LinuxMCE Forums
General => Users => Topic started by: Orphus on March 25, 2009, 09:10:58 am
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Hi All.
I am a total Linux newbie but am a little downhearted that the installation of MCE was not a straightforward as I'd hoped.
I have an nVidia 8500gt card and following installation, after displaying the Kubuntu screen etc correctly, the AV wizard starts and the image is off centre with about 25% of the screen dissappearing off the right edge of the screen. On the cetering options screen I cant move the screen to fill the gap on the left of the screen as it thinks this is already at the edge of the screen.
I am using the DVI output of the card and outputting to a 42'' LCD.
Any ideas anyone?
Thanks in advance.
J
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Your first task, should you choose to accept it, is to install the latest nVidia drivers as described in the wiki under Display Drivers.
If that does not fix your problem, turn EDID to true (in both places) in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Go to a command line, then edit this file (the text editor I use is joe, install using "sudo apt-get install joe", then "sudo joe /etc/X11/xorg.conf", to save and exit ^Kx)
This will cause the system to talk to your display to find out its parameters, in some instances this allows it to adjust properly and give a good image, but many displays don't conform with the correct communications specification.... no matter, at the least it will mean that the details of the display will be logged in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and that may mean we can construct a custom modeline to drive the display properly...
But I think the newer drivers are the best option at this point as your 8500 is newer than the standard drivers supplied.
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Wow!
That was quick.
Thanks a lot, I'll try this later. I also have a problem with sound, I'll post this under a new topic, although basically I have no sound output at all using a SB Live! 24 bit external with SPDIF.
J
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go to a shell and type
alsamixer
you will see all the mixer levels. Look for IEC958, it is probably muted, you can unmute it from there, that should enable SPDIF....
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Thanks again!
I will try all of this out tonight. Will be doing a clean install 1st.
J
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A trick on the SPDIF, do as Colin says with alsamixer but also make sure that it is at 100% volume if that is an option. Also if that doesnt work, I had one instance where I had to set all the volume options to 100% for SPDIF to work.
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Wow!
That was quick.
Thanks a lot, I'll try this later. I also have a problem with sound, I'll post this under a new topic, although basically I have no sound output at all using a SB Live! 24 bit external with SPDIF.
J
I'm not sure that updating the nVidia driver will correct Overscan, which is what you are describing, as we see exactly the same effect with Intel/nVidia/ATI GPU's. The AVwizard generates a common modeline that is used universally for all GPU/Drivers so we suspect that the 'fix' is in customising the modeline and possibly adjusting some of the other parameters like "FlatPanelProperties". I'll post some modelines or complete xorg.conf files here if we have any success with this.
All the best
Andrew
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Wow!
That was quick.
Thanks a lot, I'll try this later. I also have a problem with sound, I'll post this under a new topic, although basically I have no sound output at all using a SB Live! 24 bit external with SPDIF.
J
I'm not sure that updating the nVidia driver will correct Overscan, which is what you are describing, as we see exactly the same effect with Intel/nVidia/ATI GPU's. The AVwizard generates a common modeline that is used universally for all GPU/Drivers so we suspect that the 'fix' is in customising the modeline and possibly adjusting some of the other parameters like "FlatPanelProperties". I'll post some modelines or complete xorg.conf files here if we have any success with this.
All the best
Andrew
No, probably not, but as I say it is still the first step before messing around with other stuff. My next step is to turn on EDID, and get some feedback from that. We can also look in the modeline database for something appropriate.... but first things first!
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Wow!
That was quick.
Thanks a lot, I'll try this later. I also have a problem with sound, I'll post this under a new topic, although basically I have no sound output at all using a SB Live! 24 bit external with SPDIF.
J
I'm not sure that updating the nVidia driver will correct Overscan, which is what you are describing, as we see exactly the same effect with Intel/nVidia/ATI GPU's. The AVwizard generates a common modeline that is used universally for all GPU/Drivers so we suspect that the 'fix' is in customising the modeline and possibly adjusting some of the other parameters like "FlatPanelProperties". I'll post some modelines or complete xorg.conf files here if we have any success with this.
All the best
Andrew
No, probably not, but as I say it is still the first step before messing around with other stuff. My next step is to turn on EDID, and get some feedback from that. We can also look in the modeline database for something appropriate.... but first things first!
