Ignoring EDID to impose higher resolution
The following article contains opinions and personal views of the author and will be taken as such. There is no guarantee to the accuracy, timeliness of some of the information that may be found within the article. The methods that are discussed here might not be applicable in your case. The author will not be held liable for any damage caused by using the method/(s) described in this article . Use the methods at your own risk. - Author
I had just started trying the Ubuntu Linux distribution (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/) and I have to admit, I’m beginning to like it.
However, I noticed that after default install, the display resolution only stays at 800x600. I’ve searched around for solutions and came across some articles advising on updating the video drivers (which makes sense). Since my video is a RIVA TNT2-compatible card made by Inno3D, I downloaded a driver pack from nVidia’s website that supports my video card. In my case, I got the file NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run which will install the necessary drivers on my system.
But following the steps outlined in Ubuntuforums (http://ubuntuforums.org) regarding updating Nvidia drivers didn’t work for me. And my only need is to make my video display resolution 1024x768, that’s it. So I searched around and came across forcing X to ignore the values provided by EDID.
For those who do not know yet:
EDID - Extended Display Identification Data is a VESA standard data format that contains basic information about a monitor and its capabilities, including vendor information, maximum image size, color characteristics, factory pre-set timings, frequency range limits, and character strings for the monitor name and serial number.
The information is stored in the display and is used to communicate with the system through a Display Data Channel (DDC ), which sites between the monitor and the PC graphics adapter. The system uses this information for configuration purposes, so the monitor and system can work together.
The latest version of EDID (version 1.3) can be used in CRT displays, LCD displays, and future display types because EDID offers general descriptions of almost all display parameters.
Definition courtesy of webopedia.com
To successfully ignore EDID’s reported values to our xorg.conf do the following steps (you have to make sure that your graphics card can display 1024x768 resolution):
goto command line: CTRL ALT F1
turn off display manager:
/etc/init.d/gdm stop { Gnome is default in Ubuntu; in KDE must be kdm }
you can prefix it with sudo just in case you are not logged as root. better to log as root to make sure =)back-up xorg.conf: { just in case you end up having black screen on X }
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backupedit xorg.conf:
pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf { I prefer pico =) }refer to the ff and modify xorg like so:
Section “Device”
Identifier “your graphics card model”
Driver “your graphics card driver”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Option “IgnoreEDID” “true” < < put this line if this is missing
EndSectionSection "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "your graphics card model"
Monitor "your monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
:
: {go to Subsection 24 to change resolution}
:
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" << put this line replace old one
EndSubSection
EndSectionSave xorg.conf.
Restart display manager:
/etc/init.d/gdm start { or kdm }
Please note that when you try to use the command xresprobe “driver” , it will report the value that EDID reported and not the custom values you modified in xorg.conf.
Enjoy!
The IgnoreEDID is only available for the proprietary nvidia driver as far as I know. using the nv driver with this option errors.
Comment by GDI — March 24, 2007 @ 11:41 pm
In which country do you live?
Comment by mozilla firefox 2.0 — March 19, 2008 @ 8:14 am
apparently this applies for mandriva linux, too. i had a problem with an invalid EDID from my monitor…putting this in worked!
Comment by ringtailed-fox — June 30, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
Glad that it worked out for you. Thanks for testing it on Mandriva
Comment by hardwyrd — July 3, 2008 @ 10:37 am
IgnoreEDID is now depracated (at least in 173 series drivers), and NVidia has perhaps unwisely decided that it doesn’t have any effect (usually depracated options still work, but issue a warning - unless this has happened between 2005 and 2008).
And if you’re like me, looking for a solution to the problem of not getting out the maximum resolution of the monitor: some NVidia cards don’t support their full resolution if the DVI cable is used. Sounds weird, but it says so in the specs of the FX 5200, and a Samsung 2493HM (max. res 1920x1200) only worked at 1600x1200 until I switched cables (DVI->VGA). After the switch the full resolution was automatically detected and used. Hope this helps somebody.
Comment by Timo Voipio — January 8, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
Yes, IgnoreEDID is deprecated in new cards and drivers.
This post has been enjoying a lot of visits since I posted this way back in 2005 and will remain here for historical reasons. Who knows there might still be others using old distros and drivers and old cards.
Thanks for sharing and visiting
Comment by baudizm — January 9, 2009 @ 9:27 pm