Can't get higher resolutions than 800x600 in XP \ VOGONS

Can't get higher resolutions than 800x600 in XP

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First post, by kaputnik

Posted on 2017-05-21, 15:15

kaputnik Offline

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I'll begin with the setup:

* Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 (GV-R785OC-2GD).
* Catalyst version 14.4
Packaging version 9.00.100.9001-131223a-171234E-ATI
2D driver version 6.14.10.7279
Direct3D version 6.14.10.0962
OpenGL version 6.14.10.11927
* Monitor 1: Acer Predator XB271HUbmiprz, connected via DP.
* Monitor 2: Fujitsu P23T-6, connected via HDMI.
* Quadruple booting WinXP, Win7, Win10, Debian.

Just can't get the XB271HU monitor to display anything higher than 800x600 in Windows XP. In the other OS:es it works just fine. If I try to go higher, the monitor goes black and throws a "No Signal" message at me. The P23T-6 works perfectly in all available resolutions.

Had a Nvidia card in that computer before, so reinstalled XP from scratch, just to make sure there were no stuff left from the Nvidia driver causing the trouble. The monitor showed the same behavior with the standard VGA driver, which should rule out the Catalyst driver as the problem source.

It can't be anything wrong with the DP cable or other hardware, since everything works perfectly in the other OS:es.

The only difference I can see is that the other OSes identifies the monitor by its correct model name, whereas XP just identifies it as a "Standard Plug and Play monitor". Sadly Acer doesn't supply any drivers for XP, but this shouldn't really be a problem, XP should be able to get the monitor's capabilities from the EDID (which it seems to, getting a choice of resolutions between 800x600 and 2560x1440, just as expected).

The driver for newer Windows versions available at Acer's site contains a .cat file. This is kind of odd, one would think that more than just a .inf specifying the available resolutions etc might be needed, but the monitor works in higher resolutions without it in the other OS:es.

I'm soon out of ideas. The only thing I can think of is trying to put together my own .inf file for the monitor, or see if I can get the driver for newer Windows versions to load in XP somehow, but since it would take me some time to figure that out, I'd like to see if anyone here got other ideas to try first.

Reply 1 of 4, by Jorpho

Posted on 2017-05-21, 20:41

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kaputnik wrote:
I'm soon out of ideas. The only thing I can think of is trying to put together my own .inf file for the monitor, or see if I can get the driver for newer Windows versions to load in XP somehow, but since it would take me some time to figure that out, I'd like to see if anyone here got other ideas to try first.

I can't say I've used it before, but Powerstrip tends to come up all the time when it comes to that.

A bit of Googling suggests that there are numerous ways to generate a .cat file from a .inf, but I can't seem to find an obvious way to go in the other direction.

Reply 2 of 4, by kaputnik

Posted on 2017-05-22, 08:07

kaputnik Offline

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Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Jorpho wrote:
I can't say I've used it before, but Powerstrip tends to come up all the time when it comes to that.

A bit of Googling suggests that there are numerous ways to generate a .cat file from a .inf, but I can't seem to find an obvious way to go in the other direction.

Good idea, can't hurt to fiddle around some with Powerstrip. Perhaps I'll find something out 😀

Ah, there's already a .inf file in the driver package, sorry if I was unclear. However, it won't load in XP, so I'll have to "hack" it or write my own. I think the .cat file somehow is related to the ICC profile, but I don't know for sure yet, so haven't counted out that I'll have to make it load too.

Reply 3 of 4, by chinny22

Posted on 2017-05-22, 16:18

chinny22 Offline

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Do the screens work the other way round? maybe windows will detect the screen if connected via HDMI, but too stupid over DP?

You could maybe find a similar screen's driver that's close enough to unlock the higher resolutions?
Not sure if it'll work with the fancy stuff like G-Sync and I'm not sure of any similar screens, mine are all hand me downs, nothing fancy like that!

Reply 4 of 4, by kaputnik

Posted on 2017-05-31, 22:03

kaputnik Offline

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Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Finally found the energy to have another look at this.

chinny22 wrote:
Do the screens work the other way round? maybe windows will detect the screen if connected via HDMI, but too stupid over DP?

You could maybe find a similar screen's driver that's close enough to unlock the higher resolutions?
Not sure if it'll work with the fancy stuff like G-Sync and I'm not sure of any similar screens, mine are all hand me downs, nothing fancy like that!

It works perfectly over HDMI. It's of course limited to 1080p@60Hz, just as expected.

However, when I booted W10 with the monitor connected via DP again after the HDMI test, it started behaving flaky there too, only got 24Hz in 1440p. Tried booting W7 and Debian, same thing there. Tried swapping the DP - Mini DP cable for a regular DP cable and an adapter, which gave me a few more options, but not everything up to 1440p@165Hz.

Might be the cable after all. Perhaps the newer OS:es just are handling poor signal quality in another way than XP, could account for the differences in how it behaves. Ordered a shorter high quality cable to replace the one I'm using now. Will try it out, and if it still doesn't work, I'll see if I can find .inf files for a similar monitor as suggested 😀

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