FIXED - RGBLED 1200p display has no 1440x900 option.

Has anyone with a 1200p display found any way to force or add the missing 1440x900 option? I can't believe that res is not available.

 

Why do you want to switch? It would look very dull at lower res.

 

Have you tried looking in CCC under desktop properties.

 

The lower res would give me better performance without a noticeable lose in quality in several of my games.
I looked both in ccc as well as win display settings. I even went as far as trying to add it to all the display res options in the registry. No luck there either.

 

Best thing to do in this case is to look at the config file for those games and see if there is an entry you can edit for the resolution you want. But do this after you tweak other settings since going back into them in game can sometimes change the res back to one that's listed.

 

In most games, you should just be able to change the resolution, you dont need to change your desktop resolution at all.

 

A lot of games get the list of valid resolutions from the video driver and won't display them otherwise. I've had to edit config files for a few games to get the res I wanted since the ATI driver didn't have them and I couldn't find a way to add custom ones.

 

This has been annoying the crap out of me too. I wish there was a 1680x1050 res (same aspect ratio as 1920x1200) but instead, the ati driver decides that 1400x1050 is the only option....i mean ...what monitor has that res as it's native????

 

In display settings click "advanced settings" then on adapter tab click list all modes. I see both 1440x900 and 1680x1050 modes and more there.

 

Unfortunately, not on mine, or his I suspect.

My available resolutions are (from highest to lowest) 1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1600x1200, 1400x1050,1280x1024, 1280x800, 1280x768, 1280x720, 1152x864, 1024x768, 1024x600, and 800x600.

Most of these resolutions are silly for a 16:10 screen.

So...any ideas anyone? i would really like some usable resolutions, instead of the crap ones i have the choice of at the moment

 

Anyway, with these machines, why turn down the res? Changing settings down instead will have it looking better than changing res down, but you really shouldn't have to do either

 

Agreed. I haven't met a game yet that I couldn't run at darn near max graphical settings with this rig. When games get so demanding that I am already at the lowest graphical settings, and need to start running below native resolution, that's when I'll be ordering a new laptop. Should be a couple of years though.

 

Jakkarus, I did find that games that offered 1440x900 on my desktop, do not offer it on my M17x. I suppose I could try to edit the game ini's, but I think most of what I have won't do it. I do not understand how so many people with the same video cards can have wildly differing available resolutions.

gl2009, My available res's are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x720, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1680x1050, 1920x1200. Advanced settings/List all modes does not change that. These are also the only res's offered in any game I have installed.

V3_Shae, Lower res's = better performance in certain games. And I have some that really drag this machine down at that high res. 1440x900 would give me reasonably good graphics & pretty good performance judging from the difference in performance between 1680x1050 & 1280x800 res's.

So anyway, the sweet spot for me is 1440x900.

 

This is one of the reasons I went with the lower Rez display, I wanted my games to run with all details maxed while still maintaining a good frame rate, opting for a 1200p Rez screen would mean that future games will need to be knocked down to medium to run well at such a high Rez (I couldn't afford the dual 5870s and i7 extreme proc) and tbh the lower Rez screen looks good enough to me, on my old dell M90 which was a 1200p anytime I knocked the Rez down from the native screen Rez it looked horrible

 

What games are you playing then?? I have not seen anything like them.... On my rig, Crysis on VERY HIGH at 1920x1200 runs at 30-40 fps, which doesn't sound like much, but the motion blur makes it smoooooth.

 

I'm not sure if I am missing something from the conversation but here it is on mine:

 

I really wanted to get the RGB LED backlit display. It's very bright, much much brighter than my old Dell 9300. When I chose this display I had no idea the available resolutions would be limited. I have never seen anything like this before. Whether nVidea or ATI, every graphics card I have ever had provided ALL resolutions below it's max res or the monitors max res. This problem must be a driver issue because if you get the CCFL display with the same cards I got, you get 1440x900.

As far as system drag goes...
I am very sensitive flicker and visible framing. It makes me very sick & nauseous in just a few minutes. The one and only time I was at a party with a strobe light, I puked my guts out in less than 30 seconds. It sucks, but that's just the way it is. So inevitably, I have to wait one to three years for hardware to catch up before I can play some very good games. Sacred2 & Lost World are barely acceptable at 1280x800. I need frames rates at about 50-60 not to get sick. I suppose the advantage to waiting is that most bugs are worked out by then.

Sorry for the long dissertation, I get carried away with detail sometimes.

 

War, is that your M17x-R2? If so, what video cards are you running and what is your BIOS rev, Vbios Rev, Catalyst driver rev?

Are all those resolutions wide screen only, 16x10 16x9, or are there 4x3's mixed in(minus the 800x600)?

Did you have all those resolutions available before you hooked up multiple monitors and do you still have them all if you disconnect them?

There has to be a reason that you have all available res's except for 640x480. I'd trade that & 800x600 for all the others in a heart beat.

If any of these are true, it could lead to a solution for many people here.

