Finding out the vertical refresh and horizontal sync rates...

[khr]

Does there exist a program to find out the vertical refresh rate and the horizontal sync rate?

[perlluver]

Most newer monitors will tell you waht they are, when you open up the settings for the monitor.

[khr]

Most newer monitors will tell you waht they are, when you open up the settings for the monitor.

And how do you do that? :)
BIOS?

[perlluver]

And how do you do that? :)
BIOS?

If you have a wheel, or menu button on your monitor itself, you should be able to press that, and it will bring up the menu, where you would fix your picture and move it. It shoud be in there usually on top, of that little pop up screen.

[khr]

If you have a wheel, or menu button on your monitor itself, you should be able to press that, and it will bring up the menu, where you would fix your picture and move it. It shoud be in there usually on top, of that little pop up screen.

Im not using a monitor.
Does actually laptop screens have a vertical refresh or horizontal sync rate?

[perlluver]

Im not using a monitor.
Does actually laptop screens have a vertical refresh or horizontal sync rate?

I'm not sure of that, I believe they do, but I have never owned a laptop, therfore I am not sure how to check what it would be.

[sailor2001]

/usr/share/applications/screen & graffics Check in there ...

[khr]

/usr/share/applications/screen & graffics Check in there ...

That helped, thanks!

The model was set on plug 'n' play which is:
HorizSync: 28.0 - 33.0
VertRefresh: 43 - 72

Just incase its wrong, i wrote down the HorizSync and the VertRefresh for the 1280 x 800 LCD model...

Anyway, i've a question to this:
Can i trust it?

[unutbu]

Run
% xvidtune -show



You should get something like

"1680x1050" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync

146.25 is the pixel_clock_freq (in MHz),
2240 is the the h_field_len,
1089 is the v_field_len.

Then, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFree86_Modeline,
the refresh rate (rr) is given by the formula

rr = pixel_clock_freq / (h_field_len * v_field_len)

In the above case,

rr = 146.25 * 10^6 / (2240*1089) = 59.9 Hz.

rr is also called the Vertical refresh rate.

The horizontal sync rate (hsr) (I'm guessing) is given by

hsr = pixel_clock_freq / h_field_len

So in the case above, it equals

hsr = 146.25 * 10^6 / 2240 = 65.3 KHz.

These numbers match (to within 0.1) what my monitor tells me the values are.

[Zralou]

When I had to manually edit my xorg.conf file to adjust the monitor, I went to this site to get the specs: http://www.monitorworld.com/

Don't know if it would work for a laptop tho'.

Sara Lou

[Digger78]

I dunno if this will work on a laptop but to find what your screen is capable of do the following in a terminal (black text only)

sudo apt-get install xresprobe *this may already be installed

sudo ddcprobe | grep monitorrange

If it work it will display something like
monitorrange: 30-61, 56-75

30-61 would be the horizontal sync range (HorizSync)

56-75 would be the vertical refresh range (VertRefresh)

[khr]

Run
% xvidtune -show



You should get something like

"1680x1050" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync

146.25 is the pixel_clock_freq (in MHz),
2240 is the the h_field_len,
1089 is the v_field_len.

Then, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFree86_Modeline,
the refresh rate (rr) is given by the formula

rr = pixel_clock_freq / (h_field_len * v_field_len)

In the above case,

rr = 146.25 * 10^6 / (2240*1089) = 59.9 Hz.

rr is also called the Vertical refresh rate.

The horizontal sync rate (hsr) (I'm guessing) is given by

hsr = pixel_clock_freq / h_field_len

So in the case above, it equals

hsr = 146.25 * 10^6 / 2240 = 65.3 KHz.

These numbers match (to within 0.1) what my monitor tells me the values are.

When i try "xvidtune -show", i just get this:

Xlib: extension "XFree86-VidModeExtension" missing on display ":1.0".
Unable to query video extension version

When i search for XFree86-VidModeExtension in Synaptic Package Manager i just get libxxf86vm1, libxxf86vm1-dbg, and libxxf86vm-dev.
I've tried installing all of them but the result is the same.

