GeForce TI4600 DVI to HDMI on FullHD LCD Maxes out at 1280x720

[BassPig]

I have a 47" LCD panel monitor that has 1920x1080 addressible pixels (FullHD). I run it in 1080P when driven by my Oppo DV-981HD.
I recently purchased a very expensive DVI to HDMI cable, so that I could send fullHD content from my HD editing workstation to my 47" screen.
The workstation runs at 2048x1536 on it's CRT monitor via VGA analog.
The 47" LCD is connected to the DVI output.
I get raster, but the problem I'm having is that the GeForce driver config for setting the resolution only has four settings, starting with 640x480 and topping out at 1280x720.
I've tried making the LCD the Primary display, thinking that perhaps secondary was limited resolution, but that wasn't the solution.
Then I tried to uncheck "hide modes this monitor cannot display" thinking that if I did that, it would allow me the full range of resolutions. However, when I return to the Change Resolution menu, I'm still limited to 1280.
I've run out of ideas.
Folks on the AVSForum have this same LCD running off HTPCs at 1920x1080P with similar GeForce cards.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to trick the system into ignoring the 'signature' of the LCD that says "I'm good only to 1280"? Obviously, the LCD, having over 2 million addressable pixels and operating with my Oppo player at 1080P natively, is designed to do it, but the Windows driver seems to get a false signature from the display, a Vizio GV47LF.
Any ideas on telling the driver config to force 1920x1280?

[Doom9]

The workstation runs at 2048x1536 on it's CRT monitor via VGA analog.geez.. do your eyes still work? I can hardly imagine that there's any GFX card that delivers an only halfway acceptable picture via analog at such a resolution. The common rule seems to be that if you go beyond 1600x, you had better go digital.
When I read the reviews of the latest nVidia generation cards, I came across some information on the maximum resolution on a single DVI link.. it appears 1920x1080, while possible over a single link, already requires some tricks to squeeze the required BW out of the link so it could be that an ancient model like the one you have isn't up to that task. Have you ever tried connecting the GFX card to a regular PC screen via DVI, one that supports 1920x1080?
If you run a modern nVidia driver, you can also add custom display resolutions.. I was able to teach a screen that didn't want to know about 1680x1050 to do just that resolution and it worked out just fine. Just make sure you set it to 60 Hz only.

Also, make sure you boot the PC with the digital connector connected only.. I've encountered various problems when you boot a PC up with an analog monitor, then try to use the digital output.. I never quite got it to work reliably (going the other way round was no problem though).

[BassPig]

The display quality is terrific at 2048x1536 and I can fit all of Adobe Premiere Pro on the screen, with almost enough room to have the mixer open, a preview monitor and the timeline, with only minor overlapping of windows. 1600 would be too cramped to work in.

Regarding the DVI problem, I downloaded the latest nVidia driver, which has improved some things and created new problems (I have gained desktop out to DVI at 1920x1080p, but now Media Player crashes on every interlaced m2t file, so I can only play footage from the Sony HVR-V1U, but not older footage from the Sony Z1U, as all the latter footage causes an application error with the new driver.)

At present, the new driver allows the desktop to display at 1920x1080p out the DVI, and it looks great on the 47" LCD at the front of the studio. However, there is a feature that allows full screen video to play out the DVI port, while the desktop plays on the analog output. It would be perfect, except for one problem: when the video fullscreen feature is used, video does play full screen on the LCD, but... it kicks down to 720P and the video looks slightly pixellated and loses much fine detail.

I can 'cheat' and play the Media Player on the desktop, then send the desktop out to DVI, with fullscreen going to my CRT, and, by hitting ALT Spacebar+M and using arrow keys, I can position the client window so that it fills the LCD. Only thing is the cursor is still visible and it's a PitA to view a clip on the house monitor because of all this extra fiddling around.

I wish the fullscreen out were not kicking down to 720P when the driver is set to send 1080P to the LCD. There MUST be a solution to this.

I can't boot without the primary analog monitor, as the LCD is 35' away and I can't see it from where the workstation is. This setup is intended to allow us to play HDV footage on a large screen, as we don't presently have HD DVD authoring hardware in place yet.

[BassPig]

There's an additional problem. It's with the playback of interlaced footage from the Sony HDR-Z1U. Media Player either crashes outright, or plays the first second at 30fps, then drops to about 1fps after that.
My prior driver could play these clips smoothly and without hesitation or crashing. Seems the latest nVidia driver is very unstable with interlaced HDV footage. No problems playing footage from the HVR-V1U however, as that's progressive 1080 footage and apparently doesn't trigger whatever bug is in this new driver.

[foxyshadis]

It's likely they changed something in the hardware deinterlacing, didn't test it on your card, and now it totally bails on the new operation. Does nVidia control panel allow you to change or disable the deinterlacing? (My recent experience is only with ATI and nVidia's crippled laptop vista drivers.)

