Manually Specify Resolution on nVIDIA laptop

**cwsnyder** · January 6th, 2013

What is the output of xrandr on a line by itself in the terminal? The reason I am asking is to be sure of two things: 1) That the DVI-I-1 is the proper name for the connected display listed by xrandr, and 2) That you are not getting any other error messages, such as the one about not reading the gamma correctly from the monitor.

If your problem is 1) above, of course you know how to correct the problem. If it is the gamma error, you would not have gotten the X error you reported, but to correct that error, on the setting line use:

Code:

xrandr --output DVI-I-1 --gamma 1:1:1 --mode "2560x1440_60.00"

Correct the output name as in 1) above, of course.

**frogotronic** · January 8th, 2013

Originally Posted by cwsnyder

What is the output of xrandr on a line by itself in the terminal? The reason I am asking is to be sure of two things: 1) That the DVI-I-1 is the proper name for the connected display listed by xrandr, and 2) That you are not getting any other error messages, such as the one about not reading the gamma correctly from the monitor.

If your problem is 1) above, of course you know how to correct the problem. If it is the gamma error, you would not have gotten the X error you reported, but to correct that error, on the setting line use:

Code:

xrandr --output DVI-I-1 --gamma 1:1:1 --mode "2560x1440_60.00"

Correct the output name as in 1) above, of course.

Here's the output of xrandr

Code:

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3280 x 1050, maximum 16384 x 16384
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS-0 connected 1600x900+1680+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 310mm x 174mm
   1600x900       60.1*+   40.3  
DP-0 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 430mm x 270mm
   1680x1050      60.0*+
   1280x1024      60.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     72.2     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     59.9  
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I'm still not sure how to correct the problem. Assume I'm totally ignorant about this (please).

How can I specify a resolution other than 1600x900 for the laptop display?

- CH

**cwsnyder** · January 9th, 2013

This should work to give a 1280x800@60Hz display:

Code:

cvt 1280 800
# 1280x800 59.81 Hz (CVT 1.02MA) hsync: 49.70 kHz; pclk: 83.50 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_60.00"   83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --newmode 1280x800 83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode LVDS-0 1280x800
xrandr --output LVDS-0 --mode 1280x800

Change the last line to this if you get the error code about unable to read gamma of LVDS-0:

Code:

xrandr --output LVDS-0 --gamma 1:1:1 --mode 1280x800

Hopefully this finally gets your display to the resolution you wish to use.

**frogotronic** · January 10th, 2013

Originally Posted by cwsnyder

This should work to give a 1280x800@60Hz display:

Code:

cvt 1280 800
# 1280x800 59.81 Hz (CVT 1.02MA) hsync: 49.70 kHz; pclk: 83.50 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_60.00"   83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --newmode 1280x800 83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode LVDS-0 1280x800
xrandr --output LVDS-0 --mode 1280x800

Change the last line to this if you get the error code about unable to read gamma of LVDS-0:

Code:

xrandr --output LVDS-0 --gamma 1:1:1 --mode 1280x800

Hopefully this finally gets your display to the resolution you wish to use.

Error on the second command

Code:

$ cvt 1280 800
# 1280x800 59.81 Hz (CVT 1.02MA) hsync: 49.70 kHz; pclk: 83.50 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_60.00"   83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
$ xrandr --addmode LVDS-0 1280x800
X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  153 (RANDR)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  18 (RRAddOutputMode)
  Serial number of failed request:  37
  Current serial number in output stream:  38

hmmmm......

**BicyclerBoy** · January 10th, 2013

Internal LVDS panels do not have a pre-scaler & are driven directly from GPU.
Your panel only has one resolution..
You can enable GPU native scaling if you have an app that need "bigger" full screen.
GPU native scaling has performance overhead.

You can change the display dimensions or dpi to scale the desktop gadgets.
Why do you want a non-native resolution?

**cwsnyder** · January 11th, 2013

Originally Posted by cwsnyder

This should work to give a 1280x800@60Hz display:

Code:

cvt 1280 800
# 1280x800 59.81 Hz (CVT 1.02MA) hsync: 49.70 kHz; pclk: 83.50 MHz
Modeline "1280x800_60.00"   83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --newmode 1280x800 83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode LVDS-0 1280x800
xrandr --output LVDS-0 --mode 1280x800

Change the last line to this if you get the error code about unable to read gamma of LVDS-0:

Code:

xrandr --output LVDS-0 --gamma 1:1:1 --mode 1280x800

Hopefully this finally gets your display to the resolution you wish to use.

I messed up, again. I included both the cvt 1280 800 command and the next two lines are the output of the cvt command. Just the needed commands by themselves with no extra:

Code:

xrandr --newmode 1280x800 83.50  1280 1352 1480 1680  800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode LVDS-0 1280x800
xrandr --output LVDS-0 --mode 1280x800