Guest Enixyle Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Hello, I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 1520 notebook with an Nvidia 8600M GT with a 1440x900 display. 1440x900 can be somewhat difficult to render for some games (or will be), so I would like to know if it's possible to force a larger resolution (1280x800, for example) while using black bars instead of stretching it (in order to preserve quality). I've seen this option available on my friend's notebook with an ATI card, is it possible for mine, maybe with a driver tweak? Also, it seems that my notebook's s-video out only outputs either 1024x768 or 800x600. This seems almost silly to me because the display is really only readable on high definition TVs, most of which have wide screens. So I was wondering, is it possible to force a wide-screen resolution to be output? Under the advanced settings for my display on the monitor tab, I see a check-box that says, "Hide mode that this monitor cannot display". It is, unfortunately, grayed out, but maybe there is some way to enable this and allow me to force a wide-screen resolution? Thank you very much, Enixyle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Enixyle Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Regarding my first problem, I also wanted to note that I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium (since, searching Google, it seems like the normal solution for XP does not apply). If it's any help, I'm using the 7.15.11.5669 (ForceWare 156.69) driver. I plan to change it to one of the drivers on this site soon, however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Enixyle Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 And one last note, you can ignore what I said about the "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display", since that only deals with refresh rates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Enixyle Posted January 12, 2008 Report Share Posted January 12, 2008 First Problem (Stop Resolution Stretch): Resolved. I made the mistake of not realizing that the flat panel settings... only appear when I'm using the flat panel and not the external monitor. D'oh! I still haven't the slightest idea how to force my s-video output to be a wide-screen resolution. Does anyone know of a trick or driver that could do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Evil Jeff Posted February 24, 2008 Report Share Posted February 24, 2008 I've got the Inspiron 1526 and have been researching quite a lot on this.. I could not find any direct answers to this, so I complied all the data I could and went out on my own. I was 100% SUCCESSFUL! Here's what I found: The "Svideo" plug on the right side is actually capable of much more. It will output anything from composite to Svideo to Component at High Definition resolutions. It is also capable of transmitting S/P_DIF (digital 5.1 surround sound to a stereo receiver that has a "Coaxial Digital" input. There are several websites quoting various "Pinouts" for this connector (by the way, it is a "7-pin Mini-Din" type of connector). The ATI component video cable I had did not work.. I got 1080i on the Y (luminance) and Pr (red Phase difference) lines, but connecting the Pb caused only distortion to the picture. The reason is, Dell, ATI, and others have their own pinout schemes which are not compatible with each other. So what did I do? I disassembled a 7-pin mini-din and made one myself. The pin numbering is standardized, check at pinouts.ru or other sites for the pin numberings. These are the connections I made: Pin 3 - Y RCA jack center conductor Pin 1 - Y RCA jack shield and Pb RCA jack shield Pin 4 - Pr RCA jack center conductor Pin 2 - Pr RCA jack shield Pin 6 - Pb RCA jack center conductor Pin 5 - S/P_DIF RCA jack center conductor Pin 7 - S_Pdif RCA Jack shield There are comments that the S/P_Dif wires are reversed, or that the outer case of the mini-din should be connected to certain shield wires,, I was only concerned from the perspective of the cables I was connecting through. Supposedly, Dell sells a cable that has all this functionality in it (P/N 044CTV) but when I went to Dell's website to look at it it either is totally wrong or just a generic picture. I will be contatcing Dell directly to get the lowdown on this.... The Display I am using is the King of Picture Tubes, the Sony KD-34XBR960 CRT HDTV. It was all easily set up in ATI Control Panel. When an HDTV display is connected, the display options change to include a "Component HDTV" display where you would otherwise see a S-Video or generic TV option. Best of luck! Ill check this site to see how things are going. Or Email me at eviljeff1@yahoo.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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