[mythtv-users] Monitor issues

Wed Aug 22 15:51:30 UTC 2018

Thanks for the reply. I really do appreciate the help.

I previously had a 6000 series card with the 304 drivers as recommended but
not installed.  When I switched to the 8600 card the recommended driver was
340 and I installed them.

I spent at lease an hour with Google looking for a solution to the tiny
font problem.  The problem is that the font is not just tiny, it is
completely unreadable so it is impossible to do anything.  I can best
describe it as this.  If the text should be "hello World" what I would see
is "__".  OK, not quite that small but probably font that is 3 pixels
high.  Bottom line is I can't do anything other than use Myth, which is
fine. Here is a screen shot and it really does look like this.

I also see that if I go to my monitor instead of the TV, there I can read
the characters sometimes but the monitor is being detected as a smaller
resolution. I can't tell exactly what size as that readout is too blurry
but I think it is 480 x something and not the 1280 or whatever the monitor
actually is. I suspect these problems are related.

Also, I appreciate the links from mtdean but I can't do anything on the TV
as a monitor because of the small fonts.  Here is a section from xorg.conf
that seems to lack specifics

*Section "Monitor"*
*    Identifier     "Monitor0"*
*    VendorName     "Unknown"*
*    ModelName      "Unknown"*
*    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0*
*    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0*
*    Option         "DPMS"*
*EndSection*

*Section "Device"*
*    Identifier     "Device0"*
*    Driver         "nvidia"*
*    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"*
*EndSection*

*Section "Screen"*
*    Identifier     "Screen0"*
*    Device         "Device0"*
*    Monitor        "Monitor0"*
*    DefaultDepth    24*
*    SubSection     "Display"*
*        Depth       24*
*    EndSubSection*

I guess I will switch back to the 304 driver.  Just to confirm I so this by
doing this:

*sudo apt-get purge nvidia**
*sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers*
*sudo apt-get update*
*sudo apt-get install nvidia-304*

Allen

On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 2:42 AM, Stephen Worthington <
stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:

> On Wed, 22 Aug 2018 01:39:38 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >This is not strictly a Myth issue but I need to solve this before working
> >on getting VDPAU working.  I switched to a Geforce 8600GT in the hopes of
> >getting VDPAU working which I failed at so far.  But what I am asking here
> >is how to get a workable system.  I have two choices now.  1) Single
> >monitor on the TV with all the system fonts and icons so small they are
> >unreadable. I mean so small it is completely unreadable.  The MythTV fonts
> >are fine, normal, but the Ubuntu fonts are tiny. Or I could 2) Leave the
> TV
> >that way and add a second monitor, which I have.  But the computer will
> not
> >recognize a second monitor.  I have looked at nvidia config and at the
> >standard Display section. Neither show a second monitor.  I do this with
> >the monitor plugged into the DVI slot that works and the TV plugged into
> >the DVI slot that has no signal.
>
> I can remember having that tiny fonts problem at some time, and
> finding a quick fix for it via a Google search.  But that was quite a
> few years ago - probably when I was using 14.04 or maybe even earlier.
> And I can not remember anything about the fix.
>
> For an 8600GT, I believe you should be installing the Nvidia 304
> series driver.  Sometimes the recommended driver is 340 series, and
> that will cause problems with a card that old.  So please check what
> video drivers are installed.  What is the output of these commands:
>
> lshw -C video
> apt list --installed | grep nvidia
>
> Also, be aware that Nvidia has stopped all support for the 304
> drivers, so they do not work with 4.15 kernels without patching.  But
> they should be fine in 16.04 if you do not install the HWE (Hardware
> Enablement stack) which brings in the newer kernels.  I am using the
> 304 drivers on my mother's MythTV box running 16.04 and they work well
> for her builtin motherboard GPU (Nvidia C77), which is a similar age
> to the 8600GT.
>
> To run with dual monitors, the easy way to test is to use the
> nvidia-settings GUI tool.  Run it from a non-root command prompt on
> the GUI screen.  It will allow you to select the monitor setup, if the
> drivers have seen more than one monitor.
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