Problem with KDE3.1 on GeForce4 440 Go

[roguenet]

I am having quite a perplexing issue with the 4191 linux driver.

I am running on a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop with a UltraSharp UXGA+ screen and the GeForce4 440 Go chipset. I just installed Slackware 9.0 (which comes with KDE 3.1).

At first I set up the X server to use the XFree86 'nv' driver. I have my screen set up to run at 1600x1200 (the native resolution), at 24 bit color depth. Things ran fine, but there were some issues with graphic quality and of course no graphic hardware acceleration.

I downloaded and installed (including the XF86Config mod) the 4191 nvidia driver. Now, when I start up KDE, the menus, icons, windows, etc are all HUGE. Its as if KDE thinks the screen is running at something like 800x600. To verify that the X server is indeed still running at 1600x1200 (that is the only option available in the screen section), I loaded a backgroud image that is 1600x1200, and set it to center (not stretch) the image, and I get the whole thing.

Any help/tips/comments would be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

[bwkaz]

Is it just text that's that big?

I saw a similar problem when I went from the 769 drivers to the 12-something release. The 769's didn't have code in them to determine the DPI properly, and 12-something did, so everything that used to be a 12-point font (with the X server thinking 75dpi) was displayed at, still 12 points, but many, many more pixels, because the X server now thought it was running at 100dpi.

If the problem is happening in pixmaps too, then this isn't it, but you could always do some math in the XF86Config(-4) file to force a different DPI -- or do what I ended up doing and just set your fontsize smaller (mine moved to 8 point, which was comparable in screen size to what 12 was being displayed as before). Setting a smaller font size is preferable.

[roguenet]

Yeah, it does appear to be mainly the fonts that are affected, but it is not just the system fonts. I scaled the fonts back to 8 point in the Control Center, and that worked for things like program title bars and KDE configuration menus, but in applications, many fonts are still huge.

For instance, I am using the nightly build of Gaim from a few nights ago, and everything in it is still huge, as well as everything (Location bar, web page content, etc) in Mozilla.

Anybody have any clue what could be causing this, or have a workaround? The font resize thing works for some things, but a lot of stuff is still huge and annoying.

Thanks!

[bwkaz]

Try forcing a lower DPI then. Take your resolution, and divide each dimension by 75. Then convert that to millimeters (mult. by 25.4), and put those numbers as arguments to a DisplaySize option in your Monitor section. For example, I run at 1280x1024, so if I wanted 100 dpi, I'd divide each of 1280 and 1024 by 100, to get 12.8 and 10.24. Then I'd multiply by 25.4, to get 325.12 and 260.096.

Then I'd put a DisplaySize 325 260 in my XF86Config(-4) file's Monitor section. Of course, you'll want to force 75dpi, so your numbers will be different.

[roguenet]

SCHWEET!! That worked :) Thanks people.

I am still curious as to what could be causing this very odd problem, so if anybody has any thoughts on the matter, please post them here.

Thanks, Rogue