We've already explored all those ideas Colin... so I can definitely say that there is nothing quite right in the mode line db at present. As I say we should have a good handle on this fairly shortly and will post an update here and on the Wiki when we do ;-)
Andrew
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Andrew - sorry, I'm not following, do you already know what screen Orphus is using, and you have looked for an appropriate modeline? Or are you saying that this is unrelated to the screen? If the latter, what is this related to, as he seems just to be using a normal nVidia chipset with DVI output, plenty of people are doing that, surely, and not having this issue?
In the past, this seemed related to getting the porch timings right for a specific screen, and using a custom modeline to do so. But I seem to be missing something here, did I miss a thread related to this somewhere? Generally, you can solve overscan and displacement with the timing values, is this what you have confirmed doesn't work for his screen?
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This is going straight over my head guys, but I really appreciate the help.
I'm just busy trying to update the drivers now. I'm getting a message pop up on terminal every few seconds, does this make any sense to you?
(some numbers which change) ALSA /root/R/alsa-driver/acore/oss/pcm_oss.co:466: BUG? (v >= 0)
as above 457: BUG? (max >=0)
as above 963: BUG? (err >= 0)
I assume that the mention of PCM it is referring to an audio issue?
J
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Andrew - sorry, I'm not following, do you already know what screen Orphus is using, and you have looked for an appropriate modeline? Or are you saying that this is unrelated to the screen? If the latter, what is this related to, as he seems just to be using a normal nVidia chipset with DVI output, plenty of people are doing that, surely, and not having this issue?
In the past, this seemed related to getting the porch timings right for a specific screen, and using a custom modeline to do so. But I seem to be missing something here, did I miss a thread related to this somewhere? Generally, you can solve overscan and displacement with the timing values, is this what you have confirmed doesn't work for his screen?
Colin at present the modeline added when the AVwizard runs is essentially the same regardless of what screen you have attached for a given resolution ie say 720p. Below are two example modelines from one our test systems;
MM600 (nVidia 9300 onboard GPU attached to a 42" LG LCD TV @ 720p);
Modeline "1280x720" 74.250 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
MM220 (Intel GMA950 onboard GPU attached to a 22" LG LCD @ 720p);
Modeline "1280x720" 74.250 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
MM300 (Intel GMA950 onboard GPU attached to a 32" Panasonic LCD @ 720p);
Modeline "1280x720" 74.250 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
MM400 (nVidia 9400 PCi-e card attached to a 38" LG LCD TV @ 720p);
Modeline "1280x720" 74.250 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
As you can see the Avwizard does not 'craft' a modeline at all... and this is the cause of a number of problems beyond overscan. So currently it does not make any difference what screen you attach at all... we are trying to make sure that xorg setup and modelines are crafted to exploit the maximum performance from a given screen. In 0810 of course this changes as 'out of the box' it does not use modelines but relies on closely matching/capturing the EDID from a screen.
Andrew
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Andrew, then I think we were talking at cross pusposes. I wasn't talking about using the AV Wizard at all to correct the overscan problem. I was talking about correcting the xorg.conf file manually with a more appropriate, custom modeline. I imagine Orphus would like to get this working now rather than waiting for 0810. Which is why I asked him to turn on his EDID so that we could capture more information.
BTW, what is changing in 0810 around this? You mentioned going to EDID by default... that could be a little scary considering so many TVs have badly brain-damaged EDID info :) It would be nice if something was exposed in the AV Wizard that let you choose either a preset (like the static modelines used now) or explicitly say "Detect my screen automatically" ... do you think?
Either way, Ophus, turn on your EDID for now - either it will fix the problem, or it will log some extra info that might let us craft a custom modeline for you....
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I have tried to do this as instructed but when trying to install "joe" I get an error message saying this is not available.
Apologies if I am a little green in this area.
J
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I have tried to do this as instructed but when trying to install "joe" I get an error message saying this is not available.
Apologies if I am a little green in this area.
J
Are you typing
sudo apt-get install joe
? And you have access to the internet?
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I have tried to do this as instructed but when trying to install "joe" I get an error message saying this is not available.
Apologies if I am a little green in this area.
J
No problem ;-)
Go to the KDE desktop and open the Konsole application. Then type the following...<return> means hit the return key to enter the line to the left by the way;
sudo<return>
Now you are sudo'd you can run commands without typing in the root password;
apt-get install joe<return>
Now the Joe text editor is installed and you can use it to edit/view any text file on your Core.
