Widescreen Resolutions

[Travis King]

With my Radeon X1600PRO, I do not see two important screen resolutions for
widescreen... 1440x900 and 1680x1050. I have already set it to show screen
resolutions that my current monitor does not support as well. Is this
something wrong or does this video card just not support widescreen? I'm
using Vista 32-bit if that makes a difference.

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Travis King:

With my Radeon X1600PRO, I do not see two important screen resolutions
for widescreen... 1440x900 and 1680x1050. I have already set it to
show screen resolutions that my current monitor does not support as
well. Is this something wrong or does this video card just not support
widescreen? I'm using Vista 32-bit if that makes a difference.

Widescreen resolutions are not listed until the driver detects a
widescreen display.

BTW: this has been answered probably fivehundred million times already,
a short search with google should have already brought you the answer.

Benjamin

 

[KCB]

With my Radeon X1600PRO, I do not see two important screen resolutions
for widescreen... 1440x900 and 1680x1050. I have already set it to
show screen resolutions that my current monitor does not support as
well. Is this something wrong or does this video card just not
support widescreen? I'm using Vista 32-bit if that makes a
difference.

You don't mention which monitor you have, or what version of drivers you
are using, but the ati web site at:
http://ati.amd.com/products/RadeonX1600/Products.html
says this:

Digital Displays (Connected by DVI)
All Resolutions up to 2560x16003

Analog Displays (Connected by VGA)
All resolutions up to 2048x15363

TV-out
SDTV (analog): 480i | 525i
HDTV (analog or digital): 480p | 720p | 1080i | Any custom resolution
(3)

NOTE: resolutions are limited by the performance of the attached
monitor.

*16:9 aspect ratio monitors are supported on 1920x1080 and 848x480 on
Windows® XP and Windows® 2000. The complete list of resolutions depends
on the driver version and operating system. NOTE: resolutions are
limited by the performance of the attached monitor.

(1) AvivoT is a technology platform that includes a broad set of
capabilities offered by ATI products. Full enablement of some AvivoT
capabilities may require complementary products.
(2) Internet access required.
(3) Some custom resolutions require user configuration

 

[Travis King]

I have a 19" CRT monitor (1280x1024) and was looking for widescreen LCDs,
and I was just checking to see if my video card supports the resolution of a
widescreen LCD. I'm not sure on the driver # for my video card, but it's
the one that was just released a few days ago. (I believe March 28.) I was
likely going to look for a monitor with a 1680x1050 resolution because I
believe you actually lose a slight amount of screen real estate with a
1440x900 resolution.

 

[Augustus]

With my Radeon X1600PRO, I do not see two important screen resolutions for
widescreen... 1440x900 and 1680x1050. I have already set it to show
screen resolutions that my current monitor does not support as well. Is
this something wrong or does this video card just not support widescreen?
I'm using Vista 32-bit if that makes a difference.

If I had a dollar for every time this comes up.....virtually any and all
widescreen resolutions are supported on virtually all ATI cards manufactured
from the 7000 series on up, but you must first load the monitor drivers that
came with the monitor for Windows to list them as a choice.

 

[Barry Watzman]

You can't do it that way. When the computer is turned on, the video
card and the monitor have a "conversation" with each other about what
resolutions each support. The list of supported resolutions will change
with the connected monitor ... if you connect a widescreen display, you
will see new resolutions that you won't see with your current 1280x1024
display connected (even if you have the box checked to show resolutions
not supported by your current display).

 

[Barry Watzman]

Re: "If I had a dollar for every time this comes up.....virtually any
and all widescreen resolutions are supported on virtually all ATI cards
manufactured from the 7000 series on up"

Correct ...

Re: "but you must first load the monitor drivers that came with the
monitor for Windows to list them as a choice"

Not correct, in most cases. Most monitors don't come with "drivers".
However, at power up, the video card and the monitor "talk" with each
other over the DDC (display data channel) and exchange information about
what resolutions each supports. This conversation enables the video
card to add additional resolutions to it's list of supported resolutions
without (in most cases) loading any "drivers" for the display.

 

[Augustus]

Re: "If I had a dollar for every time this comes up.....virtually any and
all widescreen resolutions are supported on virtually all ATI cards
manufactured from the 7000 series on up"

Correct ...

Re: "but you must first load the monitor drivers that came with the
monitor for Windows to list them as a choice"

Not correct, in most cases. Most monitors don't come with "drivers".
However, at power up, the video card and the monitor "talk" with each
other over the DDC (display data channel) and exchange information about
what resolutions each supports. This conversation enables the video card
to add additional resolutions to it's list of supported resolutions
without (in most cases) loading any "drivers" for the display.