 

Ok seriously, my R2 with dual 4870's and the 1200p RGB LED screen should be delivered today or Monday and every time I check this forum I find another post that makes me wonder if I'm going to regret buying this thing. I know, I know, don't get all worked up when I haven't even taken delivery yet but my God it seems like there's problems with almost every freakin' feature on these things. Dude you NEED to get the RGB LED screen it's amazing - but uh don't ever plan on anything but the native res. So am I wrong but wouldn't these limitations also apply to an external monitor? What if I had a 27" screen but it wasn't one of those resolutions that's available (like 1600x900 for example), SOL?

On a more productive note some machines in peoples sigs in this thread have 5870s and some have 4870s - could the difference in available resolutions be due to that? Maybe the 5870s just support more? Would driver updates fix this?

 

Alright. I don't remember ever missing that 1440x900 resolution, even before the extra monitors, but I still went ahead and disconnected everything from my laptop. I attached an image, and you can see I still have the resolutions.

It's an R2 with 4870's and running on ATI's 10.8. I didn't have to flash the VBIOS with my cards obviously so I am running the default one. The BIOS is A08 (with all other previous BIOS versions I still had all resolutions).

Here are all my available resolutions if it helps (with and without monitors is the same):
1920x1200 - 1920x1080 - 1600x1200 - 1440x900 - 1400x1050 - 1280x1024
1280x800 - 1280x768 - 1280x720 - 1152x864 - 1024x768 - 1024x600 - 800x600

 

Pooffffff, there went my last hope for an easy fix.

Well War, I'm happy for you, sad for me. It goes back to a driver issue I guess. But then your running different hardware, so it makes the comparison apples & oranges.

So has anybody figured out a way to force or create a custom res? I did try using Powerstrip, it didn't work.

 

OK, I just tried hooking up an external monitor I know does 1440x900. Possible res's went from 1680x1050 to 1280x1024 to 1280x800. No 1400's at all. So it is confirmed to be either catalyst drivers or hardware or both.

 

Update from Alienware Tech Support,
I just got off the phone with a live tech support. After presenting my problem and what I did to troubleshoot he went to talk to the resident engineer/super. According to him, there are several versions of the RGB LED display and the one I have just does not support that res

I've been where the phone tech is as a part time job, so I am not going to argue with him. He has no choice but to parrot what the super says.

So if my RGB LED does not support 1440x900(+ several others), that would NOT explain why a known good monitor that does support every res from 1680x1050 down to 640x480 gives me the same exact available res's as the laptop display minus 1920 res's. That leaves only the video cards, which I find hard to believe, or the 5870 drivers, most likely.

Please, if anyone out there that has the RGB LED (Everest ID's mine as a Samsung 170CT) combined with one or two 5870's have the 1440x900 or any 1400 res's, Please post here to let everyone know.

 

Hey there,

I had this problem, and its actually not such a big problem at all, as long as you are familiar with registry editing. This was quoted from another user on this very same forum. JCAULLEY is his name, and as far as i'm concerned he's a damned LEGEND! all of you guys with this problem should rep him!

here goes.

 

I also might add, that dell's supposed "engineers" aren't THAT clued up. Using this method you can set ANY resolution you like...and I mean ANY. and it displays perfectly on the supposed "panels that don't support it"

Maybe an email to dell, and their "engineers" (I use this term loosely, as they are probably just techs) and this might become part of their FAQ.

 

YES Thanks to you TotalHarmonicControl & jcaulley, I've figured out how to add all the resolutions you could want to the registry but WITH OUT having to install ATI Drivers. Anyone can do this with any version of the Dell Video Drivers. I tested this with Dell Catalyst 10.6(8.692) & Dell Beta Catalyst 10.8(8.763, P02) and the KEY entry locations remained the same for me. I made a reg file for myself for future use. It is only a text file with a .reg file extension. Here is the contents(Only for 1440x900@60Hz) as they need to appear in the file. Name it what ever you want....

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video\{1D89A91D-309F-4618-8D39-BEBA3BE5985D}\0000]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video\{1D89A91D-309F-4618-8D39-BEBA3BE5985D}\0001]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video\{1D89A91D-309F-4618-8D39-BEBA3BE5985D}\0002]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{1D89A91D-309F-4618-8D39-BEBA3BE5985D}\0000]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{1D89A91D-309F-4618-8D39-BEBA3BE5985D}\0001]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{1D89A91D-309F-4618-8D39-BEBA3BE5985D}\0002]
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60

Very important note, back up your registry! Make absolutely sure that each and every HKEY entry above matches where all your video entries are. These can be identified by doing a search in your registry for binary value...

DALOPTION_MaxResBCD

Every HKEY location that DALOPTION_MaxResBCD exists needs to match. If all matches, save as xxx.reg then right click and select "Merge". If there are more or less locations or they do not match, you MUST to do it manually.
Again just search for DALOPTION_MaxResBCD and where ever you find it, manually add Binary Value...
"DALNonStandardModesBCD1"=hex:14,40,09,00,00,00,00,60
And follow jcaulely's instruction on how to add more than one resolution. I also believe this will work for any hardware configuration as long as the video cards are ATI. I don't know if these entries will work for nVidea cards and I have no way to check it.

Thank you all for your input, without it I would not have figured this out.