Overscan on 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS

[mthaddon]

Hi Folks,

I have recently purchased an Inspiron 530 with a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce
8300GS, and am using the system as a MythTV/Mythbuntu box. I'm having
issues when connecting it to a TV which are apparently known as
"overscan" (in other words, the picture that's sent to the TV is
oversized by 5-10%, and so you can't see the top, bottom, left or right
edges). There are ways to work around this in MythTV, by specifying the
window size of the Mythfrontend, but when I have any application
fullscreen outside of MythTV (such as when I'm watching a video, or
playing a game, or using the regular desktop) this is a problem.

I've looked online and people have recommended using the "overscan"
slider in nvidia-settings, but my nvidia-settings doesn't seem to
provide that option. Is there some way of manually setting that in my
xorg.conf file, or getting a version of nvidia-settings that does
support the overscan option? It also seems to be reporting that my
graphics card has 512MB of RAM, which is not such a big issue...

This is on Mythbuntu 7.10.

$ dpkg --list | grep nvidia
ii nvidia-glx-new 100.14.19+2.6.22.4-14.10 NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org 'new' driver
ii nvidia-kernel-common 20051028+1ubuntu7 NVIDIA binary kernel module common files


Any help appreciated.

Thanks, Tom

[pe1chl]

You need to read the README.txt file that comes with the driver, and the "If you have a problem, read this first" posting on the forum.

[mthaddon]

Originally Posted by pe1chl

You need to read the README.txt file that comes with the driver, and the "If you have a problem, read this first" posting on the forum.

I have read the README.txt (/usr/share/doc/nvidia-glx-new/README.txt.gz), as well as the "read this first", but haven't been able to garner any useful info from these. Not sure where to go from here...

[pe1chl]

Too bad. The README answers your question about xorg.conf and the "read this first" tells you how to submit a bugreport.

[mthaddon]

Originally Posted by pe1chl

Too bad. The README answers your question about xorg.conf and the "read this first" tells you how to submit a bugreport.

Ok, I appreciate that you're frustrated with newbies not following instructions but I did read through the Readme and I couldn't anything that showed me how to fix this issue. I'd really appreciate any helpers on this - which section to look at - I already have things setup as in the TV Out section. There's a lot of information in there and to the untrained eye it's not clear what's relevant.

Also, since I can't verify if this is a bug yet or not, I don't see how submitting a bug report would help.

[pe1chl]

You should let the computer do the searching.
View the README using: less README.txt.gz
Then enter: /overscan
This will skip to the section about overscan. enter the letter n to continue searching.

The bugreport script collects all relevant info about your configuration. Even when your issue is not a bug, it will present all the info that is lacking from your terse report of the issue.
(for example, how the TV is connected, how it is configured, how the driver sees the matter)

[mthaddon]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Originally Posted by pe1chl

You should let the computer do the searching.
View the README using: less README.txt.gz
Then enter: /overscan
This will skip to the section about overscan. enter the letter n to continue searching.

The only references are to the overscan option (on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0), and this is for increasing overscan, with the default being at 0.0. My problem is that it is already too big, so increasing this won't help, unfortunately

Originally Posted by pe1chl

The bugreport script collects all relevant info about your configuration. Even when your issue is not a bug, it will present all the info that is lacking from your terse report of the issue.
(for example, how the TV is connected, how it is configured, how the driver sees the matter)

I'm connected via an SVIDEO cable, and here's my xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Default Layout"
    Screen         "Default Screen" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
    InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Configured Mouse"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "CorePointer"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Generic Monitor"
    # Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Generic Video Card"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    Option         "DPI" "100x100"
    Option         "UseEvents" "1"
    Option         "AddARGBVisuals" "1"
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "1"
    Option         "NoLogo" "1"
    Option         "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
    Option         "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
    Option         "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "Generic Video Card"
    Monitor        "Generic Monitor"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        # Modes      "nvidia-auto-select" "1920x1080" "1280x720" "1024x768" "720x480" "800x600" "640x480"
        Modes      "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

[mthaddon]

And attached is the nvidia-bug-report.log

Thanks, Tom

[ironside]

I have the same problem with a GeForce 8400GS under Ubuntu Hardy.

[_Inferno_]

This issue goes back years unfortunatly..

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=18516

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=46201

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=80543

And other threads..

Nvidia says that it is planning to implement this feature, but does not have a specific timetable.. it is very discouraging to see that this issue goes back so long though.

We need fully functional Linux drivers Nvidia, please!!