Soft15khz + Windows7 + HD5770 can works

[Rochabian]

Hello

I have long been trying to run a HD5770 with Groovymame and Powerstrip.
I manage to get customs resolutions with EDID override using CRU tool:


http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU


The problem is that we can add only four non-standard resolutions on EDID. This is not enough to have a perfect screen with MAME.


Powerstrip is able to change the timings with Groovymame but you still to have some resolution created at least for the different heights.


Is EDID dongle can do something for me, or is it useless (it seems unnecessary for ATI cards).


Can we add more modes in the EDID override or can EDID dongle does?


By installing soft 15kHz, I can see all the added resolutions but when I try them, only those in the EDID override works, others use resolution nearby.


This is definitely a EDID problem that prevents to have all the resolutions.


Can This Be hacked?

[Rochabian]

So i think it's driver related problem. Whenever you untick "use edid" in CCC, it search in EDID table if the resolution exists
If the resolution is found in EDID, then you can switch to it without problem (for example i can switch to 320x240 if it is set in a custom resolution in EDID Override)
But if the driver can't found the resolution you try to use in EDID, then it stretches to a resolution nearby ( for example if i try to use 640x240 wich is not set in EDID, the resolution is scaled to 640x480)
As far as i know, we can only put 4 detailed timing in a EDID override, so can it be possible to tell the driver to don't use at all EDID table in the driver?

There is surely a registry key in the drivers but i don't have found it at the moment.

Can someone can help me with that

Thanks

[zyx]

i am sure sailorsat will help you, but at the moment he has another project, so
this could take a while ;)

[Rochabian]

Do you mean she has another project ??? ;)

[zyx]

sorry, of course: she :o

[SailorSat]

Mhm... If I remember correctly the HD5xxx series drivers are blocking every timing below 31kHz. So it should be possible to define resolutions at 120Hz and override them with PowerStrip. However I don't know if that works on Seven :)

[Rochabian]

You're right, but resolutions below 31khz works if they are in EDID (or used in a edid override )
If they're not in EDID, there are stretched/scaled to the nearest known resolution

Perhaps some registry keys combination like

DALRULE_ALLOWLOWRESAT60FORDDCCRT
DALRULE_CRTSUPPORTSALLMODES
DALRULE_CUSTOMODSUPPORT

can do the job, but for now i didn't find a combination that works.....

I've asked AMD how to restore this fonction and if there are some registry tweaks for HD5000 and up series...
I don't think i'll have a magic answer from them but who knows......
Wait and see.

[Rochabian]

As expected, i doesn't had an explicit answer from AMD, saying low-res are just not supported by new cards

But they have told me that ALL FirePro have a custom timing feature on XP Vista & Seven, using the AMD Custom Timing Tool.

I don't have a FirePro to test how this works but if someone is interested you can grab it here :

http://cdn.sapphirepgs.com/drivers/AMD%20Custom%20Timing%20Tool.rar

Do you think it uses another registry method or can we use modified FirePro Drivers to allow custom timings ????

PDF included says that the custom timing tool doesn't use EDID at all so perhaps we can do something with it

[SailorSat]

I'll give it a try, once I got another box setup with an Radeon :)
A driver-hack may work - I don't believe the FirePro "chips" do anyting special in "hardware".

[kamilz]

I'll give it a try, once I got another box setup with an Radeon :)
A driver-hack may work - I don't believe the FirePro "chips" do anyting special in "hardware".

You are probably right. I pathced the ATI Custom tool above to get rid of "No Workstation Adapter Found!" error.
Kinda worked, added 640x480i@30Hz, succeed. 768x576i25Hz also succeed but anything below like 384x240@60 not succeed.
And it seems this time error comes from drivers. Drivers certainly doesn't accept low resolutions.

But CRU also works as mentioned above with my ATI 7850 too.
Looking forward to your hacks!

[Rochabian]

Kamilz, Can you share your patched tool ???

I just want to test with HD5770 if it has the same problem

Thanks

[kamilz]

Kamilz, Can you share your patched tool ???

I just want to test with HD5770 if it has the same problem

Thanks

Sure, here it is:



http://www.mediafire.com/download/h3wb4rbb416rcmn/AMDCustomTimingToolZ.rar


Hope that helps.

[Rochabian]

Thanks for this

I'll try that with some registry keys

[Rochabian]

I've played with your patched tool and it's the same for me, not able to set low res, it says "Could not add videomode"
I've try some registry keys to see if the tool will allow low res without success

I've tried :

DALRULE_ALLOWLOWRESAT60FORDDCCRT=1
DALRULE_ALLOWMONITORRANGELIMITMODESCRT=1
DALRULE_CRTSUPPORTSALLMODES=1
DALRULE_CUSTOMODSUPPORT=1
DALRULE_DISABLEMODETIMINGOVERRIDE=1

No success.....

After i've tried to add some "normal" mode like 1280*640 and so on and i've searched where they are stored in the registry but i didn't find them.
As adding the timing modes are done in realtime and can be used just after applying, i didn't know where they can be stored
I've searched if the atikmdag.sys was modified but no
It seems that it restarts the video driver when a new mode is applied, so there is surely a driver limit as you said

[kamilz]

At first I also thought "Could not add videomode" is also this tool's limitation, and I attempt to patch that too.

When I test this 2nd patch, error suppressed but it didn't add video mode. So I traced error to see what's going on.
What I understand is video mode parameters send to driver (what I saw was an external fucntion actually),
then driver returns a status code. The tools checks the status and pops the error if driver refuses the new mode.

I also amazed to see added video mode (like 640x480) available immediately.
Since this is "not available" our HD serie cards, it seems ATI doesn't want to people play with video modes much.

[Rochabian]

The best way should be to find a guy with a FirePro V5800 or up to test if he's able to add low resolution or not, to know if we can use patched FirePro Drivers with HD5000 +

I'll try to ask on the FirePro forum

[Rochabian]

I've asked AMD support many times about this problem and finally get a good answer (FirePro forums are quite dead)
The AMD tech has personnaly added 320x240@60 with AMD Custom Timing Tool with a FirePro and FirePro driver and it works, modeline is accepted

So yes there is surely a way to patch those drivers to use with common AMD cards

Here is his last answer :

Dear Fabien;
I do not have a monitor that supports 320x240 , but I tested the custom timing in the AMD Catalyst Control Center and I was able to add it without any issue.
I also asked one of my colleagues and he confirmed that it should work as long as the display in use support the resolution that you intend to use.
Thank you
Ali Danane

Great news! Just to found how we can do this on common cards ;)

[kamilz]

Awesome job brother. This is definitely a good news. Thanks for your effort.