Another help with powerstrip thread!

[Madders]

Hi, I have just got a Matrox P650 graphics card which should be able to get 1:1 pixel mapping on my Panny 6 plasma at 852x480. Has anyone got the Powerstrip settings to do this?

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Mr.D]

I use 856x480 at 60Hz on my 5 series and lose a couple of pixels either side.
This is handy as its the same as my panny ae100 and I can just swap the primary display between the two.

 

[Madders]

Well, I've just spent a couple of hours tweaking the settings and have now got it perfect!

Don't you just love HTPC's! Now if only I could get the DVI output to work at the same resolution

Steve

 

[KraGorn]

If you've managed to get Powerstrip to work with the Matrox in VGA and it's not working in DVI, one possible cause could be that Windows is only allowing you to set resolutions it 'knows' the device can handle. Somewhere in Display | Properties is often a checkbox marked something like 'show only supported modes", when setting up PS on my old AE300 I needed to un-set that.

 

[Madders]

Kragorn,

Unfortunately, it's an issue with the Panasonic DVI blade. It only accepts a hdmi dvi signal at the moment for the vast majority of resolutions. I think the only other ones that work for me are 1024x768 and 800x600. I have been reading on AVS that there are success stories with people re-flashing the cards but how they do all that is totally beyond me!

Cheers,

Steve

 

[KraGorn]

HDMI displays are going to put a LOT of HTPCs out of action I fear, I don't see an HDMI-compliant video card any time soon, I think it's possible that the license owners won't allow video cards to support HDMI/HDCP until Palladium is available .. they have nightmares of hi-def DVDs being playable on PCs as it is.

As for flashing firmware, I've flashed DVD drives and BIOS' only in dire need, never touched a graphics card.

 

[Madders]

It was actually the dvi plug in board they flashed!?!

 

[_Sin]

Mine works fine on DVI at native res... haven't flashed anything...

Timing settings had to be slightly different to the defaults, but a few tweaks and it was fine.

AFAIK no-one has flashed anything other than the timing information on the DVI board and that won't do squat that you can't do with powerstrip anyway.

On the otherhand. if anyone has actually flashed the firmware I'd love to see a link.

 

[KraGorn]

Originally posted by Madders
It was actually the dvi plug in board they flashed!?!

I've no experience of Matroxes since the 450, guess their DVI connector is an add-on.

 

[Madders]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=360270

 

[_Sin]

Madders: all that person is doing is changing the resolutions that the DVI board reports to windows. I don't know why that is considered necessary, because my board also mis-reports the resolutions back to the PC, but that doesn't stop me setting up other resolutions and driving the display at it's real native res.

 

[Madders]

Okay _Sin, I'll try my DVI cable again....here's hoping! I assume your running it into a Panny 6? What are your Powerstrip settings?

Steve

 

[_Sin]

Yeah, I have a panny-6. I have the 50" version, though the DVI board is exactly the same, and mine certainly has the "broken" settings.

All I did with powerstrip was use the default settings for the closest "custom" resolution powerstrip had, and then tweaked the timing slightly to make it sync.

I find the easiest way to configure it was to use VNC to allow my laptop to control the HTPC "blind".

 

[Madders]

I just tried it again and got no picture at all using my 852x480 Powerstrip settings

Steve

 

[_Sin]

Hmm...

There was someone else on here who had tried flashing his DVI board. It'd be interesting to see exactly what settings he's using for the actual display mode, and trying those.

I can try fiddling with that particular mode later too, just to confirm that it's ok on my display (though it won't be 1:1 on mine obviously).

 

[Madders]

Wohoo! I have the DVI board working at native resolution. 1:1 pixel mapping with a Matrox graphics card

Steve