[BassPig]

No, I have not found any option to disable interlacing. It totally ruins the usefulness of the system. Gain a big screen, lose the ability to play half the video inventory.

Still haven't found any way to get the "full screen" video to honor the 1080P resolution settings.

VisionTek tech support responded, only to tell me that the VisionTek that made the GeForce TI4600 went out of business 2-3 years ago and they only deal in ATI Radeon cards now. So it's back to nVidia again, to see if they have any answers.

This card is only a 3 years old for Chrissakes.. it's not like a ten-year-old card. I still have my TARGA32 that I bought in 1986 for $4995.00. THAT is old. :)

[BassPig]

Hey, you want to hear something ironic?

I discovered how to get the full screen video output to run in 1080P. Simply play a 480i video clip! LoL. Play a 1080P clip and the output resolution drops to 720P. Play standard def video and it plays at a perfect 1080P.

Only problem is that is the complete OPPOSITE of what I need. I need 1080P clips to play at 1080P. I don't need 1080P to play 480i clips! Argghhhh!

[Blue_MiSfit]

Bummer. I hate to say it, but you may have to get a new video card to get the functionality you want.

As foxyshadis mentioned, they probably made some improvements to the hardware deinterlacing stuff with the new drivers, and didn't test it on your old GeForce4 card.

I know 3 years doesnt seem like long, but in the video card world, 1 year is a long time. 3 years is several eternities :)

Hopefully you can get things running, but you might have to go out and get a new card... And that's no good since you have an AGP card (surely). Maybe a GeForce 7300 is available in AGP. Not sure...

You must have one BOSS CRT to be able to handle that resolution. Mine can do it, but my eyes scream in protest even at 1080p, mostly due to the fact that it's an old CRT and needs a tune-up (or replacement)

~MiSfit

[Doom9]

Hasn't the GeForce4 series been around for longer than 3 years? IIRC, 3 years ago I was already beyond the 4600 whatnot I used to have. And there's one major thing here: When they designed the card - 1080p never was an issue. I'd look at a cheap card with a dual link DVI.. they can't claim they never heard about 1080p with cards that can handle a resolution of 2560x1600 via DVI :)

I'm curious about that full screen feature.. if I play anything in a media player, I double click in the video and I have fullscreen.. the drivers have nothing to do with it, and if there's any deinterlacing, it comes from the media player. Or is this a dual screen thingie? When I got my 30 incher, they both ran at the same resolution by default.. so if I set the resolution to 1920x1080 and went fullscreen, I got the proper unscaled output on my secondary screen (23" 1920x1080 screen), and scaled output on my primary.

[foxyshadis]

Yeah, 5 years since release.

7x AGP cards are easy to find, only passive AGP models are hard to find. (The only tricky business is making sure you have the right AGP voltage, I think. Or is that PCI?)

[BassPig]

I bought mine for a pretty hefty pricetag about 3 years ago. I remember having to twist the salesman's arm to get the price negotiated down about $100 off what they were asking, but I got it. It's been the best, most solid-running graphics card I've owned to date.

An upgrade is in the discussion phase--scheduled for late 2009--and will include a whole new workstation, new versions of all the authoring apps, etc. The budget will be around $48,000 for hardware and software, not including three new XDCams from Sony. But in the meantime, I have to get the most mileage out of what we have now. That card and a Gigabyte GA-7DXR+ based workstation.

What kills me about this problem is that the hardware can obviously output 1080P through DVI, and I can "cheat" by playing videos on the desktop and positioning the player window so that the client area matches up exactly with the boundaries of the external LCD panel, but it's a complicated process and the mouse cursor is still in the picture.

If the full screen video on secondary (or primary) monitor is enabled, the output will be 1080P when 480i source material is played. It drops to 720P when 1080P source is playing, which is completely counter productive.

AGP bus on the 7DXR+ is adjustable voltage. But only a little bit on either side of 1.7v, as I recall. Changing out the card with a used, but newer model may raise a whole bunch of stability/compatibility issues. This system is incredibly stable with the drivers from 3 years ago. I edited a lengthy multicamera shoot with 14 channels of sound in Premiere Pro, all in all about 105 hours of editing. The system had not been rebooted since early January and all that editing went without so much as the slightest hiccup, program error or crash of any sort. That stability makes for a high degree of on-time delivery for clients, as it's fairly predictable that a project will process without technical delays. It's a mature, well-worn workflow/hardware combination. Messing with this new driver, I fear, has disturbed a delicate balance.

But down the road a bit, big changes are coming, pending financing and demonstrating profitability in the present. I'd just like to solve this ridiculous little problem, as it seems a solution ought to be near at hand.

