I need more screen resolution options.

On 2015-11-05 11:35 AM, mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 7:38 AM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2015-11-04 07:05, mike wrote:
[...]
Would be nice to learn how to set custom screen resolutions.
[...]

The best resolution for any flat screen is the native one. If the
graphics card can't drive the screen at that resolution, change the card
or attach a screen the card can handle.

I'm curious: why do you want to change resolutions?

to make the display look reasonable.
it's a wide screen format.
the default windows 10 driver does
800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
and the 1280x1024 doesn't work at all with this display card
and windows 10. I haven't bothered to turn on the oscilloscope
to see why, because I still don't have any idea how to change it.

monitor is 1440x900 native.

And the problem is not limited to this card. For display cards
not recognized/as supported, even tho you can get drivers from the
vendor, I've only seen those three choices for the default driver.

Linux has the same problem. The driver is WAY more capable than
what is allowed by the default user interface. You can fix that with
xrandr.

I merely asked if there were a similar fix for windows 10.

What I keep getting are condescending lectures on why
someone else would do
something different, and repeating over and over the alternative
things one would do to resolve the problem. That's the way newsgroups
work. I find that if I hang in there long enough answers often
bubble to the surface.
Condescending lectures are much more palatable when accompanied
by an actual answer to the question asked.

The hope was that one could add resolutions to the default
win10 display driver. I guess not.

If you're all about buying incredibly old computers and using the latest
operating system on them, it's clear to me that there is no good reason
for you to remain in the Windows camp. Go to Linux as it caters to old
hardware a lot better than Windows does. Nobody here is dumb enough to
claim that Windows is the right choice for your grossly obsolete machine.


--
Slimer

In article , says...

On 11/5/2015 7:38 AM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2015-11-04 07:05, mike wrote:
[...]
Would be nice to learn how to set custom screen resolutions.
[...]

The best resolution for any flat screen is the native one. If the
graphics card can't drive the screen at that resolution, change the card
or attach a screen the card can handle.

I'm curious: why do you want to change resolutions?

to make the display look reasonable.
it's a wide screen format.
the default windows 10 driver does
800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
and the 1280x1024 doesn't work at all with this display card
and windows 10. I haven't bothered to turn on the oscilloscope
to see why, because I still don't have any idea how to change it.

monitor is 1440x900 native.

And the problem is not limited to this card. For display cards
not recognized/as supported, even tho you can get drivers from the
vendor, I've only seen those three choices for the default driver.

Linux has the same problem. The driver is WAY more capable than
what is allowed by the default user interface. You can fix that with
xrandr.

I merely asked if there were a similar fix for windows 10.

What I keep getting are condescending lectures on why
someone else would do
something different, and repeating over and over the alternative
things one would do to resolve the problem. That's the way newsgroups
work. I find that if I hang in there long enough answers often
bubble to the surface.
Condescending lectures are much more palatable when accompanied
by an actual answer to the question asked.

The hope was that one could add resolutions to the default
win10 display driver. I guess not.

Have a good day,


Mike if you are not or cannot put in a video card where the driver
allows custom resolutions (I believe both nVidia and AMD/ATI have this)
then you are likely **** out of luck. That's just the way it is when
using older hardware.

As example : I have a number of webcams, all fairly old. From Vista on
only some of them work. Basically only the webcams used the standard
Windows API and not the fancy ones had custom software work. No driver,
too old for the others so they're now junk even though in proper OS they
work fine.

Another example : some old video cards with TV-Out I can only get the
TV-Out if OS is 95-98SE and not later. AGP cards so most of them I've
had to just throw out.

Note - even what I "rob" out of the recycle bin when I drop stuff off
nowadays has a PCI-E video card interface.

mike wrote:

On 11/5/2015 7:20 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
mike wrote:

This isn't my first rodeo.

And how would anyone know? We are not your buddies at work or your
family to know your history of experience. Hell, you didn't even bother
to give the brand and models despite your claim of expertise.

Thanks. I know you guys are trying to be helpful.
But, I'd really like suggestions about my question instead of rambling
discussion about new video cards.

You were told. You were told there are no drivers for that video card
designed or distributed by AMD that support Windows 10.

But you didn't want to be told what you already knew so you asked for
suggestions. Well, guess what? The suggestions are you get a better
video card. That the solution is not what you want doesn't alter that
it is a solution. You didn't like what you have to do for a solution.
That's no surprise considering the "crap system" you are trying to drag
to a new OS.

I asked for a tweak to the existing
default win10 display driver configuration to add resolutions.
It's right there in the subject line.

