On Thu January 3 2008, Felix Miata scratched these words onto a coconut shell, hoping for an answer: > On 2008/01/03 18:51 (GMT-0500) Gil Weber.com apparently typed: > > So is there something fundamentally wrong between Sax2 and my > > motherboard that is going to prevent me from getting this video > > problem fixed? > > Possibly. > > > Am I just spinning my wheels > > Probably not. > > > and wasting your guys' time? > > Wasting is probably not quite accurate.
Sorry, poor choice of words. Should have left it at spinning my wheels. :o) > > I know that may be impossible to answer without trying, but what's > > your best guess? > > It can be made to work acceptably, if not well. Yes, it can!! Felix, Jan, Rajko, Ken, Aaron: Many thanks to all of you for your expertise and patience. Using your helpful suggestions I have been able to fix the problem -- at least it is significantly better than before. :o) I finally was able to run 'sax2 -r -m 0=i810' from a command line (thanks, Felix for the instructions). After logging back into the GUI my rectangles are nearly perfect! The fractional amount of horizontal vs vertical difference is so slight it is easily ignored. As comparison, prior to switching to the i810 driver I had: 1152X864 (XGA), 72X64 DPI, and 1152X768 pixels (significantly sub-optimal) After changing drivers I am able to get: 1280X960 (QVGA), 80X79 DPI, and 1280X960 pixels (not state-of-the-art, but a major improvement). Measuring the 1" horizontal bar on one of Felix's test screens my monitor now shows that 1" bar as 1 1/32" (as I said, a difference easily ignored). And on another of Felix's test screens the horizontal and vertical dimensions of squares are only slightly off. So I am thrilled to have rectangles displayed as rectangles rather than as squares. FYI, here are the outputs of some reports from the console after the driver switch: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~> xdpyinfo | grep resolution resolution: 80x79 dots per inch [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~> xdpyinfo | grep dimensions dimensions: 1280x960 pixels (406x309 millimeters) Yahoo!! :o) Also from the xorg.conf file (edited here to conserve electrons) confirming the i810 driver rather than the intel: # /.../ # SaX generated X11 config file # Created on: 2008-01-04T10:50:12-0500. (snip) Section "Monitor" DisplaySize 406 305 HorizSync 29-82 Identifier "Monitor[0]" ModelName "20G" VendorName "VIEWSONIC" VertRefresh 50-90 UseModes "Modes[0]" EndSection (snip) Section "Device" BoardName "i845" BusID "0:2:0" Driver "i810" Identifier "Device[0]" Option "NoDDC" Option "LinearAlloc" "16384" VendorName "Intel" EndSection (remainder snipped) A note that might be interesting FYI... Previously I had described that the countdown timer in the upper left hand corner of sax2 did not countdown, and the buttons for changing screen dimensions did not work. After changing to the i810 driver using the command line those conditions remained unchanged. No countdown and no changes possible with the on-screen buttons. As previously, I had to change screen dimensions with the controls on the front of the Viewsonic monitor. So the i810 driver fixes some but not all of the issues with the upgrade to 10.3. But, hey, who's complaining?? :o) > > In regards to this video problem am I just screwed using > > 10.3 and this motherboard and on-board video chip? > > Possibly more likely if you only just installed and didn't do any > online updates yet. IIRC there were important Intel-video-related > updates after 10.3 release. All of this was done after online updates. > After a brief experiment with my i845G, I'm of the opinion that 'sax2 > -r -m 0=i810' has significant nonzero probability of providing you > little or no improvement. Anticipating that likelihood, here's an > unusual approach - try using an xorg.conf I custom built that works > on my i845G. Thanks, Felix, but I think I'll just sit back and enjoy what I now have. This was a huge learning process for me. Hard to put so much into my head in such a short time. :o) (snip) But I do have one more related issue to toss out to all of you. Many of your communications described DPIs well above 90. Jan even noted that he was getting 129X126. Incredible. Felix suggested that to get to around 96DPI I would need to up my resolution to 1400X1050. Remember that I don't have a nice, modern video card. I am using the onboard chip. Is there potential for damaging the chip or some other component in my system by pushing the video driver that hard? For example, if one were to seriously overdrive a microphone preamplifier you could do some real damage to the electronics. Or if you seriously overdrive the preamplifier in a stereo system you can damage other (downstream) components as a result. Could a similar thing happen here by raising the resolution so high? Or is it simply a matter of trying it and seeing the visual results -- that the only risk is a less pleasing screen but there is no risk of damage? Your thoughts are appreciated. And, again, thanks to everyone who was so helpful and patient. Gil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