[Blue_MiSfit]

BassPig,

It sounds like you run a professional facility and have a very good system in place. It sounds like you've got a big time upgrade coming soon. Lucky you! I know you're not too excited about the prospect of changing a previously working setup, but here's the way I see it.

1) Your system was working well without having your 1080p display.

2) Introducing the 1080p display adds a requirement to your system - full screen 1080p video, while maintaining a full desktop on your analog connection. This feature is available with your new driver, but it has serious issues as you have described

3) Adding the functionality you want with the video card and driver you have simply isn't working right. This is likely because nVidia doesn't care about your GeForce4, and has optimized all their drivers for the 6/7/8 series.

So the way I see it, what you want simply isn't possible (unless theres some hidden workaround) with your hardware.

Adding a new AGP card is not a big deal, at all. I know you have some concerns about stability, but I think they may be unfounded. Yes you are introducing a new piece of hardware to your system that may create conflicts, but you will not run into voltage issues that's for sure. Your system has a universal AGP Pro slot, which signals at 1.5v standard, which is in spec for an AGP 8x/4x card.

Here (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121064) is a good replacement for you. It's a GeForce 7600gs, which will have much better driver support. It's passively cooled, with 256mb, VGA, DVI, and Component HD out. It's also dirt cheap.

Ideal scenario - you get the card, and it fixes your problem.

Worst case scenario - you get the card, it doesnt work, and you end up using your old card (with the old driver, should newer drivers introduce stability problems) until you build a whole new system.

I think it's a small price to pay. You would also have the option of connecting your HDTV with Component, which is a good alternate route to explore should DVI fail.

Good luck, let us know how things go.

~MiSfit

[BassPig]

Thank you for your video card suggestion, MiSfit.
I found this on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-NVidia-GeForce-7600GS-SLI-512Mb-PCI-E-16x-7600-512_W0QQitemZ160109088356QQihZ006QQcategoryZ40161QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Although it has more memory, would this be the card you're talking about?

I think it's a reasonable plan and we can fund this from petty cash without a PO.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Nope, that's a PCI Express card (you don't have a PCIe slot). It's also actively cooled (fan) which means it may add noise to your environment, which I despise. 512mb of ram vs 256 is totally moot unless you are doing a lot of stuff that can actually use your 3d acceleration. Anything over 64mb is enough to run both your displays with ease. Beyond that is only useful for gaming or other 3d tasks (some advanced after effects rendering can use this capability as well).

Also, it's eBay, which as we all know is a shoot in the dark regarding warranties and customer service. I know commercial advertising isnt allowed on Doom9, but as a computer enthusiast with years of experience, I really have to say that newegg is one of the best companies to do business with on the web for computer equipment. Just look at their resellerratings (http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Newegg) score

If you still want to buy on eBay, just make sure you get an AGP card, not a PCI-E card.

Good luck!
~MiSfit

[Doom9]

I doubt they ever made the 4600 TI without a fan :) Mine made a lot of noise.

[BassPig]

I found a bunch of these cards on eBay, ranging from $160 to around $90 "buy it now" pricing. But most either mentioned SLI or PCI-E.

I need an "old-fashioned" AGP bus card. Is that model really available in several flavors of bus architecture?

PS: I'm glad I did NOT use the buy it now on that item! Almost blundered on that.


I think THIS one might be what works with the 7DXR+:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=004&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=140111491574&rd=1&rd=1

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yes it is available for sure. Just make sure it says AGP. SLI always refers to PCI-Express cards (linked together for faster performance).

They may be hard to find.

Again, it may be easier to look on a real e-retailer that has a category search engine. Keep in mind that most eBay items won't include the component video breakout cable.

~MiSfit

[Doom9]

I second Blue_MiSfit's suggestion to shop from a retailer.. the card he linked to is a good solution and you get the full warranty. I'd even go for a local retailer where you have somebody to scream at in person if something doesn't work out the way you planned.

[BassPig]

I think you're both right. The Newegg link is probably a good bet. They have a liberal return policy, so if the card doesn't get along with the motherboard, no problem.

The extra 256MB wouldn't hurt, in the case of the other cards I mentioned, because I do quite a bit of work in Maya, when the system isn't being used to edit video. But even 256 is more than the 128 in there now with the GF4.

Thanks for the help!


PS: My temporary workaround solution for playing video out to the LCD is to lock the desktop scrolling a little off from upper left corner, and set the media player window position so it fills the LCD completely with its client area. Works great for progressive scanned footage, like from the HVR-V1U, but still can't play the Z1U footage. I turned off the full screen video playback feature and turned off overlays, so that I get an exact clone of the desktop on both displays.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Good decision :)

Let us know if everything works out. I think it will.

~MiSfit