Re: still stuck xf86config

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002 01:14:52 -0400 (EDT)
"Chad M. Huneycutt" <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Wilson Brown wrote:
> > Now,
> > Can anyone tell me how to change the screen resolution and color
> > depth for kdm or gdm?
> > And can anyone tell me a good quick way that I can look up
> > information on my own without having to bother someone?
> > I've read all of the help and tutorials in gnome and kde that I can
> > find to no avail.
> 
> Your X server also controls the resolution.  Crack open your
> /etc/X11/XF86Config file and take a look at it.  In particular, the
> "Screen" section is where you set your color depth and resolutions.
> Here is mine:
> 
> Section "Screen"
>         Identifier "Screen0"
>         Device     "Card0"
>         Monitor    "Monitor0"
>         DefaultDepth 16
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Depth     8
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Depth     16
>                 Modes "1600x1200 1280x1024 1024x768 800x600 640x480"
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Depth     24
>         EndSubSection
> EndSection
> 
> Note the DefaultDepth option and the selection of modes.  If you don't
> provide a list of modes, then XFree86 tries to determine the highest
> your monitor can do and often that is not what you want.  I am not
> sure what the default depth is, but I always set it.

Stirling advice. Just dropping this reply in for Wilson to mention that,
if possible, you should set your "DefaultDepth" to 32 or 24 so that you
get so-called "Truecolor" for a photo-realistic colour palette and the
perfect display of images. 32/24-bit modes should give you the same
amount of colours but the pixel formats are different and some cards
force you to use 24-bit instead of 32-bit. I think the only reason you
would not want to have these modes is if you have a really old
video-card and you need to preserve VRAM and get more performance.

Also worth mentioning is sequence of "Modes" determines the preference
(1600x1200 being the default here), and that you can cycle between the
available modes dynamically in XFree by pressing:

	Ctrl + Num+
	Ctrl + Num-

By which I mean + and - on the numeric keypad. Ctrl + Alt + Backspace
will also kill the X server at any time in case anything goes wrong.

--kerframil