External monitor plugged into VGA port... what is the maximum resolution?
please reply only if you know... no speculations, i an order hinges on this.
Thanks for you help.
1920 x 1200
The bandwidth of this resolution is quite high and means the higher the resolution the more blurry the image gets on the screen. If you compare 1920 x 1200 DVI/HDMI with analoge VGA you'll notice the difference. I'm not really sure whether I would recommend running 1920 x 1200 @VGA. Depending on your sensitivity it might be smarter to use a display with 1680 x 1050 and have a more crisp image. Use a good and short analoge cable in either case.
In Linux you might be able to define even higher resolutions with custom ModeLines. There's also a way to do that in Windows:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=947830
http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/Wiki/Graphics/239.htm
However I doubt it will allow more than 1920 x 1200 in Windows.
If you are an advanced user, you might want to try reducing 60Hz to 24Hz if your monitor supports that. This will reduce the bandwidth on the analoge cable.
Besides that: Your external monitor (CRT or TFT?) should tell Windows by means of EDID/DDC2 about high resolutions. Under Vista you won't have high resolutions if the monitor doesn't tell. If you have this monitor already, you can that with:
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/moninfo.shtm
Finally: There are some ExpressCard Docking stations which feature an integrated graphics card and an external DVI connector. The general performance of those docking stations regarding graphics is by far lower than X3100. However for office use, such docking stations make sense. And maybe they even support DualLink DVI. In that case you will even be able to use up to 2560 x 1600 on some 30" screen. But isn't the cheap Inspiron 1525 the wrong laptop to drive such displays?
I am looking to drive a 20" viewsonic @ 1600x1200.
I have no intention of driving massive displays, or home theatres; I was just curious. Dispite intel claiming 2048x? maximum resolution, i understand from reading various forums that manufacturers have been limiting this display output in the firmware to 1600x1200 or less.
If the X3100 will drive the above monitor, it is good enough. I am trying to determine an affordible solution for a light office machine, enough to get the job done, as i am not sure how much this machine is going to get used in the end.
There is no general 2048 pixel limit. In older graphics chips like the i915 one, couldn't provide accelerated video if the display size was beyond 2048 x 2048:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2007-June/025501.html
Do you have a source for intel claiming a 2048 limit? The link above is from an intel employee.
I have also serious doubt that the VBIOS can limit the resolution nowadays. Old chipsets like the 82852/855 indeed relied on resolutions defined in VBIOS. But the more recent chipsets don't have that limitation.
I'm using X3100 in 1920 x 1200 and also extended mode:
1920 x 1200 + 1280 x 720 = 3120 x 1920
ftp://download.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/31627303.pdf page 14.
You seem pretty knowlegeable... in your opinion is the x3100 likely to drive both the high res 1680x1050 and a 1600x1200 simultainiously? only actully need be driven at any one time, is this workable options with the current state of drivers?
thanks for you help.
Yes, you may use 1680 x 1050 as well as 1600 x 1200. No problems at all.
Yesterday I was curious. I booked into Linux and defined a resolution of 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA) @50 Hz. This corresponds to a bandwidth of ~315MHz. I'm aware that intel tells a maximum of 300MHz for RAMDAC on analog output.
Anyway, I put that resolution on analog VGA and watched my 1920 x 1200 display. Certainly it shrinked the image - there's no other way to display such a huge resolution. However it basically worked. Since I don't have a WQXGA monitor I can't tell for sure if every pixel was indeed displayed. However I don't think the graphics driver reduced the resolution by itself. I have never seen such behavior. Either a display mode works or it doesn't. Therefore I'm quite confident I did indeed display 2560 x 1600 on X3100. The speed of 3D animations also slowed down compared to 1920 x 1200. That's way I'm even more sure the whole thing was rendered in WQXGA.
I also played with HDMI out. However this one is single link and I can't use more than 165 MHz bandwidth. I tried 2560 x 1600 @30 Hz and 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz interlaced to achieve this, but it didn't work out. I never had an image on HDMI out. At least my monitor didn't want to display it.
