CRT Resolution Trouble
in [Hardware]
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From: ~misfit~ on 12 Dec 2009 17:35 Somewhere on teh intarwebs George(a)here.com wrote: > On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:59:10 +1300, "~misfit~" > <sore_n_happy(a)yahoo-nospam.com.au> wrote: >>> However, it seems likely you have an LCD not CRT monitor >>> since it has a resolution of 1680x1050. >> >> <phew!> >> >> I was reading this thread with ever-increasing incredulity. Unless >> it's a regional thing I've never known of wide-screen CRT monitors. >> In fact I thought that the OP might well be some sort of trolling. > > No I was not trolling. It may have seemed so. Sorry about that/ OK. So I take it that it's not a CRT? Or is it one of those odd-ball ones that Jon linked to? -- Shaun. "Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.
From: ~misfit~ on 12 Dec 2009 17:40 Somewhere on teh intarwebs George(a)here.com wrote: > On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 05:05:52 -0500, George(a)here.com wrote: > > >>> We are to guess of which OS your "friend" uses? You mentioned >>> Control Panel so would that be some version of Windows? >> >> I realized as soon as I posted this item, that I should have been >> more specific as to my friend's hardware and software. I wrote him >> an email for that info, but he said he was going to bed and would >> provide that info in the AM. If/when he does I will provide it. In >> the meantime I will forward your reply. > > Here are his specs: > > * Motherboard is Dell Dimension 8300 > > * CPU is Intel Pentium 4 3G Northwood HyperThreading > > * AGP card is Microsoft nVIDIA GeForce FX3200 128mb > > Perhaps the 128mb video card is inadequate. What make and model is the monitor George? -- Shaun. "Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.
From: ~misfit~ on 12 Dec 2009 17:43 Somewhere on teh intarwebs VanguardLH wrote: > George(a)here.com wrote: [snip] >> Perhaps the 128mb video card is inadequate. > > Depends on what applications your friend runs. It might be > sufficient for the OS but that would depend on the OS. Windows XP > has a minimum requirement of 64MB but recommends 128MB. For *video* RAM? Are you sure you're not thinking Vista? 128MB VRAM was huge back when XP came out, only the best cards had that much. However a lot of machines with on-board graphics and 8MB shared RAM came with XP. -- Cheers, Shaun. "Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.
From: VanguardLH on 12 Dec 2009 18:20 misfit wrote: > VanguardLH wrote: > >> George wrote: >> >>> Perhaps the 128mb video card is inadequate. >> >> Depends on what applications your friend runs. It might be >> sufficient for the OS but that would depend on the OS. Windows XP >> has a minimum requirement of 64MB but recommends 128MB. > > For *video* RAM? Are you sure you're not thinking Vista? 128MB VRAM was huge > back when XP came out, only the best cards had that much. However a lot of > machines with on-board graphics and 8MB shared RAM came with XP. Was a bit tired after shoveling out the 3rd house. From the KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865, yep, I got it wrong. The memory spec was for system RAM, not video RAM. The Dell Dimension 8300 (what the OP says his friend has) looks to have out around 2003. At that time, 128MB was mainstream (at a price point in the cost curve that made for an attractive purchase and not at the high cost of the bleeding edge). I got an ATI 9600 128MB back then because the price was doable. I don't buy high-cost bleeding edge stuff. The VRAM really isn't much of an issue with the OS but more with the apps the user wants to run (which usually ends up being games pushing users to get more VRAM, more pipelines, later DirectX and Shader version support, and a better GPU). The OP reports his friend solved the problem by installing a different video card. Probably what happened is the friend also installed a video driver for that card which doesn't use a screen resolution or frequency that isn't supported by the so-far-unidentified monitor. Problem might've gone away by installing the .inf file that defines the monitor or by going to a newer or older video driver for the original video card that was inside the friend's computer.
From: kony on 12 Dec 2009 19:37
On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:20:40 -0600, VanguardLH <V(a)nguard.LH> wrote: >The VRAM really isn't much of an issue with the OS but more with the apps >the user wants to run (which usually ends up being games pushing users to >get more VRAM, more pipelines, later DirectX and Shader version support, and >a better GPU). > >The OP reports his friend solved the problem by installing a different video >card. Probably what happened is the friend also installed a video driver >for that card which doesn't use a screen resolution or frequency that isn't >supported by the so-far-unidentified monitor. Problem might've gone away by >installing the .inf file that defines the monitor or by going to a newer or >older video driver for the original video card that was inside the friend's >computer. I suspect the video card was actually an FX5200. At one point the nVidia driver probably did't support such (at the time) unusual resolutions and didn't have custom resolution settings, so the prior advice some gave to get the most up to date nVidia driver should suffice. I think it's fair to assume the system owner isn't much of a gamer, or at least not anything that was modern within the last several years if still using an FX5200. |