To see your xorg.conf for example type the following;
joe /etc/X11/xorg.conf<return>
To exit Joe type Ctrl-K-X or Ctrl-c
Hope the above gets you started... google joe for more info and Howto's etc.
All the best
Andrew
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Andrew, then I think we were talking at cross pusposes. I wasn't talking about using the AV Wizard at all to correct the overscan problem. I was talking about correcting the xorg.conf file manually with a more appropriate, custom modeline. I imagine Orphus would like to get this working now rather than waiting for 0810. Which is why I asked him to turn on his EDID so that we could capture more information.
BTW, what is changing in 0810 around this? You mentioned going to EDID by default... that could be a little scary considering so many TVs have badly brain-damaged EDID info :) It would be nice if something was exposed in the AV Wizard that let you choose either a preset (like the static modelines used now) or explicitly say "Detect my screen automatically" ... do you think?
Either way, Ophus, turn on your EDID for now - either it will fix the problem, or it will log some extra info that might let us craft a custom modeline for you....
I was just pointing out what happens with a 'standard' AVwizard driven install... the way almost all users would experience the problem firstly. As I said in my first post in the thread I will post here some example modelines for various TV's we have in our test suite that correct overscan - and will explain how they were generated so that the same process can be applied to any screen.
We also plan to take these changes into the AVwizard (one of our guys Uplink wrote most of the AVwizard when at pluto) so that you wont have to do any manual xorg hacking to correct overscan. The updated AVwizard will be in the public svn as soon as we have a version that is basically working.
Andrew
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Cool! Thanks for the explanation.
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And thanks to you and your guys for adding that into AV wizard in the future... I have two TV's that are in need of this, although they aren't as bad as the OP.
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On my 1080p Panasonic Plasma (connected via DVI->HDMI) I enabled 1:1 pixel mapping mode within the plasma's settings, which scaled the image correctly. After this I needed to adjust the horizontal and vertical position to center the image. Has the OP tried this, and is there anything wrong with this approach from a picture quality point of view?
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On my 1080p Panasonic Plasma (connected via DVI->HDMI) I enabled 1:1 pixel mapping mode within the plasma's settings, which scaled the image correctly. After this I needed to adjust the horizontal and vertical position to center the image. Has the OP tried this, and is there anything wrong with this approach from a picture quality point of view?
Hi Davegravy,
If your TV/panel has a 1:1 setting then I think that is a perfectly valid approach (I wish all TV's did!)... however you may still find that once we have updated the AVwizard there are some additional picture/quality gains to be had.
All the best
Andrew
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Im still having problms getting this sorted. I am trying to go the long way round to install (Kubuntu then LMCE CDs) to see if I have more luck.
I will then try out all of your suggestions.
Thanks for the continued help guys
J
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Have you managed to turn on your EDID yet? I'm afraid without that first there isn't much more we can do for you yet.
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Colin, Andrew,
Maybe a detailed explanation of the xorg file and what it does would be a good idea. Which features do what and how it should be structured. Then a path to the xorg0.log file would be a good idea to see if you have any errors.
Yes Andrew, by default most TV's should support native 1:1 pixel mapping and why they do not for the life of me I cannot understand.
Most Edid reports are completely braindead and 99.9% of the time they conflict with themselves and the modes that it actually supports, IE I can do this mode BUT it is outside of the TV's max either H or V refresh SO I really do not support it, but I thought I would let you know anyhow.
Another note that I am not sure you guys maybe aware of but if you use the :
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE" In most cases it will disable HDMI audio. I am not sure if this is the case with the newest 185.13 driver or not, but it is in 180.22 - 180.37 and you must use
Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes" - This can be a grouped line of options as well.
This is a long read, but this helped me immensely on figuring out custom xorg options and configurations and If you do it for your own TV then you will have your custom modelines for anything you want to display on that particular TV. It will even guide you throught nudging the screen size in and out to compensate for oversacnning or underscan if you are not using the NVIDIA Option in your xorg.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1003099&page=2
Regards,
Dave
Yeah... that thread is interesting and is pretty much where we're at too. Whats needed next is to take that procedure and implement it in the AVwizard so that the adjustments can be visual. Currently the AVwizard defaults to using;
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
...and that does disable HDMI Audio for nVidia drivers 180.22/37 your correct.
All the best
Andrew