Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello everyone,

Was wondering if anyone has gotten the new TH2G modes to work with any of the nvidia drivers beyond 175.19. I get significant perfermance gains with the newer series, however, for some strange reason the two new widescreen modes will not show up. I've tried 177.73, and 177.79- allows old modes only, and rolling back to 175.19- enables the new choices again.

Now I know these are beta drivers, but the 177.79's are whql candidates and will likely be the next official drivers, which will almost certainly not change in their final release. Obviously the new modes require a little more horsepower, so adding those to a slower driver is not an ideal solution, neither is keeping what will eventually be an old driver forever to play on my TH2G. For now, I'm using the new drivers with the old resolutions, but I'm dying to play in 1680x1050x3 at decent frame rates. Any help is appreciated.

This is great to hear for me. Maybe if I roll back to an older driver I'll be able to get the new modes on my ATI 4870. Thanks for the tip.

Didn't someone else mention some modes didn't show up when the monitors had the auto-detected / pnp drivers and were fine one you got those from the manufacturer? (LG or so I think it was mentionned that time)

Didn't someone else mention some modes didn't show up when the monitors had the auto-detected / pnp drivers and were fine one you got those from the manufacturer? (LG or so I think it was mentionned that time)

My monitor in windows just shows up as "Matrox Digital TripleHead2Go". I installed the drivers for my Dell E198WFP, but the new resolutions still didn't show up. I'm working with Matrox support on the issue, but it is very frustrating because they are only open Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 and I'm at work during those times. So they ask me to check something, I go home and check it, then the next day they reply, etc. It's been 3 days or so and I haven't gotten anywhere.

I've found some registry keys that appear to control the monitor resolutions/work spaces for the gxm software, so I'm going to experiment with those and see if I can figure this out myself.

You could always fetch something like rivatuner or powerstrip and add the resolutions manually if the drivers themselves don't let you add it. Don't know if it'll work but worth a try.

As for drivers I've never installed monitor specific drivers myself, it's always been 'generic pnp monitor' or whatever.

I even tried taking sections from the nv_disp.inf file that specified resolutions, from the drivers that were working with the new modes, and pasted them over the corresponding sections on the non-working drivers. Installed and run fine, but no dice on the new resolutions.

Maybe there's some code in the GXM program that looks for info in the drivers and if yours do not match a certain variable, exactly, the modes are not selectable.

Have you guys already tried overriding the resolution by force?

Have you guys already tried overriding the resolution by force?

Tell me how and I'll gladly try.

Custom resolutions (Nvidia instructions):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

Custom resolutions (Nvidia instructions):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

I have an ATI HD 4870 :(

Erm, this thread is about nvidia drivers anyway, not Ati :?

Just an update, I've solved my issues w/ the newer drivers for the most part. Something is messed up (at least in my experience) with Nvidia's custom resolution options on the 177 series drivers.

Here's what I did to fix if anyone cares:

Went back to the 175.19 drivers (the latest official set) that works with the new TH2G. Noticed that the PowerDesk app is actually writing 6 custom resolutions to the driver, visible in the Nvidia control panel. There are all 3 resolutions, each in 16 & 32bit color modes for a total of 6 custom modes. I clicked on the edit button for each resolution, and expanded the advanced tab. Now the advanced settings aren't selectable by default since the option for "auto" is set. I took a screen cap of each resolution and all of its settings as configured by the Powerdesk software, or defaulted by the nvidia panel, which ever.

Next, I installed the newer, better performing (for me) 177.79's. Of course no custom resolutions (new TH2G modes) after running and/or reinstalling. Going in to the custom resolution option in the 177.79 nvidia panel, I attempted to just recreate the new modes that GXM software had set up on the old drivers. I set the basics to 5040 x 1050, 32bit, 57Hz, but they just would not work. However, I noticed under the advanced settings that the "auto" choices were still populating w/ data for a 3840x800 resolution (visible pixels, etc).

Evidently, the custom resolution setting on the new drivers does not automatically set the advanced options as in previous versions.

Okay, easy enough, I'll just go and add the advanced settings manually. I tried, and got everything to match my earlier screenshots, except for two fields that aren't changeable by the user: Horizontal scan rate, and Pixel clock. The values that were in these fields were way off from the screen caps. Sure enough, the custom resolutions still would not work.

Now I don't know if there's a workaround for editing Hor scan or Pixel clock, but I couldn't find one. So, I figured out that by changing the "Timing standard" drop down bar to the last mode, CVT Reduced Blank, it changed those two paramaters to values much closer to my original screenshots. Then switched back to manual to correct all the other fields as in my screen grabs (the hoz scan & pixel clock remained at the CVT drop-down settings).

Bingo. Mode accepted. Then it was just a matter of changing the resolution slider to my new settings (not using the gxm) and a reboot or two to get the resolution to be selectable in games. Now it works just as well as any other TH2G mode, and I get the advantages of the new driver.

Some notes though: Since the new mode won't be selectable in the GXM on the new drivers.... Setup the 1680x1050x3 mode with the older drivers first, so you can set the bezel management options. Once you have your bezel management correct at 5040, hotkey assigned and everything, and install the new drivers, the TH2G will recall the correct bezel settings with your hotkey, even though you can't adjust it in the GXM anymore (for that rez only, your other selectable resolutions still work normally). Also, I did not try the other modes and color depths since 5040x1050x32 was the only new mode I was interested in, but I see no reason why the others wouldn't work the same.

Try it at your own risk, but it worked perfect for me and is completely reversible by uninstalling the nvidia drivers. Hope this helps.

Can you try reversing it and trying this:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=136647#136647

[quote]Can you try reversing it and trying this:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/9225#comment-172949]

On my own last week, I had already tried that- and with the newer nvidia drivers, it was still not working even with the GXM .inf. So that should answer your question. It is still reading the correct monitor ID too.

However, it may have assisted in getting the new modes to show up under the older drivers, I can't be sure at this point. I do remember vista64 SP1 slamming down some driver signing issues on me and refusing to load the .inf unless the nvidia drivers were uninstalled.

I just updated to the official 177.83 release today, nervously, and my manually added custom rez was still available, but not listed in the GXM, same as before.

I mean, if you need some help with something, I can test it out for you to make sure. Now that I have it all working, I'd hate to break it back down just in the name of finding a more efficient path.

Like I was saying, I really believe it's an issue w/ the newer nvidia drivers and the custom resolution options not functioning properly.

No problem. It does appear you may be having a unique issue. So, I'll leave this thread open. What version of Windows are you using?

I was running 177.83 version of Nvidia drivers as well and the new modes would not show up. Reverting to the 175 drivers fixed the issue. I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit on a Nvidia 8800 GTS card. Hope this helps someone!