Monitor- unsupported resolutions question

[darrell]

Hello, I have a Gateway Crystalscan 15" monitor (1572FS model) and it says the maximum resolution for it is 1024x768. But with my Geforce2 MX, i can adjust it all the way up to 2048x1536. I havent tried it that high yet, but i have tried it at 1152x864 and 1600x1200 and i can view it instead of it just blanking out on me. What i want to know is, will it hurt to run at these higher resolutions even though it said the monitor only goes up to 1024x768? I'd really like to run at these resolutions, but i dont want to burn out my monitor. Any advice is appreciated.

darrell

[Sterling_Aug]

You can NOT push a monitor beyond what is was designed to do, so if the spec for the monitor is 1024x768 then that is it's upper limit. After that, you will get garbled display or blank screen.

[easyrider]

While it's tue you can't push it beyond what it can do, you CAN use other than what the specs are. I have a 19" KDS Trinitron tube AV-195TF
Here's the specs - http://www.kdsusa.com/av195tf.htm

If you look it says "A .24 mm aperture grille pitch along with a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 compliments the display"
I can take this to a max res of 2048x1024x32, I have done it and it works fine at that res. So reading specs and going from that isn't always true, it depnds also on your video card as well. I also found, that some video cards HIDE resolutions, since not "all" monitors can handle "those" resolutions. Take for example, I had a gf2 gts 64 meg, and it had a rs of 1280x960. I bought an ATI radeon 64 meg, and put it on, and didn't have that res. I read around and found a forums with a tech from ATI that said YES they do hide resolutions, and told how to enable those particular resolutons. I also confirmed this by calling them voice, and they told me the exact same thing.
For me to get the 1280x960 res, i had to do a registry edit and take the res that was being blocked, then I used a program called Hztool. Some say it lies, but I have had NO problem, and have checked with what my minitor says, and it says it's at 1280x960 at 100hz. You can't fool the thing on the monitor that you use to check and adjust things with, that is coming straight from the monitor itself.
I've run at 2048x1024x32 for a long hile and nevr had a problem, even though the monitor says a max res of 1600x1200
If yu do indeed get garbled or blank screen then you'll know you can't go that high or use that res. other than that I dout it will harm it.

[Bob The Great]

Your GeForce (I'm guessing it's a Creative Labs). Is probably usuing what's called a virtual resulution. It makes it look like your at that resulution even though your not. I might be wrong though.

As for it hurting your moniter. I would make sure of what it is doing. I don't believe it can actually go any higher then the moniters top res. So It shouldn't be able to do harm. But to be on the safe side. Don't do it till you find out axactly whats happining!

[AuraEdge]

"maximum resolution of 1600x1200 compliments the display"

That phrase usually means the highest flicker free resoulution (75Hz+ for some companies, 85Hz+ for others.)

There are Virtual resolutions. My screen with a max of 1920x1440, if it set to 2048x1536, will let me see a 1920x1440 viewable desktop, but will scroll the sides of the screen for a maximum of 2048x1536
While HzTool can change refresh Rate, it cannot push a monitor to a resolution it cannot utilize. (raising the Hz of the monitor past what a monitor can do IS possible, but is essentially 'overclocking' your monitor and may cause damage) Utilizing a frequency above the range of a monitor will show garbled text, only show u a small portion of the screen, or just blank itself out.


Speaking of which, I havent hacked my registry at all with res hacks, but my Radeon, when I try to run at 1280x960 in Counterstrike (which sets it by itself, so I dont think a reg edit is necessary), only shows a small portion of the screen (about 100x70 or something). Maybe the reg hack will fix this...where at?
My monitor is spec'ed at being able to run 1280x960 @ 85Hz. (Philips Brilliance 109P20)
In Win2k, you can override the refresh rate without HzTool, so I dont think I need that.

Back to the discussion..
If you set it at a frequency a monitor isnt supposta run at, it simply wont work.