You made your input several posts ago. When you're out of ideas,
just quit posting. Yelling, "get a new video card" isn't helping.
I've got a box of video cards.
What I do is MY choice. If you can't or don't want to help with a
creative solution, that's OK.
Just take a chill pill, quit posting, and the thread will die.

Are we having fun yet?

Obviously you are unwilling to try the tweaks that I provided: change to
protrait mode, change frequency in the video software, adjust sizing on
the monitor, check for an .inf file for the monitor, use a computer
monitor instead of a TV as a crappy monitor, see if Windows comes with
an embedded driver for the 9250 instead of using the generic driver, try
another driver close to the same model family included in Windows.

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

On 11/5/2015 7:46 AM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2015-11-05 08:20, mike wrote:
What I do care about is getting 1680x1050 native resolution out the HDMI
port of a different
system to talk to the TV I want to use as a monitor.

HD TV is 1920x1080. Mismatch.

Have a good day,

How did 1920x1080 and HD TV get into the discussion?
Looks like a mismatch to the discussion.

On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

Well, here it is...all packed up so you don't miss it.
I tried ALL of your suggestions BEFORE I asked the question.
Most of us here aren't dumb.
I want an answer to the QUESTION. I want "off the beaten path",
creative solutions.
If you don't have one, that's ok.
Goodbye is the perfect response.
Hostility is not required.

On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

I don't like to say things I can't back up.
You seem to need proof to debunk your rash assumptions.
I realized that I could concisely constrain the problem.

Booted live linux on the machine. MacPup 5.50
Default resolution is 1440x900, as it should be.
Drug it to the location of a different monitor.
Default resolution is 1920x1200, as it should be.

HARDWARE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The default windows 10 driver is the problem.

Maybe someone will port the linux driver to windows 10. ;-)

mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

I don't like to say things I can't back up.
You seem to need proof to debunk your rash assumptions.
I realized that I could concisely constrain the problem.

Booted live linux on the machine. MacPup 5.50
Default resolution is 1440x900, as it should be.
Drug it to the location of a different monitor.
Default resolution is 1920x1200, as it should be.

HARDWARE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The default windows 10 driver is the problem.

Maybe someone will port the linux driver to windows 10. ;-)

There might be a possible solution, but I think
that card is a little too old.

You might be able to get a Vista era driver to load.
ATI driver packages came as CCC + dd or just dd alone.
The Device Driver is a relatively small package. If
it is installed, you get resolution control back again.
The separation of the two packages, seemed to be more
popular in the WinXP era.

But the 9250 is probably a WinXP era card, and never got
a Vista driver. I've downloaded a few, and all I see in
the Vista ones I've tried, is PCI Express.

And when I went to the ATI/AMD site, and instead of 9250, tried
9800 (as in the 9800Pro I own) and searched for Vista, yes,
they did give me a "driver", but it seemed to contain drivers
for the All In Wonder video helper chip. A traditional "dd"
portion didn't seem to exist in the package.

These "dd" files can be relatively small. I have several here
from long ago, on the order of 12MB in size. But they're for
WinXP era. So they don't need to be several hundred megabytes,
to be able to access a frame buffer.

Someone suggested installing a Vista era "dd" driver in
compatibility mode, to try to make a driver. And when
you install that way, without a CCC component, you have
no Catalyst branding at all on the computer. No ATI tray
icon. But when you bring up the Windows Display control
panel, the slider will go past 1024x768. And chances are,
if you then installed Powerstrip, you'd be able
to program custom values (1366x768 perhaps, which is
a non-preferred value as 1366 is not divisible by 8).

Paul

On 11/5/2015 9:40 PM, Paul wrote:
mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

I don't like to say things I can't back up.
You seem to need proof to debunk your rash assumptions.
I realized that I could concisely constrain the problem.

Booted live linux on the machine. MacPup 5.50
Default resolution is 1440x900, as it should be.
Drug it to the location of a different monitor.
Default resolution is 1920x1200, as it should be.

HARDWARE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The default windows 10 driver is the problem.

Maybe someone will port the linux driver to windows 10. ;-)

There might be a possible solution, but I think
that card is a little too old.

You might be able to get a Vista era driver to load.
ATI driver packages came as CCC + dd or just dd alone.
The Device Driver is a relatively small package. If
it is installed, you get resolution control back again.
The separation of the two packages, seemed to be more
popular in the WinXP era.

But the 9250 is probably a WinXP era card, and never got
a Vista driver. I've downloaded a few, and all I see in
the Vista ones I've tried, is PCI Express.

