How to force the display refresh rate?

[Geyeda]

Hi,

i'm using Planeshift on Ubuntu 7.10 with a 1,7 GHZ Athlon XP 1700+, 768MB DDR RAM and a GeForce 2 MX 200. Yes, that system is enough to play Planeshift.
The only problem is that the NVidia driver is...yeha..strange. If I set the display refresh rate to 91HZ, it uses 60HZ and vice versa.
So, if I try to run Planeshift in full-screen it takes the highest-91HZ. But I see 60HZ. Is there any way to say Planeshift that it has to use 60HZ?

Sorry for my idiot-like english. I'm trying my best.

Thank you

[bilbous]

A couple things you do not mention are the screen resolution you want to use and the number of colors. It may be that your monitor is not properly setup in xorg.conf. I play in a 1024x768 window  on a 1280x1024 desktop but it sounds like your equipment is older and may not do that. At any rate if your monitor is set up as generic as mine always is, you might be able to get the proper timings from the manufacturers website or a users manual if you have one. For some reason the list of monitors leaves out a lot of models, there are 20 or so Daewoos but no 777d so it is a good thing my monitor came with the timings. You can usually get fairly good results from the numbers in the manual but in my experience they do not usually auto-detect the same numbers.

[Geyeda]

Hello,

thank you for taking time .
I think my monitor is set up correctly because I have this problem since forever under Linux. Even with other driver, even with other monitors, even with other distros. I never worried about it because that was never a real problem and i played Planeshift in a window. But 800x600 isn't so good at a 1152x864 Screen .

Ah yes sorry, i forgot the info. My Screen is 1152x864@24bit colors. The Planeshift window is 800x600, at 24bit too. Normally my screen is set to 57HZ which makes an output of 85HZ.

EDIT: Ah I forgot to say. My monitor is atm a no name model. Even the prodcuct number in google says nothing.

[Eliseth]

I think your monitor probably can't handle 91hz. Try setting it to something lower, like 75hz, which I find works great even with my 1600x1200 screen res.

[bilbous]

Sounds like the Miracle monitor I once had. I had to do a search on the fcc number to get it setup right. I do not really understand how you determine the frequency though. Having it set to one and using another is very strange to me. Hopefully someone else will have another idea for you but you might have to wait for it.

my 17 in monitor does 1280x1024 at about 60hz, depends on the distribution for some reason. I have seen 59 as well.

[Geyeda]

Really thank you for your answers. But I have the solution.

I was searching the NVidia Linux Driver forum and there was a guy with exactly the same problem. He said he turned off "Twinview" in xorg.conf. Made that here and hurray, if i choose 85HZ my monitor really shows 85HZ.
But there is one problem left. If I choose 800x600 I can choose 85HZ, 75HZ, ... 56HZ. And they really work. If i take 85HZ my monitor shows 85HZ. But if I start Planeshift in 800x600 my Monitor shows 56HZ, the lowest aviable here.
The only solution i've found yet is to change to 800x600@85HZ with gnome-display-properties and start Planeshift with that setting. It works, but its an "unsexy" solution. Maybe a problem with Planeshift?

Sorry for my stupid english again. Hope you can understand me ^^.

[bilbous]

I use windowed mode because I find full screen apps have a problem sometimes returning the desktop to the original resolution. Planeshift is one of them. I am wondering why you use such an odd desktop size, you might be better off at 1024x768 and using that for PS as well. Of course with the GeF2 that might be pushing it as far as playing the game goes.

Of course if you were going to do that you could try setting PS to run at 1152x864 full screen. Last I looked you could input arbitrary values for the screen size in the setup utility.