---wait a sec---
I just read the website and it does indeed say that 1600x1200 is the max res for the monitor that you have. 2048x1024x32 is a far cry from 1600x1200. I dont know how monitors bandwidth resultion limitations work, but 2048x1024 (2.1 million Pixels) is only about 170,000 more pixels than 1600x1200 (1.9 million pixels). Maybe it just wasnt listed by KDS because it is an unusual resolution, of Height:Width of 2:1, instead of the traditional 4:3.

All the listed supported settings for my monitor are all between 4:3 and 3:2, except for 640x350 (Nope, I don't know either...)
http://www.pcstuff.philips.com/downloads/products/en_109p20_lft.pdf

Howed you get it to shoot up at 2048x1024?
Let me know and Ill give it a shot.

[bwkaz]

640x350 is there (I think) because that's an old standard EGA or VGA mode resolution -- 640x350x4 bit color (good old QBASIC SCREEN 9). They probably just thought, "what the heck, it used to be a standard, why not keep it there?", so they listed it. It is a weird aspect ratio, but it was a standard res.

Bryan

[easyrider]

AuraEdge:
2 things...
I Had a gf2 gts 64 meg Herc prophet II card that had those res's and when i "first" stumbled on these resolutions, I installed a program it it detected my monitor as plug&play, so i just left it to see what it would do or how it would act. Well i went to my res icon on the taskbar, and what did I see? more res's than i normally had. Now with my 17" optiquest, it did a similar thing and I clicked a res and it freaked out the monitor like your saying. But with this monitor, it seems to detect and/or work better with detecting the res's, even hidden ones. I was curious if it would do the same on this monitor, so i clicked it and sure enough it took, but was at 75hz of corse http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif.
I checked this with the front button, and the blue screen to see the hz came up and said the res and hz rate, so it was a true setting.

Now for the 1280x960 res.
I was checking around, because Ati card didn't get 1280x960, wich i lvoe to use, even in games. So I checked around, and happened uppon rage3d message board, and they posted a post that was made by an ati rep/tech, and told how to get the 1280x960 res. in short, and as simply as I can put it, it went like this.

1: Run regedit
2: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\DAL
3: Under there you will find a key, or whatever, called DALRestrictedModesBCD
4: Double click that, or right click then edit it, and you'll see a value of...
12 80 09 60 00 00 00 00.
This being 1280x960 res of corse, notice the numbers http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif. Say for 2048x1024, it would look like this: 20 48 10 24 00 00 00 00
Anyways you get the jist.
Delete that value and exit out of that key.
Dn't worry about the 0000 at the side, you can't get rid of that, just leave it be as that, without the 1280x906 value.
5: Once you delete that out, then go to a key called DALNonStandardModesBCD.
In that key, put the same line you just deleted out of the other key, wich would be 12 80 09 60 00 00 00 00, then exit out of regedit and reboot.
When you come back in use Hztool, to set the 1280x960 resolution, then you should see that same res now under the res icon in the task bar.
I did have a little quirk with it setting to 60hz, but I fixed that by right clicking and going into the settings tab under the video display and setting the adapter to optimal.
You may have to mess with it a little to get it to work like I had to do but once it's set it works like a dream.
Only thing i don't get 1280x960 res in is q3 so far, but I'm thinking that's because of q3 not anything else, ebcasue I get it in NFS5, UT, HL/CS both, giants, and a few others.

Hope this was helpful.
Have any problems, let me know i'll see what I can help with and find out.
it may act different on 2k, so not sure about that cause I'm useing 98se http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif.

Good luck and keep me posted



[This message has been edited by easyrider (edited 04-11-2001).]

[AuraEdge]

Theres a good one. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
One more tidbit of resolution knowledge in my book.

[darrell]

Thanks everyone for the help. Like i said i can run it up to 1600x1200 without the screen blanking out. I was scared to try to go higher but it may be possible. I dont even like running it at 1600x1200 because the refresh rate is too low. I can see flickering on bright backgrounds. But its viewable at 1152x864 so i will just keep it at that res which is still higher than the max 1024x768 in the specs for monitor. I was just worried about blowing up my monitor. Besides its time for a new one. Maybe if i blow this one up my wife will finally spring for that 19" I have been wanting http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif thanks again for all the help.

darrell