And when I went to the ATI/AMD site, and instead of 9250, tried
9800 (as in the 9800Pro I own) and searched for Vista, yes,
they did give me a "driver", but it seemed to contain drivers
for the All In Wonder video helper chip. A traditional "dd"
portion didn't seem to exist in the package.

These "dd" files can be relatively small. I have several here
from long ago, on the order of 12MB in size. But they're for
WinXP era. So they don't need to be several hundred megabytes,
to be able to access a frame buffer.

Someone suggested installing a Vista era "dd" driver in
compatibility mode, to try to make a driver. And when
you install that way, without a CCC component, you have
no Catalyst branding at all on the computer. No ATI tray
icon. But when you bring up the Windows Display control
panel, the slider will go past 1024x768. And chances are,
if you then installed Powerstrip, you'd be able
to program custom values (1366x768 perhaps, which is
a non-preferred value as 1366 is not divisible by 8).

Paul

Did you try editing the registry?
http://tweaks.com/windows/36759/chan...hing-you-want/

On 11/5/2015 9:40 PM, Paul wrote:
mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

I don't like to say things I can't back up.
You seem to need proof to debunk your rash assumptions.
I realized that I could concisely constrain the problem.

Booted live linux on the machine. MacPup 5.50
Default resolution is 1440x900, as it should be.
Drug it to the location of a different monitor.
Default resolution is 1920x1200, as it should be.

HARDWARE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The default windows 10 driver is the problem.

Maybe someone will port the linux driver to windows 10. ;-)

There might be a possible solution, but I think
that card is a little too old.

You might be able to get a Vista era driver to load.
ATI driver packages came as CCC + dd or just dd alone.
The Device Driver is a relatively small package. If
it is installed, you get resolution control back again.
The separation of the two packages, seemed to be more
popular in the WinXP era.

But the 9250 is probably a WinXP era card, and never got
a Vista driver. I've downloaded a few, and all I see in
the Vista ones I've tried, is PCI Express.

And when I went to the ATI/AMD site, and instead of 9250, tried
9800 (as in the 9800Pro I own) and searched for Vista, yes,
they did give me a "driver", but it seemed to contain drivers
for the All In Wonder video helper chip. A traditional "dd"
portion didn't seem to exist in the package.

These "dd" files can be relatively small. I have several here
from long ago, on the order of 12MB in size. But they're for
WinXP era. So they don't need to be several hundred megabytes,
to be able to access a frame buffer.

Someone suggested installing a Vista era "dd" driver in
compatibility mode, to try to make a driver. And when
you install that way, without a CCC component, you have
no Catalyst branding at all on the computer. No ATI tray
icon. But when you bring up the Windows Display control
panel, the slider will go past 1024x768. And chances are,
if you then installed Powerstrip, you'd be able
to program custom values (1366x768 perhaps, which is
a non-preferred value as 1366 is not divisible by 8).

Paul
Thanks for the clues.

I tried several vintages of Catalyst. None would install at all.
I used 7-zip to get the guts out and pointed device manager
at what looked like it might be a driver. Still no luck.
(that process has been successful in the past on other machines)
I had an XP hard drive, so I exported those drivers and tried
to install. Claimed they're incompatible.

I did not try to install in compatibility mode. That's a good clue.

I set up to experiment with powerstrip.
I decided to use remote desktop so I could do it from
my easy chair.
The subject remote computer is set at 1024x768. The aspect ratio
is wrong on its 1440x900 monitor. (circles are not round)

The remote desktop display machine is win7 sp1 with a 1920x1200 monitor.
The remote desktop is configured to display at 1680x1050.
The subject display is crisp and the aspect ratio is correct.
The screen contents are in the upper-left portion of the display,
suggesting that there really are more pixels being shown instead
of scaling.
If you drag a text window across the screen, it doesn't
show the artifacts you typically get from a rescaled display.
The text characters don't change shape as you move them.

Remote desktop disables the screen on the remote machine.
I put a circle/geometry template on the lock screen. The lock
screen is still stretched horizontally and
the attached monitor still thinks it's getting 1024x768
from the lock screen image.

This is a surprise. There's a lot going on here, but somewhere,
somehow, the default software knows how to configure a frame
buffer that displays in a manner that's indistinguishable
from the real thing at higher resolutions on the client machine.
I couldn't come up with a better word to describe the terminal I'm
sitting at to view the remote display. Let's use "client" for now.

Remote desktop won't let me mess with resolutions, so it's back
to hunching over the workbench. But, I did learn another symptom.

