Can't get PC to display on TV - now fixed

[Fysh]

Hello,

I've tried just about everything I can think of and I can't seem to get my tv to display anything from the PC.  During the post and boot sequence everything is fine, but when it goes into windows I get a black flickering screen and can't see anything.  The TV worked fine on a fresh install of windows, but kacked when the drivers were updated.  I've tried re-installing the drivers and even removing them but to no avail.  The tv also works fine in safe mode.  I've also tried hooking my PC monitor up as well and going dual screen, so I know the tv is set to a usable resolution, but it still doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas?  I'm all out and I'm starting to get a little frustrated.

I have a dual core AMD system, 2 gigs of ram, geforce 8600 GTS and a sony trinitron tv.  I'm currently using the round s-video type connector on the vid card with the component out that it comes it.  Everything is set to 800x600 at 60hz.

[Mikezilla]

If someone could touch on this, I would appreciate it too. That happens to my rig as well, except it only flickers when it switches out of hyperspin, or going into a game. Once the game is up though, its fine.  It just makes it hard to navigate things on the desktop, or to load hyperspin.

[plemming]

Sounds like you guys need to take notice of the refresh rate and signal mode.  The fact that the bootscreen and all that come up fine means you're definitely missing a trick with your drivers.  I haven't been into nVidia's TV mode in a long while, but just because you've set your desktop to the right settings doesn't mean that's what's being sent to the TV.  Definitely look closer, as there's a lot to play with, including stuff like composite mode, and many other things that my memory fails me on.

[lilshawn]

often you have to enable the output in the video control panel.
  not sayin' you didn't just covering all the bases.

[Fysh]

I've found a couple of other posts on this board for this issue and it normally seems to be drivers.  As it works in safe mode I would tend to thing the output is configured correctly, and it is a driver issue. 

I found one post of a gent saying he used the omega series of nvidia drivers to great success.  Alas they only seem to come in 32 bit flavors for XP and I'm using a pro version of XP64.  He did also mention that using the oldest set of drivers he could find worked as well.  So I'm going to give that a go.  Also wondering if installing the entire Nvidia pack is hindering things as well, so I might just try the drivers and let windows try and handle the output correctly. 

I've played with the hz of the output, that didn't have any effect, and I think for north america it's 60z anyway.  I saw in the custom resolution modes that you could pick between progressive and interlaced.  I know the tv will only handle a 480I signal, but I couldn't get it to let me picked interlaced for a custom res.  The only selectable resolution that was not progressive was 1024x780 or something close to that, and I think it's was too much for the tv to handle, but on choosing it the quality of the fuzz didn't seem to change any. 

I also remember that once I had picked clone screen and I could clearly seen the screen scrolling up and down, it was more like the black static moving up and down, but there was something there. 

Going to try older drivers when I get a chance, probably not until sunday now I would think and I'll report back any change.

Thanks for the ideas.

[ptinolv]

What drivers are you using (nvidia) ? and are you using xp ?

I had a similar problem with the nvidia official driver that could not let me select 480i on the latest drivers. I manage to keep those drivers and solve the problem by plugging a PC screen in dual screen and launching a batch command to run in 480i (i will look for it if you need). I had to solve the overscan issue after.

PS : the batch command calls nvidia APIs that don't work on vista/7

[Fysh]

I'm using the newest Nvidia drivers, 260 I think for XP 64.

Do you have a link to this batch file?

[ptinolv]

So in a .bat file (or in cmd.exe) , you launch:

Code: [Select]

rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg settvformat 1 9
I hope it works for XP 64 (mine is 32 bits). I took this command from the nvidia api manual http://developer.download.nvidia.com/SDK/9.5/Samples/DEMOS/common/src/NvCpl/docs/NVControlPanel_API.pdf

[Fysh]

So I finally had some time to sit down and I got this figured out.  I used an older set of drivers, I think 158.1 or something.  I'm almost sure they were the first series of drivers that would work with the 8 series of cards. 

Once I got those installed I still had the same issue and thought that perhaps this wouldn't work either.   

So I hooked up a second display so I could see what was going on.  Once I got both units recognized there were some different options on the control panel that weren't on the newer series.  One of these was to select what output is being used for the TV and what signal it should be sending.  So I picked the component output and set it to 480i and bingo, it worked like a charm. 

I've still got a few issues, the color looks a little off, little too warm, but that should be fixable with some time playing with the controls.  I also have black bars around the screen, perhaps 1/2" wide.  not a bit deal, but this might be the overscan issue I've heard about, so I'll play with that and see what happens. 

Still it's tons better then before, games boot and work great, don't look too bad either.  Text seems to be fairly readable, but I would like to get it a bit clearer.  I'm sure with some work in Mame and with the TV and video card settings I can get it to work well though.

Thanks for the help

[ptinolv]

If the black bars are a problem of overscan, the nvidia drivers can fix that. The only problem i had is that it wouldn't remember those overscan settings after a reboot (or a change of resolution). If you have this problem let me know.

[Fysh]

I'm not sure if they are an overscan issue or not.  I'm going to play for a bit and see if I can fix them, but to be honest, they don't bother me that much.  It's only using maybe an 1" total of a 27" screen, so I can't see it detracting that much.  I'm more inclined to spend the time to get the FE up and running and get the colors more accurate first. 

Still thanks for the help!