XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO

Eric Steven Raymond

Thyrsus Enterprises

    esr@thyrsus.com
    

This is version 5.0

$Date: 2000/08/22 02:26:20 $

Revision History
Revision 5.021 August 2000Revised by: esr
First DocBook version.

How to compose a mode line for your card/monitor combination under XFree86. The XFree86 distribution now includes good facilities for configuring most standard combinations; this document is mainly useful if you are tuning a custom mode line for a high-performance monitor or very unusual hardware. It may also help you in using kvideogen to generate mode lines, or xvidtune to tweak a standard mode that is not quite right for your monitor.


Table of Contents
1. Disclaimer
2. Introduction
3. Tools for Automatic Computation
4. How Video Displays Work
5. Basic Things to Know about your Display and Adapter
5.1. The monitor sync frequencies
5.2. The monitor's video bandwidth
5.3. The card's dot clock
5.4. What these basic statistics control
6. Interpreting the Basic Specifications
6.1. About Bandwidth
6.2. Sync Frequencies and the Refresh Rate:
7. Tradeoffs in Configuring your System
8. Memory Requirements
9. Computing Frame Sizes
10. Black Magic and Sync Pulses
10.1. Horizontal Sync:
10.2. Vertical Sync:
11. Putting it All Together
12. Overdriving Your Monitor
13. Using Interlaced Modes
14. Questions and Answers
15. Fixing Problems with the Image.
15.1. The image is displaced to the left or right
15.2. The image is displaced up or down
15.3. The image is too large both horizontally and vertically
15.4. The image is too wide (too narrow) horizontally
15.5. The image is too deep (too shallow) vertically
16. Plotting Monitor Capabilities
17. Credits