor is not sending the correct DDC info, the resolutions won't be there...

[Sinistral]

- Or... You can try this: Right Click on the Desktop (Display Properties). Click Advanced on the Settings Tab. In the New Window. Click on the Adapter Tab. Click the List All Modes... button. And choose the Resolution. Hope that works... If not... I tried . -

[KvHagedorn]

Yes, Paul.. I've been meaning to ask if you got the widescreen resolutions working with your Parhelia. I'm kinda anxious to hear.. (as you know, another Sony GDMFW900 user here.)

This is a good topic for discussion in the Matrox Forums, if you can get there during business hours (which I usually can not.) If this needs to be addressed, Haig et al should be giving some answers there for all to see. It's a shame that the widescreen monitor is going to throw off any use of triple head.. unless a 3 head res of 4160x1024 is available (side monitors running at 1280x1024 and middle monitor at 1600x1024)

[ALBPM]

For now the Drivers don't support 16:10 resolutions. We have been pressuring Matrox to add them to Power desk. Here is Haig's work around for the time being:

Extract the driver to a folder and edit the mtxparh setup file like this:

In the [AddReg.Modes] section, un comment the last line, which is the
1280x960 line. Then move it up just before the res 1280x1024. It should
look like so:

[AddReg.Modes]
HKR,,Mga.PixelWidths,0x00000001,08,10,20
HKR,,Mga.SingleResolutions,0x00000001,\
%R__320x_200%,%R__320x_200a%,%R__320x_200b%,%R__32 0x_200c%,\
%R__320x_240%,%R__320x_240a%,%R__320x_240b%,%R__32 0x_240c%,\
%R__512x_384%,%R__512x_384a%,%R__512x_384b%,%R__51 2x_384c%,\
%R__640x_400%,%R__640x_400a%,%R__640x_400b%,%R__64 0x_400c%,\
%R__640x_480%,%R__640x_480a%,%R__640x_480b%,%R__64 0x_480c%,\
%R__800x_600%,%R__800x_600a%,%R__800x_600b%,%R__80 0x_600c%,\
%R_1024x_768%,%R_1024x_768a%,%R_1024x_768b%,%R_102 4x_768c%,\
%R_1152x_864%,%R_1152x_864a%,%R_1152x_864b%,%R_115 2x_864c%,\
%R_1280x_960%,%R_1280x_960a%,%R_1280x_960b%,%R_128 0x_960c%,\
%R_1280x1024%,%R_1280x1024a%,%R_1280x1024b%,%R_128 0x1024c%,\
%R_1600x1024%,%R_1600x1024a%,%R_1600x1024b%,%R_160 0x1024c%,\
%R_1600x1200%,%R_1600x1200a%,%R_1600x1200b%,%R_160 0x1200c%,\
%R_1920x1080%,%R_1920x1080a%,%R_1920x1080b%,%R_192 0x1080c%,\
%R_1920x1200%,%R_1920x1200a%,%R_1920x1200b%,%R_192 0x1200c%,\
%R_1920x1440%,%R_1920x1440a%,%R_1920x1440b%,%R_192 0x1440c%,\
%R_2048x1536%,%R_2048x1536a%,%R_2048x1536b%,%R_204 8x1536c%


Then goto [AddReg.VidParms] and uncomment the last 3 lines. Last 3 lines
should look like so:

HKR,,Graphic.1280.960,0x00000001,\
3c,00,3c,00,e0,a5,01,00,60,00,70,00,38,01,01,00,03 ,00,24,00,00,00,00,00,
\
55,00,56,00,10,44,02,00,40,00,a0,00,e0,00,01,00,03 ,00,2f,00,00,00,00,00

Save and install.


I'm in the same boat with the 24" Sony GDM-FW900

Paul

[Kruzin]

The problem with this particular monitor appears to be that the monitor's .inf does not include those resolutions, so PD is not making them available. The resolultions are there in P's drivers, the monitor's drivers are what's holding it back. Unlike the old PD, the new PD-HF doesn't allow for adding custom resolutions not specified by the monitor's drivers.

Perhaps a mail to Sony would be in order...

[KvHagedorn]

Thanks, Paul.. super info there!

I'm glad at least one of the Beta Boys has this monitor, so Matrox will be sure to get an earful. I'm somewhat surprised that they overlooked these resolutions, since the stated target market for the Parhelia (graphics professionals) is the same as that of the Sony 24" (and any other widescreen monitors out there.)

Just one more issue for M's driver coders to work out.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by Kruzin
The problem with this particular monitor appears to be that the monitor's .inf does not include those resolutions, so PD is not making them available. The resolultions are there in P's drivers, the monitor's drivers are what's holding it back. Unlike the old PD, the new PD-HF doesn't allow for adding custom resolutions not specified by the monitor's drivers.

Perhaps a mail to Sony would be in order...

I think the bold script tells a lot here. Why is the new PD so inflexible? Never mind the why.. there's really no excuse for steps backwards here.

Yes, the w2k drivers for the Sony required me to specify a custom resolution, though.. which seems pretty inane as well.

The funny thing is, the resolutions were all there in the Win98 monitor drivers...

[ALBPM]

Unless we can manage to hack the Sony driver to add 1600 X 1024 and a few other resolutions.

Paul

[ALBPM]

Here are the preset resolutions for the GDM-FW900




I don't know if we'll hear from Matrox today since it is Canada day but we will keep trying to get this resolved.

Paul