Xorg.conf: can't configure resolution lower than 1152x864

Question

Hi,
I just installed Arch (base system + X11 + XFCE + handful of apps) on five computers in our public library. One of the machines has an ATI graphic card:
[biblio@mediatheque1:~] $ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)
Every machine has a 17'' flatscreen monitor. Usually, I configure xorg.conf to use a resolution of 1024x768. Some of the users here are older and often visually impaired, and I generally avoid using resolutions higher than this on this type of monitor. But I can't seem to configure it on my ATI card. Ah, yes: I'm using the open source xf86-video-ati driver. And here's the relevant bits from xorg.conf:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1152x864"
EndSubSection
EndSection
When I specify 1024x768 and restart X, the resolution won't change. So I leave it at that, since when I specify nothing, it looks like it want to default to something even higher, my guess is 1280x1024, which is barely legible on a 17'' monitor.
I had a similar problem on the other machines, using recent Intel cards. I found a workaround, in that I replaced the recent xf86-video-intel drivers by the older xf86-video-i810 driver. Only the latter seemed to accept the 1024x768 resolution.
Any suggestions for this?

Answer 1

I'll answer this myself. After leafing through my logfiles, I found the following solution. Add this line to the Display SubSection:
Virtual 1024 768
Last edited by kikinovak (2008-04-15 08:25:27)