Anyway, thanks for your help, but could you help me with this?

[khr]

Zralou, it doesnt work for my laptop, thanks anyways.

Digger78, am i supposed to type in: "sudo ddcprobe" first, then "grep monitorrange"? Anyway, i tried sudo ddcprobe it returns atleast 10 lines with resolutions and at the end there are some info about my video card and screen or something. I've looked carefully through it and there's nothing that could be the horizSync or VertRefresh rates.

When i enter "grep monitorrange" it just starts on a new empty line and blinks. It obviously doesn't work on laptops...

Anyway thanks for your help!

[unutbu]

Try

sudo apt-get install xvidtune

[khr]

Try

sudo apt-get install xvidtune

It returns:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package xvidtune is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
x11-xserver-utils
E: Package xvidtune has no installation candidate

By the way, x11-xserver-utils is already installed.(In synaptic)

[unutbu]

Edit: Please see if you have xserver-xorg-core-dbg installed.

Hm. Please try

grep VidMode /var/log/Xorg.0.log
ls -l /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions


You should see

% grep VidMode /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(II) Loading extension XFree86-VidModeExtension

and
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions:
total used in directory 3088 available 260901196
...
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 148535 2008-01-18 18:18 libextmod.so


If you're not seeing these things, then it appears Hardy ships xserver-xorg-core without libextmod.so.
I don't know. You're machine's behaviour is not like mine (running Gutsy). Short of compiling X yourself (cringe) I don't know what to tell you.

[khr]

For "grep VidMode /var/log/Xorg.0.log" i get:

(II) Loading extension XFree86-VidModeExtension


And for "ls -l /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions" i get:

total 3064
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18824 2008-04-15 19:41 libdbe.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40629 2008-04-15 19:41 libdri.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 151354 2008-04-15 19:41 libextmod.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2409784 2008-04-15 19:41 libGLcore.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 429290 2008-04-15 19:41 libglx.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27976 2008-04-15 19:41 librecord.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39783 2008-04-15 19:41 libxtrap.so


Yes, I'm using Hardy.
edit: xserver-xorg-core-dbg is not installed, i'll install it now...

[Digger78]

Zralou, it doesnt work for my laptop, thanks anyways.

Digger78, am i supposed to type in: "sudo ddcprobe" first, then "grep monitorrange"? Anyway, i tried sudo ddcprobe it returns atleast 10 lines with resolutions and at the end there are some info about my video card and screen or something. I've looked carefully through it and there's nothing that could be the horizSync or VertRefresh rates.

When i enter "grep monitorrange" it just starts on a new empty line and blinks. It obviously doesn't work on laptops...

Anyway thanks for your help!

the | grep monitorrange cuts down the output to just the monitorrange line, so type the whole line then hit enter.

[unutbu]

Does your /etc/X11/xorg.conf say anything about VidModeExtension?

Option "DisableVidModeExtension"
perhaps?

I'm getting this from:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/darwinos-users/2002/Oct/msg00084.html

[wermeulen]

Hey, give ddcprobe another try--it works for me! Though I'm using a LCD screen on DVI output.

Type the following exactly as it appears (or copy & paste) into a terminal. Or just run "sudo ddcprobe" and post the output here :)
sudo ddcprobe | grep range
In my case, I get:
wermeulen@home:~$ sudo ddcprobe | grep range
monitorrange: 30-83, 56-76

The monitorrange gives you first the Horizontal Frequency in kHz (30-83 in this case) and second the Vertical refresh rate in Hz (56-76). For the record, these match the factory documented ranges for my LCD screen.

BTW, to get a modeline for a resolution use gtf. For example to get modeline for 1024 x 768 at 60 Hz, type:
gtf 1024 768 60

[khr]

Digger78, when it try "sudo ddcprobe | grep monitorrange" nothing happens.
It just asks for my password then nothing happens.
Thanks anyways.

