9800NP: TV out at 640 x 480? How?

[Gerald Moore]

My PC is connected to a digital projector and a small NTSC monitor.
Back in my nVidia days (well, last week...) I could set the TV res to
640x480 and the projector res to 1024x768, and when I switched between
the devices, the resolution would change automatically.

I guess I have two questions. I can't find a way to set the TV res to
640x480 with the ATI driver. The only choices are 800x600 and
1024x768. Both are pretty much unreadible with the old NTSC display.

The second question is: how do I get each device to use its own
resolution? When I switch from the projector to the TV, the TV is at
1024x768.

TIA,
Gerald

 

[Gerald Moore]

Are you using XP? It won't go below 800x600 by default, use multires to get
that.

Yes, I am using XP. I was using it with the nVidia too, though. I
don't remember doing anything special, but maybe I did. I've slept
since then

What is multires?

BTW, on a fairly
good TV (ex. my non-flat 27" JVC) text should be easily read at 800 (I can
read the popups off the taskbar), and mine can be read at 1024 as well.

Well, therein lies the rub, as they say. I am using a 13" or so
monitor from a C64 that I have had in my closet since about 1986. Can
you say "packrat"? Heh heh, I *knew* I would use it again one day! I
guess it is now truly past being useful. But at 640 it was mostly
legible: good enough to use it to select MP3s to play, rip CDs and
DVDs, basic OS tasks, etc. I will keep looking.

I did get it at 640 using Powerstrip, but ran into the switching
problem. A 96" 640x480 display is NOT pretty.

cheers,
Gerald

 

[Ben Pope]

I did get it at 640 using Powerstrip, but ran into the switching
problem. A 96" 640x480 display is NOT pretty.

Thats a big display - we had an old front projection Panasonic tele that was
nearly 5' across - great talking point - used to watch it from about 7
metres away Apart from the red gun being slightly rotated and a
distinctly dodgy power supply that would randomly cut out occasionally it
was fine. I decided to take it upon myself to take a good look at the
thing - I opened it up and decided that the power supply was right at the
front (over two foot from the back) - past the massive capacitor. I decided
to leave it as it was.

Ben

 

[Mike P]

Do a google search, it's a great little program for changing resolutions
quickly.

mike

 

[Gerald Moore]

I guess I have two questions. I can't find a way to set the TV res to
640x480 with the ATI driver. The only choices are 800x600 and
1024x768. Both are pretty much unreadible with the old NTSC display.

I solved this by going to display properties --> settings --> advanced
--> adapter --> list all modes, then selecting the one I wanted.

The second question is: how do I get each device to use its own
resolution? When I switch from the projector to the TV, the TV is at
1024x768.

See the thread at <http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=9d15dca468cd000021758f7f79d1a512&threadid=33702188>
to see how to do this.

There is still an annoying "do you want to apply the new settings"
prompt that I want to get rid of. If you dont respond to it within a
certain amount of time the res defaults back to whatever it was on the
other device. But the switching part is working, at least.

Gerald

 

[Mike P]

You'd really miss that if you accidentally set the display outside your
monitor's capabilities.

Mike

 

[Gerald Moore]

True. But, every single time, and not just the first one? I see now
that ATI is managing multiple displays totally differently than
nVidia. Guess I just have to live with it, just like those annoying
"do you want another transaction" prompts at the ATM.

Still, with an nVidia card, all this was easy to setup and executed
cleanly. You simply switched devices and it could remember which one
had what resolution. And you only needed a single hotkey, instead of
two. And you could use ALT without having to also press CTRL.

But these are perhaps the only things I miss about the GF3