[mythtv-users] Monitor issues

John Finlay finlay at moeraki.com
Wed Aug 22 20:12:52 UTC 2018


Some time ago when I had tiny fonts my fix was to add a line like:

    Option         "DPI" "100x100"

to the "Device" sections of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf

With my current NVIDIA 304.135 driver that doesn't seem to be necessary.

John

On 8/22/2018 8:51 AM, Allen Edwards wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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.
>     _______________________________________________
>     mythtv-users mailing list
>     mythtv-users at mythtv.org <mailto:mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
>     http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>     <http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users>
>     http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
>     <http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette>
>     MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20180822/9cd48851/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: tiny.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 10492 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20180822/9cd48851/attachment-0001.jpg>


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list