1680 by 1050 in OS9?

[bigskyrecording]

Hey everybody,
Here's a head scratcher: I just got a new 22" LCD display with an optimum resolution of 1680 by 1050. I'm running OS9 5.2.2, and my current video card seems to skip this resolution (and all the other settings look terrible). What kind of video card will do widescreen, and run in OS9.
Upgrading to OSX is not an option for me...
Thanks in advance!

 

[Zoolook]

Hey everybody,
Here's a head scratcher: I just got a new 22" LCD display with an optimum resolution of 1680 by 1050. I'm running OS9 5.2.2, and my current video card seems to skip this resolution (and all the other settings look terrible). What kind of video card will do widescreen, and run in OS9.
Upgrading to OSX is not an option for me...
Thanks in advance!

I suggest an AGP Radeon 8500 (I assume you have an AGP slot?), I know the 9xxx series dropped support for OS 9 officially, although it is possible there are hacked drivers around.

I think nVidia support is even worse.

For Radeon 8500 drivers, go here

http://www.atitech.com/support/drivers/mac/macos-october-2002-update.html

An 8500 will cost $40 on eBay and IMO is a pretty decent card.

 

[bigskyrecording]

Thanks for the reply,
According to ATI/AMD,
That card does not support 1680x1050. Is there a driver update that makes that possible? Or perhaps a different version of the 8500?

 

[Zoolook]

Thanks for the reply,
According to ATI/AMD,
That card does not support 1680x1050. Is there a driver update that makes that possible? Or perhaps a different version of the 8500?

http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeon

According to this, it does.

Case: wide screen resolution

I'm not too sure where to include this information, so I'll leave it here. Please feel free to move/copy it somewhere else if it belongs to a more relevant web page/site.

My computer has an ATI Radeon 8500 LE video card and had a CRT monitor plugged into it, a ViewSonic GS790. I was running Fedora Core 4 at full 1600x1200 resolution when I bought my first flat panel, a Samsung SyncMaster 205BW (rather new at the time of writing, August 22th 2006). So recent that I couldn't make it display at its native resolution on my own with the help of Google, that is 1680x1050. After multiple attempts, I decided to head over #xorg on irc.freenode.net and ask for help. The much friendly people there made it work in a few minutes. So I'm here editing this page on my 205BW in 1680x1050.

So here are a few facts:

* The ATI Radeon 8500 LE does support 1680x1050.
* The monitor is plugged with its analog connector and it works fine.
* The monitor can even display at 1920x1440, though it wasn't the image I could get.
* X.org 6.8.2 (the version I have currently installed) supports the resolution.

Now I realise that's down to some nifty Linux guys, but the point is in OpenGL rendering, it's possible in the firmware so should be possible in OS X. You may need to get hold of unofficial drivers - ask about on any ATI forums.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

You shouldn't be pushing that resolution in OS9. It will look dismal even if it displays. With that said, an 8500 *theoretically* will display 1680x1050.

 

[smurfy]

OS9 was released years before widescreen computer monitors became widespread.

OS X 10.3 was I believe the first OS to natively support widescreen (even Windows Vista has problems).

So even if you do get it to display, it will likely act like Windows on a Mac does and look obviously stretched.

This doesn't really help, I'm just saying that OS 9 won't exactly look beautiful in widescreen.