Boot with TV as primary display

[sTyLeS]

I have a 25" TV that I'm using as my display. I recently hooked it up to my Savage video card with S-video. Game play looks nice.
My question is this...does anyone know how to set the TV as the primary display so that it only boots up with it? Because once it's in my cab I won't have the monitor. Right now it only boots up with the monitor and then I have to enable the TV support. Help please...

[Trenchbroom]

Hmm, never used an S3 card before for TV-out.  ATI's autodetect or you can force the TV as primary in the video display properties.  No way of doing that with the Savage, huh?  Weird.

[Silver]

Just to double check - have you tried rebooting with ONLY the tv attached? Most cards with tv-out will only output to VGA if they detect both a tv and VGA attached at boot. Try setting TV as primary display (sorry - don't know savage drivers), unplug vga, then reboot.

If not - you will probably have better luck on a site geard towards you video card - do a forum search on savages support forum (assuming they have one)

[sTyLeS]

Yes, I did try booting with only the TV attached...nothing. I went ahead and tried the same TV with a GeForce4 video card with S-video with only the TV attached and it worked just fine. So it looks like a Savage video card issue of not auto-detecting the output.
Unfortunately they don't make drivers for this card anymore, and I haven't been able to find a user forum yet.
I guess the good news is that the card was only a couple bucks, so at least I'm not out too much. The bad news is that I now have to find a decent replacement from ATI or nVidia.

Do you guys know if ALL ATI and nVidia TV-out cards auto-detect the display?

Thanks.

[halo13]

I'm pretty sure all the Nvidia cards power up to the tv when its the only display plugged in. I know my old TNT video card did, I don't know anything about ATI's cards though.

[Silver]

Well, don't want to make promises, but I've tested this with both a newer Radeon (9500) and a old All-in-wonder-pro (based the rather dire - for 3D - Rage Pro). Both worked flawlessly just by plugging them into a tv.

Based on this I'd reckon almost any ATI you can lay your hands on (with TV-out) is probably going to solve your problem.

Hope you get it sorted!

[Stingray]

My powerbook has a pretty old (circa 1998) onboard ATi chipset and it autodetects an svid display on bootup. I'd guess that if this older chipset autodetects then all ATi chipsets with svid will. Just a guess though.

-S

[sTyLeS]

Cool, thanks guys. I'm looking on ebay right now. Actually, that's where I picked up my current (not entirely worthwhile) savage vid card for a couple bucks. You get what you pay for. But hopefully I can still get a good deal on an ATI or nVidia card. Thanks for your help.

[ashardin]

FYI Styles I just picked up an old ATI All in Wonder 16MB card for less than $20 off of ebay, it boots directly to s-vid.

[sTyLeS]

Thanks, Ashardin. I was just able to win an auction on eBay as well. Got an nVidia GeForce2MX. It too boots directly to s-vid.
Sounds like ATI and nVidia are sure things. Others are questionable.

[ButeLegz]

Yo, I had exactly the same issue. Bought an S3 Virge GX2 with s-vid at a swap meet for $5 only to find out in order to enable the tv-out you gotta run a dos based program after the computer has booted to your monitor... I found a post on driverguide of a guy who had 'finally' found a driver that enables it through windows (he had the same name as me which was a little weird) but it still has to be done once the computer has booted. Useless for most, if not all MAME applications.