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Asus EEE 701 - missing 640x480 resolution option

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First post, by Munx

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So recently I snagged myself a tiny EEE 701 (Xbox Duke controller for scale):

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Installed Windows XP and Puppy Linux 605 on the internal 4GB SSD. Expanded it with a 32GB SD card. A nice little portable machine for older games and light browsing.

All seemed well, however I ran into an issue - it does not support 640x480.

The screen itself is native 800x480 and should scale very well for older games, but games that require it do not work (like Red Alert 2), while others just don't offer that resolution (Unreal Tournament offers 512x384, 640x400 and 800x480, Quake 2 has an option for 640x480, but only windowed).

This resolution actually works if I use an external monitor, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a tiny portable laptop.

So here I am, wondering if anyone here has any suggestions to get 640x480 working? I updated the drivers to the latest ones from intel with no success. Googling just brings up websites and forums that died 10 years ago, along with the EEE line.

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 1 of 7, by the3dfxdude

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It's been really a long time since I used XP, but I thought XP dropped support for 640x480, and since those are Windows games, they are restricted to what is available. It could also be a driver issue, that they decided it was no longer needed at some point.

In Linux, I think that res is available on my EEEPC, and I can check if that is part of your question.

Reply 2 of 7, by Munx

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the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-02-06, 13:39:

It's been really a long time since I used XP, but I thought XP dropped support for 640x480, and since those are Windows games, they are restricted to what is available.

That's certainly NOT the case.

Anyway, after some checking around, I'm beginning to suspect that it's the monitor at fault, like it's not reporting that resolution as being supported? That would explain why 640x480 works great with an external monitor.
Here is what the control panel has to say about supported resolutions - 640x480 only in 16 colors:

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Could there be a way to maybe add more options to that? Like an equivalent of an .ini edit?

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 4 of 7, by rasz_pl

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XP doesnt support EDID, so something like Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) wont work at all
it looks like graphics driver is limiting you 😮

Open Source AT&T Globalyst/NCR/FIC 486-GAC-2 proprietary Cache Module reproduction

Reply 5 of 7, by the3dfxdude

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Munx wrote on 2022-02-06, 14:37:
That's certainly NOT the case. […]
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the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-02-06, 13:39:

It's been really a long time since I used XP, but I thought XP dropped support for 640x480, and since those are Windows games, they are restricted to what is available.

That's certainly NOT the case.

Anyway, after some checking around, I'm beginning to suspect that it's the monitor at fault, like it's not reporting that resolution as being supported? That would explain why 640x480 works great with an external monitor.
Here is what the control panel has to say about supported resolutions - 640x480 only in 16 colors:
modes.PNG

Could there be a way to maybe add more options to that? Like an equivalent of an .ini edit?

Your screenshots clearly show that modes that your chip is capable of are being suppressed, and it won't allow you to select 640x480x4bpp anyway as a desktop resolution. Anyway my EEEPC 1000 has support for 640x480. Since you have linux, did you try running xrandr? If it shows up on linux like it does for me then it's a driver/OS issue.

Reply 6 of 7, by Munx

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Xrandr showed that 640x480 is indeed supported and I could also set my linux desktop to that resolution.

So after that I wiped the whole drive and installed Windows 2000. Same issue, although it would let me select 640x480 desktop in 16 color mode.

The only reason I would use windows on it would be to run old games, but without that resolution available, many of them just refuse to work. Guess that will be a linux-only PC now.

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 7 of 7, by stamasd

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I've had similar issues in the past with another EeePC, different model (1025) and different resolution. The screen on that one is natively 1024x600, and I could never get it to work at a more sane resolution like 800x600.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

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