ATI Mobility M4 - do widescreen drivers exist?

The title says it all. My laptop has an ATI M4 and I now got a WS LCD monitor. I know in the future I will have a vid card which will work with this monitor but if there's a driver for my current laptop and video, it would be nice to have.

Any clues?

 

Hi stelliger,

I might only expect it to be a matter of selecting a wide screen resolution. Wide screen is the ratio 16:9, standard resolutions are 4:3, so 800 X 600 or 1024 X 768. Try setting a 16:9 ratio, eg., 1280 X 720.

See how the monitor is listed/described. It might run on Plug and Play drivers or it might run on specialized drivers. If it is described as a "Default Monitor" it does not have the correct drivers installed.

Matt

 

Hi and thanks for the response.

Naturally I tried to set to a 16:9 aspect resolution but there were none from which to choose. I didn't find any place to SELECT this ratio otherwise.

As for the monitor drivers; it's "plug and play" monitor. I haven't found any monitor drivers online yet (I bought it open box without cables or cd). It's the Westy lcm22-w2. Oddly, the DDC info, despite showing the correct NAME of the monitor, didn't show the correct rez (showed max 1280x1024 while the native max is 1680x1050). I guess that could be a result of the driver limitations or card limitations.

I have a GeForce4 64MB card on the way so hopefully that will handle anything I need but it would be nice to use the widescreen until that comes in (AND - I get a chance to INSTALL it LOL).

 

Can you stretch a jpeg graphic to fill the monitor as your desktop? If so, you can run normal size windows side by side. (use display manager in control panel and in the desktop tab under position, choose stretch.)

 

It may not be so much the drivers as the capabilities of the graphics card.

Have you looked thoroughly in Display Properties -> Settings -> (select the display, it should be number 2) -> Advanced -> Adapter and Monitor tabs. You could try setting lower colours (16bit) and a minimal refresh rate which may allow more options for adjusting the resolution. I very much doubt you will get near 1280 X 1024, it sounds far too high for that graphics card and if you were able to set that level, you would be punishing that card to run it like that.

I am not sure how much experience you have had with multiple/dual monitors. In Help and Support, there are topics like "To change your screen resolution when using multiple monitors" and "How to configure and use multiple monitors in Windows XP" (Knowledge Base).

Matt

 

Mattman, thanks for the thoughts.

I agree it might be the limitations of the card; I was just wondering if the card WOULD have the capabilities to run SOME 16:9 modes. I have little experience with running widescreen or dual monitors, though I'd like to learn. The only dual monitors I've run have been when I've hooked up an external monitor to a laptop and set appropriate modes for each.

Anyway, I typically run 1400x1050 on my laptop screen - partly because the fonts look TERRIBLE if I try to run at lower resolutions. It runs OK, even if a little slow at times. Obviously, a widescree rez would be possible with the number of pixels but the card may just not have been designed for it.

I have a newer card already here but I'm not sure when I'll have the time to put it in (I actually am awaiting a newer, better MB too for my OTHER laptop case - replacing a Dell C800 MB which might be dead with a C840 tested MB). I will probably put the better card in THAT system and build it from the ground up per se. I also, however, got a deal on a 128MB Readon PCI-E card which I'm considering putting in my docking station. I don't know what would be preferable - to run a semi-powerful laptop card internally or a more-powerful PCI-E card in the dock. I guess I will experiment. I can always use the PCI-E card in a desktop or sell it.

Anyway... I listed all modes (which include all the different refresh rates and color depths) on the current graphics card and there were NO widescreen modes listed, even tough there were modes up to 1600x1200.

I appreciate the input.


Sparrow, I'm not sure what you mean about stretching the jpg and running 2 windows. Are you referring to once I get the widescreen working?

 

Hi stelliger,
Where I mentioned

It mentions this subject, that (re: laptop graphics) it can depend the drivers supplied by the manufacturer and I suppose the drivers are limited by the capabilities of the graphics hardware. The two places to look for updated drivers are the original supplier (laptop manufacturer) and the chip supplier (ATI), but I expect you have checked both.
When I first installed my Radeon card in my Win XP desktop machine, Windows installed it's version of the drivers from it's own drivers listing. They weren't working correctly. When I went to ATI it said that Windows XP had it's own version of ATI drivers and to use those. I uninstalled the Windows version and installed the version from the drivers disk that came with the card. I have had no problems with them since.
Graphics drivers also depend on having a good set of chipset drivers installed, so if I notice any graphics problems, I always check for updated chipset drivers first.

You talk about fonts (are you using a non-standard type?). Have you tried Clear Type?
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx
Wow, 1400 X 1200, I would expect that you are running the graphics system quite hard.

We are only imagining what is happening on the secondary screen. If the problem is that you have a "square" image on the rectangular shape of the screen, you may be able to select a resolution that is close to the shape of the screen, then use the screen's adjustment controls to increase the height and width towards the sides. The adjustment controls will be listed in the manual/User Guide for the screen.
[That native resolution that you mentioned is actually a ratio of 5:4.]

Matt