Does your /etc/X11/xorg.conf say anything about VidModeExtension?
No it doesn't.

Option "DisableVidModeExtension" just returns:
bash: Option: command not found

[unutbu]

I'm pretty sure this will come up donuts, but anyway, try:

grep VidMode /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Wermeulen, thanks for pointing out gtf; I didn't know I had that! The problem with it, however, is that *you* have to supply the refresh rate. I think the OP wants to find out the actual refresh rate. xvidtune is the usual tool for querying the X server to find out the actual modeline it is using.

[khr]

Hey, give ddcprobe another try--it works for me! Though I'm using a LCD screen on DVI output.

Type the following exactly as it appears (or copy & paste) into a terminal. Or just run "sudo ddcprobe" and post the output here :)
sudo ddcprobe | grep range
In my case, I get:
wermeulen@home:~$ sudo ddcprobe | grep range
monitorrange: 30-83, 56-76

The monitorrange gives you first the Horizontal Frequency in kHz (30-83 in this case) and second the Vertical refresh rate in Hz (56-76). For the record, these match the factory documented ranges for my LCD screen.

BTW, to get a modeline for a resolution use gtf. For example to get modeline for 1024 x 768 at 60 Hz, type:
gtf 1024 768 60

"sudo ddcprobe | grep range" returns nothing while "sudo ddcprobe" returns:

vbe: VESA 3.0 detected.
oem: ATI ATOMBIOS
vendor: (C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc.
product: M56P 01.00
memory: 16384kb
mode: 640x400x256
mode: 640x480x256
mode: 800x600x256
mode: 1024x768x256
mode: 1280x1024x256
mode: 132x25 (text)
mode: 132x43 (text)
mode: 640x480x32k
mode: 640x480x64k
mode: 640x480x16m
mode: 800x600x32k
mode: 800x600x64k
mode: 800x600x16m
mode: 1024x768x32k
mode: 1024x768x64k
mode: 1024x768x16m
mode: 1280x1024x32k
mode: 1280x1024x64k
mode: 1280x1024x16m
mode: 320x200x32k
mode: 320x200x64k
mode: 320x200x16m
mode: 1600x1200x256
mode: 1600x1200x32k
mode: 1600x1200x64k
edid:
edid: 1 3
id: 1974
eisa: AUO1974
serial: 00000000
manufacture: 1 2005
input: analog signal.
screensize: 33 21
gamma: 2.200000
dpms: RGB, no active off, no suspend, no standby
dtiming: 1280x800@59
monitorid: AUO
monitorid: B154EW01 V9

It probably won't work because I'm using my laptop-screen.

[khr]

I'm pretty sure this will come up donuts, but anyway, try:

grep VidMode /etc/X11/xorg.conf

It just returns flying donuts.

[unutbu]

screensize: 33 21
gamma: 2.200000
dpms: RGB, no active off, no suspend, no standby
dtiming: 1280x800@59
monitorid: AUO
monitorid: B154EW01 V9

I'm not familiar with ddcprobe, but it looks like 59Hz your refresh rate.

[wermeulen]

screensize: 33 21
gamma: 2.200000
dpms: RGB, no active off, no suspend, no standby
dtiming: 1280x800@59
monitorid: AUO
monitorid: B154EW01 V9

I'm not familiar with ddcprobe, but it looks like 59Hz your refresh rate.

Second that, but know that I stop and think about it ... you are using a laptop screen, so in almost all cases these run at 60hz fixed :) No use thinking about it, just use 60Hz for refresh rate. (ddcprobe can be a little bit off with timings, no matter.)

Some laptop screens support either 60Hz or 75Hz, but even in those cases I believe 60Hz is factory recommended.