So, I installed powerstrip.
It appears to create monitor.inf files that the driver can access.
It finds the existing monitor driver (oem4.inf) for my Samsung
Syncmaster 940BW.
Looks like the same contents as sm940bw.inf_x86_06192685421d1080
in the driverstore\filerepository.
Has only one resolution entry and that's the max of 1440x900.
I messed with powerstrip to create the new .inf file and installed that
for the monitor. The end result is that it reduced the number
of display options in the display resolution setting utility.
800x600 went away.
1024x768 still works.
1280x1024 still gives the out of range error on the monitor.
This may be operator error, but there aren't many steps involved.
Poking around in the registry suggests that the problem may
be that the output is 75 Hz. and the monitor can only do 60Hz.
at that resolution...maybe...

It does appear that you can create the monitor .inf files
from the trial version, so that may be helpful with the other
issue of the Norcent 1680x1050 HDMI TV/monitor that has no .inf file
available.

So, that answers my question about monitor configurations.
You have a LOT of patience and the ability to stay focused on the
issues at hand. I appreciate that very much.

If I were the type to jump to conclusions, I'd conclude
that the display subsystem fails to find a valid display driver
and defaults to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.
That adapter throws up three common resolutions and doesn't even
bother to check for a monitor driver.
That gets you going on your search for a driver, but doesn't
help much if one doesn't exist.

We know it can be done from the remote desktop experiment.
The linux experiment suggests that the hardware is capable.

If resolution is hard coded into the basic display driver,
there's not much anybody outside microsoft can do about it.

mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 9:40 PM, Paul wrote:
mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

I don't like to say things I can't back up.
You seem to need proof to debunk your rash assumptions.
I realized that I could concisely constrain the problem.

Booted live linux on the machine. MacPup 5.50
Default resolution is 1440x900, as it should be.
Drug it to the location of a different monitor.
Default resolution is 1920x1200, as it should be.

HARDWARE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The default windows 10 driver is the problem.

Maybe someone will port the linux driver to windows 10. ;-)

There might be a possible solution, but I think
that card is a little too old.

You might be able to get a Vista era driver to load.
ATI driver packages came as CCC + dd or just dd alone.
The Device Driver is a relatively small package. If
it is installed, you get resolution control back again.
The separation of the two packages, seemed to be more
popular in the WinXP era.

But the 9250 is probably a WinXP era card, and never got
a Vista driver. I've downloaded a few, and all I see in
the Vista ones I've tried, is PCI Express.

And when I went to the ATI/AMD site, and instead of 9250, tried
9800 (as in the 9800Pro I own) and searched for Vista, yes,
they did give me a "driver", but it seemed to contain drivers
for the All In Wonder video helper chip. A traditional "dd"
portion didn't seem to exist in the package.

These "dd" files can be relatively small. I have several here
from long ago, on the order of 12MB in size. But they're for
WinXP era. So they don't need to be several hundred megabytes,
to be able to access a frame buffer.

Someone suggested installing a Vista era "dd" driver in
compatibility mode, to try to make a driver. And when
you install that way, without a CCC component, you have
no Catalyst branding at all on the computer. No ATI tray
icon. But when you bring up the Windows Display control
panel, the slider will go past 1024x768. And chances are,
if you then installed Powerstrip, you'd be able
to program custom values (1366x768 perhaps, which is
a non-preferred value as 1366 is not divisible by 8).

Paul
Thanks for the clues.

I tried several vintages of Catalyst. None would install at all.
I used 7-zip to get the guts out and pointed device manager
at what looked like it might be a driver. Still no luck.
(that process has been successful in the past on other machines)
I had an XP hard drive, so I exported those drivers and tried
to install. Claimed they're incompatible.

I did not try to install in compatibility mode. That's a good clue.

I set up to experiment with powerstrip.
I decided to use remote desktop so I could do it from
my easy chair.
The subject remote computer is set at 1024x768. The aspect ratio
is wrong on its 1440x900 monitor. (circles are not round)

The remote desktop display machine is win7 sp1 with a 1920x1200 monitor.
The remote desktop is configured to display at 1680x1050.
The subject display is crisp and the aspect ratio is correct.
The screen contents are in the upper-left portion of the display,
suggesting that there really are more pixels being shown instead
of scaling.
If you drag a text window across the screen, it doesn't
show the artifacts you typically get from a rescaled display.
The text characters don't change shape as you move them.

Remote desktop disables the screen on the remote machine.
I put a circle/geometry template on the lock screen. The lock
screen is still stretched horizontally and
the attached monitor still thinks it's getting 1024x768
from the lock screen image.