You may try that with Windows, too. The first link I gave here contains a working tool for this purpose.
Hello,
I am a proud owner of Inspiron 1525 and I am using it with Linux (Ubuntu 8.04). I have onboard i965GM video card with 8MB memory. BIOS reports that there are 10MB system memory.
I am connecting Samsung SyncMaster 2232bw. Its default resolution is 1680 x 1050. Generally speaking it works but quite often the parts of the windows just freeze on the screen. For example you start Firefox, and it shows up partially - if you click around, minimize and maximize it shows OK. If you start a movie it's OK also. But when moving windows around or showing them up (restore from taskbar for example) they either doesn't show up correctly or parts of them are still visible, when they are supposed to be gone.
Please excuse my long post and messy explanations - I'm trying to be as detailed as possible. If you think it will help I can upload pictures to see for yourself.
So my questionis why this happens? Maybe I need more video memory? Unfortunately I can't see an option in BIOS to increase the video memory. Is this possible?
Thank you in advance for your help!
Being an linux guy myself, however not directly having any experience with X3100 under linux... i do believe there is a problem with the x3100 video driver right now. you may want to try the intrepid alpha disk and see if there is any improvement.
otherwise try ubuntuforums.org
I have had good sucess with the x3100 running two high res displays under windows.
Strange things happen today:-). After posting here I turned off my laptop and went out. When I get back home after a few hours I plugged the monitor again, fired up Ubuntu and everything is fine. I tried to shut down and reboot the PC a couple of times and it still works.
I am a bit confused - usually in Linux things don't stop/start to work by themselves:) No idea what was the problem but everything is fine now.
Thank you for your assistance.
That's cool, that everything is working for you now.
However you may also try the intrepid package (or wait for the official ubuntu 8.10, which is easier to install, since the intrepid packages has some dependencies you need to break or install as well). There have been a lot of new features and bugfixes since ubuntu 8.04 release:
xf86-video-intel 2.3.0 Changelog
xf86-video-intel 2.3.1 Changelog
xf86-video-intel 2.3.2 Changelog
xf86-video-intel 2.4.0 Changelog
xf86-video-intel 2.4.1 Changelog
xf86-video-intel 2.4.2 Changelog
Although the intrepid package is called 2.4.1-1ubuntu5 it does contain the 2.4.2 driver.
If you upgrade to 8.10 and the mesa component gets also updated than some more glitches with compiz will disappear.
Last but not least the intel driver does not allocate 10MB that's just a framebuffer preallocated by the BIOS to have VESA 3.0 BIOS support. The real intel driver allocates much more. Depending on your main memory this will most likely be 256MB which can be checked in /var/log/Xorg.0.log:
(==) intel(0): VideoRam: 262144 KB(II) intel(0): Fixed memory allocation layout:(II) intel(0): 0x00000000-0x0001ffff: ring buffer (128 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x00020000-0x00029fff: HW cursors (40 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x0002a000-0x00031fff: logical 3D context (32 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x00032000-0x00043fff: exa G965 state buffer (72 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x00044000-0x00044fff: overlay registers (4 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x00045000-0x00045fff: power context (4 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x00050000-0x0275ffff: front buffer (40000 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x0077f000: end of stolen memory(II) intel(0): 0x02760000-0x0953cfff: exa offscreen (112500 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x0953d000-0x0b9dbfff: back buffer (37500 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x0b9dc000-0x0de7afff: depth buffer (37500 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x0de7b000-0x0fe7afff: classic textures (32768 kB)(II) intel(0): 0x10000000: end of aperture
tsurko@bastila:~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep VideoRam(==) intel(0): VideoRam: 262144 KBtsurko@bastila:~$
Yes, you are right. It really allocates more memory. I will wait for the release of 8.10. Everything works fine for me now and I can wait for a while.