NP5790 - How to "unlock" lower widescreen resolutions?

Alright, this has been bugging me for a while. With the stock Sager video card drivers for 32-bit Vista (based on 101.34), 1920x1200 is the only widescreen resolution available to me (on the desktop or in games). Where is 1680x1050, 1440x900, and 1280x800? I can run all of my current games just fine at 1920x1200, but BioShock is coming out in a couple of days; I plan to lower the resolution a bit, but I don't want to use a 4:3 resolution which would require either ugly stretching or big black bars on the sides.

I briefly tried out the latest Tweaks R Us MobileForce drivers, and they let me use every resolution under the sun (including those listed above) - so I know it's the drivers and not the monitor.

Another thing - when I plug in my old 20" 1680x1050 LCD, 1680x1050 is allowed to be used on the laptop screen. But as soon as I unplug the monitor, 1680x1050 disappears.

Is there some registry key or .inf file that I can edit to add the appropriate resolutions? Or do I just have to use third party (or tweaked desktop) drivers? Or I am just missing some really obvious option that enables them?

Thanks in advance.

 

All I can say so far is try changing video card drivers

 

I figured it out! If others are curious how to do it, here's the method:

Explore the driver CD and find the folder with the proper VGA drivers (32-bit or 64-bit) and copy them to your desktop (there are actually two folders per version, one with "1038" in front of it - this is a slightly newer version (101.38 vs. the stock 101.34), but it's not WHQL certified. Whatev' - I went the newer 101.38's.)

Find the "nvcv.inf" file. Scroll down until you see two long horizontal lines listing a bunch of resolutions and code. One begins with HKR,, NV_Modes, "%REG_MULTI_SZ% and the other has the same but with "%REG_SZ_APPEND%" instead. Delete both lines and replace them with the following:

Code:

HKR,, NV_Modes,  %REG_MULTI_SZ%, "{*}S 320x200 320x240 400x300 480x360 512x384 640x350 640x400=1FFF;SHV 640x480 720x400 720x480 768x576 800x600 852x480 853x480 854x480 864x480 1024x640 1024x768 1152x864 1280x720 1280x768 1280x800 1280x854 1280x960 1280x1024 1360x768 1365x768 1366x768 1400x1050 1440x900 1600x900 1600x1000 1600x1024 1600x1200  1680x1050 1800x1440 1920x1080 1920x1200 1920x1440 2048x1280 2048x1536 2560x1600 3840x2400x8,16,32,64=1F;"

Uninstall your drivers, and then reinstall them using the setup.exe that's in the folder with your now modified .inf. Ta-dah! Every resolution you could ever want.

Props to the guy who makes custom .infs for LaptopVideo2Go (that's where I got the code from).

Huzzah!

 

nice to know in the future.

 

I m sure this will come in handy sometime (when I finally receive my NP5790 thanks for info Joga, good job

 

Good post. Do the later 100 or 160 series drivers support lower reses, or is this mod basically necessary?

 

My original 94.22 Nvidia drivers supported all resolutions my monitor was capable of. I'm using the 165.01 drivers atm and they support the resolutions also.

That is very strange that they locked the base drivers from the manufactuer.