nVidia Graphics Card - Increase/Update Max Resolution

[williamtylerast]

Alright, so here's my problem. I have an nVidia GeForce FX 5200. When I first loaded Linux 13 Maya onto this desktop, the max resolution was 1080x740. However, I am currently using a 26 inch LCD HDTV as my monitor, so that resolution did not suffice. My first mission was to simply update my driver, as I assumed if I did so, I would be able to increase my resolution size. To summarize, I tried to manually install the driver a few times to no avail. I followed several guides and they have left me worse off, at a new max resolution of 800x600. Does anyone know how to troubleshoot this?
I simply need the newest nVidia driver installed. I believe it is the Legacy Series 173.14.31 found here.

Please help me reconfigure this resolution issue.

- Tyler

[jimisbell]

I have the same problem with Mint 11 and my nVidia card. When I first put Mint 11 on it worked fine, then after a month or so, something happened and I am down to 800x 600 it I want it to operate correctly. If I use higher resolutions I find that successive windows have to be smaller and smaller in order to "fill" If the window is too large it displays blank. I have to pull in the sides of the window to get it to display. The big symptom is that when I boot, the first thing I see on the screen is a note that it cannot display on this video mode....but then it waits a while and then displays anyway.....as long as I dont open a second window.

If you find the solution to this I would love to know as I am getting ready to go back to Mint 8 which gave me NO TROUBLE.

[HiTechRedneck82]

In Mint 13, try clicking on the Menu, Preferences, Additional Drivers.

It may inform you that you don't have the proprietary driver for NVidia installed. Trying enabling that and see if it helps.

Also, I have used XRandR in the past to scale the screen to kind of give the illusion of higher resolution, it worked for me on a netbook a few years ago. Worth a shot.

[jimisbell]

I tried Mint 8 and found that it configures the monitor at high resolution and with a refresh rate of 65hz. But when I try Mint 11 it will only give me a refresh rate of 51hz so THAT seems to be the problem.

I think I will go back to Mint 8 since it works.

[williamtylerast]

So, I went through some additional steps to try a different way of manually installing the most recent driver and it kicked my resolution to 640x320. After that, I tried restoring the original driver I had when I first installed Maya and then it couldn't find any driver and wouldn't boot. I was frustrated, so I reinstalled Linux 13 and now we're back to square 1 - 1080x740. It's decent, but I would still prefer to have a higher resolution just for the aspect ratio of the windows.

I'm going to look at that xrandr bit mentioned above, thanks for the tip.

Under "Additional Drivers" I get no warnings. It displays that I have no proprietary drivers and that I need no updates.

Anyone else have any solutions?