Can anyone help me with TV resolution and an nVidia FX5500?

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For watching online movies, I have a Dell XP Pro desktop computer with an nVidia FX5500 PCI card installed (and the mobo graphics disabled), and I do not know how to get the best resolution sent out to my TV's S-Video connection. The VGA signal to the computer's monitor is 1440 x 900, and the nVidia control panel will let me send a different resolution out to the TV. The TV's native resolution is 1366 x 768, but I can only send 1240 x 768 out to there without then having to scroll the TV's display from side to side to see it all ... and it does not matter whether I have the nVidia settings on "clone" or on "separate display" (which Windows calls "extended desktop") at the time.

I could set the nVidia display on "clone" and then use PowerStrip to have both the monitor and the TV display something like 1360 x 768, but I do not want to reduce the resolution on the monitor just to get better resolution on the TV.

93.71 is the nVidia driver version I am using, and updating to 175.19 leaves me with no drivers installed at all for some reason. However, I do not think the updated drivers actually add anything for the 5500 anyway.

Any suggestions or help here?

It's possible that the latest nvidia drivers don't support that card anymore. There are sites that keep copies of every nvidia driver release made, and you could see if getting the latest-released 5500-supported drivers helps.

Overall though you may be better off going to a forum dedicated to nvidia cards, there are a bunch of them.

Looks like it's still supported by a legacy driver - the last available driver for it is 175.16, from 2008 and FWIW, it's a WHQL driver.
I searched for GeForce | GeForce 5 FX Series | GeForce FX 5500 here: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-uk

Isn't this the newest driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-tes ... river.html

Or did I misread the OP again?

^^ Er, quite possibly.
It may well be the latest, but that driver is for the NVidia Quadro series which appear to be quite grunty devices. A quick search found some selling for £300, refurbished.
The NVidia Quadro FX5500 is also a PCI-E card, not PCI as per the OP's card.

I thank you all for your posts.

Just guessing a bit, but I think aspect ratio might somehow be an issue here, and I do not think the card and XP are doing things the same way. The card copies the monitor's desktop background over to the TV in some kind of zoom-looking way that does not show all of the background, but then Windows expands a browser page only to the actual edges of the TV screen.

I might try using the mobo video for the monitor and then using the card only for the TV, but I suspect I am going to need a newer-and-better card to do what I actually want.

Again, I thank you!

Yep I read it wrong Thought he was talking about a Quadro and mistakingly wrote PCI instead of PCI-e.

Oh well. I take it those old drivers don't have the ability to create a custom res and timings like the newer geforce ones?

I think they probably can - I used a prehistoric Ti4200-based card for a while and the last legacy drivers for that allowed it under Windows. Somewhere off the Desktop | Display Properties dialog - an "Advanced" button IIRC, where you could define your own resolution.
There might be a compromise resolution in there somewhere but almost anything less than the native resolution of the (I assume) flat panel PC monitor tends to give odd scaling results as the display is distorted to fill it.
I don't know how XP would cope with two separate display subsystems - maybe one could be used as a dedicated TV driver but I suspect that might cause more problems than it's worth.

Yes, they can, but only after they check the display to be sure the display can be properly-driven with the custom settings desired. In the past, and even like with PowerStrip, I had found the custom options unavailable when a given display cannot be customized for whatever reason.


Yes, that seems to be what is happening.


After the custom settings have been created at the nVidia Control Panel, XP shows that custom resolution available for the respective display ... yet it is first dependent upon the nVidia drivers to show more than one display even available at all.


I also doubt that will work any better, but I think I might at least try it before looking for a newer card.

I have tried every possible combination as far as on-board video and the card, and with primary display and either clone or extended (separate) desktops are concerned, and any resolution larger than 1240 x 768 sent to the TV (even if the TV is the *only* display) results in having to scroll the screen from side to side in order to see it all. So, it looks like that is the end of that as far as resolution is concerned, at least with the card I have. However ...





Does anybody see anything possible in the above that might at least make things like subtitles more legible on the TV?

What model is the tv?

^^ "American"
(tweak timing standards appropriately!)

You might try making the 'active horizontal pixels' and 'active vertical lines' parameters higher. I think you can mess with the parameters in a 'systematically random' way if you want without risk of harming the TV, particularly if it is a digital TV (only HDTVs are maybe?).

Did you say you are connecting to the TV using S-Video? I think S-Video only has enough bandwidth to support 480i. Anything larger will be scaled down before outputting.

Is there any other connection that you can use? D-Sub/DVI/HDMI shouldn't give you this trouble. Component Video is also capable of HD resolutions but it's not common for TV-out of that era to support it.

If S-Video is the only option, you may want to try lowering the resolution to 640x480 or 854x480.

It is a Coby TFTV3217 32" Widescreen LCD HDTV/Monitor, and it a little over a year old ...

[img][800:1131]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5489953/Coby%20input.jpg[/img]


I might try the lower resolutions first just to see what happens, but yes, I could use the S-Video input for my satellite receiver and then use Component Video for the computer. I had wrongly thought S-Video was better ...

Thanks to all!

what outputs are on your video card or displayport adapter squid?