I'm fully aware it's really a true driver, just an instruction set for the
video card and OS to use. But in the everyday parlance, they are called
"drivers". And for the overwhelming majority of monitor and supported
resolution question posers here, they are "drivers" . And almost every
monitor I've ever seen comes with a CD that contains them. And when you go
their website, you'll find them available for download as well. WIndows will
recognize many as a plug and play device without, but specific intruction
sets and resoltions are not available without them.

 

[Augustus]

I'm fully aware it's really a true driver,

Should read "it's NOT a true driver"

 

[J. Clarke]

I'm fully aware it's really a true driver, just an instruction set
for the video card and OS to use. But in the everyday parlance, they
are called "drivers". And for the overwhelming majority of monitor
and supported resolution question posers here, they are "drivers" .

And for the overwhelming majority of monitors they don't exist.

And almost every monitor I've ever seen comes with a CD that contains
them. And when you go their website, you'll find them available for
download as well. WIndows will recognize many as a plug and play
device without, but specific intruction sets and resoltions are not
available without them.

Actually they are if the monitor implements DDC properly.

 

[Mercury]

You can't do it that way. When the computer is turned on, the video card
and the monitor have a "conversation" with each other about what
resolutions each support. The list of supported resolutions will change
with the connected monitor ... if you connect a widescreen display, you
will see new resolutions that you won't see with your current 1280x1024
display connected (even if you have the box checked to show resolutions
not supported by your current display).

Using PowerStrip (for example) you can force pretty much any resolution your
video card can handle, regardless of the monitor currently hooked up. I
used it to see if my card could do 1680x1050 before buying an LCD with that
res.

 

[John McGaw]

I have a 19" CRT monitor (1280x1024) and was looking for widescreen
LCDs, and I was just checking to see if my video card supports the
resolution of a widescreen LCD. I'm not sure on the driver # for my
video card, but it's the one that was just released a few days ago. (I
believe March 28.) I was likely going to look for a monitor with a
1680x1050 resolution because I believe you actually lose a slight amount
of screen real estate with a 1440x900 resolution.

My ancient 9600XT manages to handle 1680X1050 now that it is actually
connected to a widescreen monitor of that resolution and I suspect that
a much newer card will manage it as well.

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Augustus:

If I had a dollar for every time this comes up.....

That's so true...

virtually any and all
widescreen resolutions are supported on virtually all ATI cards manufactured
from the 7000 series on up, but you must first load the monitor drivers that
came with the monitor for Windows to list them as a choice.

Nope. Monitor "drivers" (which are not really drivers but just plain
text files that contain descriptions of what the monitor is able to do)
are only needed if DDC doesn't work for some reason. Most better
displays do provide correct DDC2 informations and thus tell the gfx
driver by themselves that they are widescreen and what resolutions they
need. But what most people forget is that this requires the monitor to
be switched on when the gfx driver loads, otherwise there is no
communication and the driver falls back to standard settings...

Benjamin

 

[Ken Maltby]

And for the overwhelming majority of monitors they don't exist.


Actually they are if the monitor implements DDC properly.

The vast majority of "Widescreen" monitors do come with
"driver CDs". Even if the "driver" is only an .inf file. While
it is true DDC should be handling it, the "drivers" are still
provided and needed in some cases.

Luck;
Ken

 

[Ken Maltby]

* Augustus:


That's so true...


Nope. Monitor "drivers" (which are not really drivers but just plain text
files that contain descriptions of what the monitor is able to do) are
only needed if DDC doesn't work for some reason. Most better displays do
provide correct DDC2 informations and thus tell the gfx driver by
themselves that they are widescreen and what resolutions they need. But
what most people forget is that this requires the monitor to be switched
on when the gfx driver loads, otherwise there is no communication and the
driver falls back to standard settings...

Benjamin

And your OS should have set those "standard settings" to
what you run with your system, to include the settings for the
primary and secondary monitors. One way it can do that is
saving what the DDC has provided, another, is through the
monitor manufacture's .inf file.

Luck,
Ken

 

[Alex Boling]

jesus, he was just looking for a answer...........why beat him to
death....he came to the nexus of answers, the news group, like I do
sometimes, maybe he thought his problem was original, i am so sorry he
wasn't as 'geeky' as you


alex

 

[Roger]

And for the overwhelming majority of monitors they don't exist.

But for the 22" Samsung they are required to get the wide screen to
work properly with the X1950XT and I'd assume other ATI cards as well.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Arnold C]

Thats exactly what happened to me. My Acer was working in 1680x1050 with
my Radeon 9200 until the day I forgot to turn the monitor on. I've been
trying all sorts of things but I can't get the choice of 1680x1050 to
appear again. And the control panel shows the correct monitor (Acer
Al2216W). I've tried updating the Radeon driver and installed a new .INF
file from Acer but nothing has worked yet. Google has let me down so far
too.

Any advice would be *greatly* appreciated...