G4 / Samsung 206BW LCD : stretched only, non extended not working

Question

Hi,
I have a Samsung Syncmaster 206BW (22" wide, 1680*1050 native resolution) plugged on my MDD G4 with DVI (not working with VGA because the Radeon 9000 Pro only manages 4/3 modes in analog).
In the monitors panel settings in OSX (Tiger and Leopard) i see two modes for some resolutions : for example 1024*768 and 1024*768 (extended). However with the two modes the image is stretched to fit the screen. The first (not extented) should add black pixels to around the centered image, and it does'nt work.
So i can't use games in 1024*768 or other 4/3 low res (my G4 can't use the native resolution for games, too much resource heavy).
I tried turning on the monitor after the mac but it is the same, tu non extended mode is managed the same way as the extended mode (stretched).
Is there an utility for mac (as Catalyst Control Center on PCs) to force the monitor to accept unstretched mode ? There isn't any mode setting on the LCD settings. Some say this is a known problem with Samsung LCDs.
Should i return it and buy another LCD ? It this the same with Apple LCD displays ?
I use a Belkin 3m DVI-D wire on both sides.
Thank by advance.

Answer 1

Hi,
I can see and use the 1680*1050, in fact this is the only resolution mode that works ok since start. My problem is that i can't play any game in that resolution (99% mac games don't support wide, and even if this would work it would be recent games, and my Radeon 9000 Pro wouldn't support them - or it would be unplayable due to the high resolution leading to very poor fps).
I can't see the ratio settigns in DisplayConfigX (should be here as in the utility screenshot on the site), the only settings i can use are porch values and "Synchronisation" instead of "Extended" ("Manual" is not available). There is very few documentation for that utility and settings calculations seem very complex.
I see that on Windows users have to use Catalyst Control Center to switch from wide aspect to 4/3 aspect (that is 4/3 centered image with black areas surrounding it). This is the only way to play old games, or recent games with low resolution, and with correct aspect (for now the image is stretched to fit the whole screen, so not proportionnally, not 4/3).
Some say that the graphic card driver manages to add black pixels around the centered image in the pixels map sent through DVI to the screen, when non extended mode is selected. It seems there is a problem in OSX, or in the Radeon 9000 Pro driver, or in the card itself.
Can i be assured the problem can be solved from the computer side ? In the other cas i must return the LCD to the store in less than two weeks... but they don't have interesting 19" LCD to replace it (stretching would lead at least to a correct ration from 1204*768 to 1280*1024, and the stretching is not so bad on the Samsung, ration problem appart).
Should i add a new entry through DisplayConfigX : 1024*768 Synchronisation in addition to the 1024*768 Extended, to see if that work ?
Where did OSX retrieve the second mode, 1024*768 (that is non extended), that doesn't work (same result as 1024*768 (Extended)) ? I saw somewhere that there is a display config system file in System/Library (the one DisplayConfigX edits to add/modify listed modes, and the one we must delete if the screen doesn't work after making settings - in Single user mode or with an other screen, my old CRT for example).
Message was edited by: cjed0
Message was edited by: cjed0