[khr]

screensize: 33 21
gamma: 2.200000
dpms: RGB, no active off, no suspend, no standby
dtiming: 1280x800@59
monitorid: AUO
monitorid: B154EW01 V9

I'm not familiar with ddcprobe, but it looks like 59Hz your refresh rate.

Yeah it really is!
Then we just need the HorizSync.

[wermeulen]

Yeah it really is!
Then we just need the HorizSync.

wermeulen@home:~$ gtf 1280 1024 60

# 1280x1024 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 63.60 kHz; pclk: 108.88 MHz
Modeline "1280x1024_60.00" 108.88 1280 1360 1496 1712 1024 1025 1028 1060 -HSync +Vsync


There you go! Just run gtf with desired widht x depth at 60Hz and you get the hsync in the first line.

[unutbu]

% gtf 1280 800 59

# 1280x800 @ 59.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 48.85 kHz; pclk: 82.07 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_59.00" 82.07 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828 -HSync +Vsync

% gtf 1280 800 60

# 1280x800 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 49.68 kHz; pclk: 83.46 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_60.00" 83.46 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828 -HSync +Vsync

I agree except that khr's screen res is 1280x800.

[Digger78]

Yeah it really is!
Then we just need the HorizSync.

Are you looking for these so that you can get a higher resolution on your laptop?

if so just edit your etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-72
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection


and

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
EndSection

[khr]

Success!!!!

I thank everybody who've posted in this thread and helped me!
I've had this problem since i used Gutsy and had problem changing my resolution to 1280x800... But finally i got help from you guys!

Thank you very much!

Cheers!

PS: I think my refresh rate is 65 Hz since you guys got me to remember that i once used a program to find my refresh rate and the result was 65 Hz.
Also, is there actually any difference from using the wrong refresh rate?

Edit: No, I'm just looking for the vertical refresh and horizontal sync rates to fine-tune my settings. :)
Edit2: Unutbu, is it correct if my horizsync is 54.01 kHz?

[unutbu]

Be careful not to drive your monitor at a refresh rate which is outside the manufacturer's specs. I've been told (but never tried) it can result in a broken monitor.

[Fedz]

The refresh rate is is basically a current rate frequency to your monitor otherwise you'll have a wrong current rate frequency and the video card sends the wrong current rate frequency to the monitor which the monitor can't hear - so you get out of range signal :)

Upto 65 is a standard range for monitors on default :)

[khr]

One last question:

Is vertical sync rate and vertical refresh rate the same?

[wermeulen]

One last question:

Is vertical sync rate and vertical refresh rate the same?

Short: no

Vertical refresh rate is how many times per second the screen is redrawn, top to bottom. Vertical sync (without the rate) applies to CRT monitors (them big old screens :-)) and it means the pixel data in memory should only be changed when the ray that draws all the pixels on the screen is at the bottom of the screen. When the ray sweeps back up to the top of the screen to start redrawing the screen again, if you then change the pixel data in memory you wouldn't see it and as such the screen wouldn't flicker. Don't know if this applies to LCD monitors though.

[Fedz]

No not the same by any means.

H is a range (frequency)

V is a refresh range rate.

The can and are different.

[khr]

Thanks guys...
Anyway, do laptops have vertical sync?

If they do how do i find it out?
I'm guessing that we can find it out with the "gtf 1280 800 65" results:
# 1280x800 @ 65.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 54.01 kHz; pclk: 91.61 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_65.00" 91.61 1280 1352 1488 1696 800 801 804 831 -HSync +Vsync
But where is the Vsync?

[unutbu]

I think manually changing modelines is no longer the kosher way of configuring X. Check out

http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/

This HOWTO is effectively obsolete. Current (4.0.1 and up) versions of XFree86 compute optimal modelines from the resolution you specify in the Modes section of your X configuration file.

[wermeulen]

I think manually changing modelines is no longer the kosher way of configuring X. Check out

http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFree86_Modeline
http://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/xorg.conf.5.html

Hey, unutbu is fast... Beat me to those links, which I was about to post :)