This is a surprise. There's a lot going on here, but somewhere,
somehow, the default software knows how to configure a frame
buffer that displays in a manner that's indistinguishable
from the real thing at higher resolutions on the client machine.
I couldn't come up with a better word to describe the terminal I'm
sitting at to view the remote display. Let's use "client" for now.

Remote desktop won't let me mess with resolutions, so it's back
to hunching over the workbench. But, I did learn another symptom.

So, I installed powerstrip.
It appears to create monitor.inf files that the driver can access.
It finds the existing monitor driver (oem4.inf) for my Samsung
Syncmaster 940BW.
Looks like the same contents as sm940bw.inf_x86_06192685421d1080
in the driverstore\filerepository.
Has only one resolution entry and that's the max of 1440x900.
I messed with powerstrip to create the new .inf file and installed that
for the monitor. The end result is that it reduced the number
of display options in the display resolution setting utility.
800x600 went away.
1024x768 still works.
1280x1024 still gives the out of range error on the monitor.
This may be operator error, but there aren't many steps involved.
Poking around in the registry suggests that the problem may
be that the output is 75 Hz. and the monitor can only do 60Hz.
at that resolution...maybe...

It does appear that you can create the monitor .inf files
from the trial version, so that may be helpful with the other
issue of the Norcent 1680x1050 HDMI TV/monitor that has no .inf file
available.

So, that answers my question about monitor configurations.
You have a LOT of patience and the ability to stay focused on the
issues at hand. I appreciate that very much.

If I were the type to jump to conclusions, I'd conclude
that the display subsystem fails to find a valid display driver
and defaults to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.
That adapter throws up three common resolutions and doesn't even
bother to check for a monitor driver.
That gets you going on your search for a driver, but doesn't
help much if one doesn't exist.

We know it can be done from the remote desktop experiment.
The linux experiment suggests that the hardware is capable.

If resolution is hard coded into the basic display driver,
there's not much anybody outside microsoft can do about it.

When you remote into a machine, that uses Terminal Services,
so the display path may be different. And I'm not enough of
a "remoting in" person, to know whether the physical hardware
config on the target machine, influences the Terminal Services
path or not. The only time I've tested that here, I almost
felt like I was in "Safe Mode" or something, based on the
decorations.

And I can't see a reason for the Basic Display Adapter to be
flexible. It should be perilously close to a BIOS level of
frame buffer access. In other words, the BIOS on all the
computers offers a standard service. The BIOS chip on the
video card (~64KB) contains some kind of code that the
motherboard loads. And that code is capable of offering
a service. The BIOS has a pointer to the frame buffer.
What happens after that, is any ones guess. Since it's not
a real driver, and might well be making ACPI calls to the
BIOS, there's no reason to expect all the front porch,
back porch, horizontal and vertical register values to be
made available to the OS.

The table here has "modes" and goes up to 1280x1024.
Do you suppose the Basic Display Adapter artificially
limits it to 1024 ? The reason for these limits, is
partly historical (that's all they had back then), but
also there were cases of non-multisync monitors being
damaged by using resolutions higher than this. And to
avoid class action suits, people working on display stuff
studiously avoid a resolution that could damage something.

https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ec.../mp5/vesa.html

Paul

On 11/6/2015 12:41 AM, mike wrote:

And the drivers that came with the devices don't work in the current
OS.
I get it. Time marches on.
I'm here asking for a software workaround for one little issue.

I knew at least two persons in Hong Kong who are still running Win98!

--
@~@ Remain silent. Nothing from soldiers and magicians is real!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and farces be with you!
/( _ )\ (Fedora release 22) Linux 4.0.8-300.fc22.i686+PAE
^ ^ 18:36:01 up 22:56 0 users load average: 0.00 0.01 0.05
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

On 2015-11-06 12:27 AM, mike wrote:
On 11/5/2015 1:46 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

So you really don't want help. You've not mentioned trying any of my
suggestions. Okay. Goodbye. Have fun fixing this yourself.

I don't like to say things I can't back up.
You seem to need proof to debunk your rash assumptions.
I realized that I could concisely constrain the problem.

Booted live linux on the machine. MacPup 5.50
Default resolution is 1440x900, as it should be.
Drug it to the location of a different monitor.
Default resolution is 1920x1200, as it should be.

HARDWARE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The default windows 10 driver is the problem.

Maybe someone will port the linux driver to windows 10. ;-)

Nobody told you any differently. I TOLD you that Linux would be better
with old hardware. Microsoft has never cared about supporting older
hardware in Windows because doing so would lower profits for its
partners in manufacturing. They _want_ you to buy new stock all the time
and don't cater to dumpster divers who buy computers for a dollar.

--
Slimer