ATI Custom resolutions... on the SECOND monitor... How?

Uncle Google is only getting me partway there. Rubbing the EmpegBBS lamp here...

I have an ATI-brand video card. I think it's the very last AGP card they made, it's an HD3800 series AGP.

I have two displays hooked up to it. On the second display, I want to set a custom resolution of 1368x768 which is the correct number of pixels for a 1:1 display. However, the available selectable resolutions do not include this number, either on the Windows dialog box or the ATI catalyst dialog box. I want to add 1368x768 to that list.

Uncle Google tells me that I must edit a registry entry called DALNonStandardModesBCD1 and add my custom resolution to that list. This works! Yay! ...

... But only for the first display. BOO! In other words, if I select the first display and attempt to modify its desktop resolution, I see my custom 1368x768 resolution in the list. I want to do this for the second display. But my custom rez doesn't appear in pulldown list of rezzes for the second display. I can't seem to figure out what to edit to add this custom rez to that second display.

Any ideas?

*EDIT* UPDATE: Answer was: Custom resolution utility from this web site:

http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU

In case the original site goes down, the utility is mirrored here.

Swap the display connections? Is "first" in this case dependent on the port or some display order setting in software?

I'm pretty sure PowerStrip can do it, but it's not free. I thought that it used to be - or that there was a free alternative.

Though I do hear that you just need to use PowerStrip once to create the mode and can then uninstall it.

I don't want to swap the display connectors, because in this case the second monitor will be getting switched out at regular intervals. So I can't make this second monitor my primary monitor.

Basically, I have one main display for my main audio workstation, and a secondary display next to it on the desk. Both of those are the main monitors for when I'm doing the main mixing sitting at the main desk.

But when I'm working alone in the booth, recording a guitar track using the remote keyboard+mouse, I want the second monitor (in this case, an old LCD TV) to be closer to the recording booth with the microphones. I can't sit near the computer and the main monitors due to CPU noise being picked up by the mics. Actually, I can't quite sit right up next to the LCD TV either, but it's big enough so that I can see it from where I *am* sitting. So the LCD TV is the thing I use for my recording booth monitor.

So when I go to sit in the recording booth, I swap the display cable for the second monitor (I bought some extra DVI cables and a coupler so the job was easy), and now the TV lights up as the second monitor when I do that. And it works *GREAT*, but for the fact that the TV is running at a non-1:1 resolution so the fonts are blurry. It's actually not that big of a deal that it's a bit blurry, it's not like I'm doing pixel editing or anything, I just need to see it to control the start/stop tracking and such. So I could live with it like it is. It's just the technical principle of the thing, the itch of wanting to make it perfect.

PowerStrip: Yes, used it before, but always wish I knew what it was doing under the hood. Shouldn't have to need it just to tweak that setting, but will resort to it if need be. Hoping to avoid it for now since I just got Win7 and the video drivers working well on this system and I don't want to risk hosing anything.

I'd use PowerStrip in a heart beat. I think the settings should be easy to reverse/cancel if you don't want them later. Certainly no harder than poking around in the registry.

True. But I really want to know what the real setting is, for academic purposes too. I was able to find the setting for monitor 1 without PowerStrip, so now I'm itching to know the answer for monitor 2.

But yeah, if no one on the BBS happens to know, I'll resort to PowerStrip.

Just going out on a limb here, but perhaps creating a new key/value pair named DALNonStandardModesBCD2 might work? Assuming the D1 stands for display 1.

EDIT: Google appears to confirm my guess. Hope it works for you.

Great idea! Ah, if only it were that simple, though.

There's actually a whole series of those values there already:
DALNonStandardModesBCD1
DALNonStandardModesBCD2
DALNonStandardModesBCD3
DALNonStandardModesBCD4

And they all simply go up in resolution. In other words,
DALNonStandardModesBCD2 simply picks up where DALNonStandardModesBCD1 leaves off. In fact, it splits in the middle, with DALNonStandardModesBCD1 ending with 1280x720 @ 75hz, and DALNonStandardModesBCD2 picking up at 1280x720 @ 85hz. It's basically several registry entries containing one large sequential increasing list of nonstatndard values.

Although I will try adding my custom rez to the "2" entry and see if it shows up. I'll report back if it does work, otherwise, y'all can assume it didn't work.

Nyyyyoooope. Ah well.

Since your second monitor is a TV, I'm guessing it doesn't send the right EDID to the computer. You didn't say which version of Windows you were using.

I think probably what you need to do is create a custom INF file for the monitor/TV (or possibly just plug the appropriate values into the registry manually). You might also have to force the OS to use it. (I think the latter one might contain all of the information in the prior one.)

One of the things PowerStrip does (can do) is create a custom INF.

Tony, You never did say what the brand/model of the 2nd monitor was.

Polaroid FLM-3201.

Win 7.

:-)

The PC inputs of many tv/monitor sets fail to support Dot for Dot input.
The scaler that's built in to this set, just may not accept 1366x768.

edit: Rewrite for clarity

Polaroid's support web sucks. I had to dig the manual off from some now anonymous webtailer.

I've hooked up PCs to this TV before, via DVI. In fact, this TV was my Mac Mini's monitor for a long time. The actual pixel rez of the LCD screen is 1368x768, and that's the rez that the Mac Mini used for 1:1 pixel format. So I know it can be done. All of those rez's listed on that web site are the scaled resolutions. You might also notice that all those rez's from the web site are 4:3 resolutions and the display is actually a 16:9 display. So I'm looking for 1:1 pure-pixel. Right now it's doing a perfectly acceptable scaled 1280x720 (which you'll note, is not on that list either), which is fine, but from an academic standpoint, I know it's capable of 1:1 pixel rez at 1368x768, and the Mac did it (albeit I had to do some kind of mac-centric tweak to make *that* work), so I know the PC must be capable of it.

I'll try the custom monitor INF (heck I might already have one, since I've had the PC, with a different OS and video card, working at 1:1 on this TV), and if that doesn't work, I'll resort to PowerStrip.

Strange that Polaroid failed to claim all the resolutions their product supported. I wonder why.

If you're hardcore then you reprogram the EDID for your display

Tony, did you get this issue resolved?

Not yet. I'm even having trouble making this happen with PowerStrip.

I set the custom resolution in PowerStrip and it tells me that I have to reboot the computer before I can try it. So I do. Then when I restart powerStrip, the custom resolution still isn't there, so I set it again, it tells me I have to reboot the computer before I can try it... etc.

I had to take a pause on it for a while so I haven't worked on it in a couple of days. I'll get back to it soon. Although not tonight; V-day is complicated in my house.

You cannot drop a line like that and run away. You leave us thinking all kinds of complicated thoughts.

Aha, I have the solution to this finally. Custom Resolution Utility, from this site:

http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU

Copy attached in case the original site goes down.