Cursed be ye, Evil TwinView

[TheFr00n]

Hi there
So I have this nasty TwinView problem that I'm hoping someone can help me with. It goes like this:

Once upon a time I ran Mandrake 9.1 with a Geforce Ti4200. The world was a happy place, and TwinView worked fine.
Then I upgraded to 9.2, rc2, and things haven't been quite the same since.
X hates me. When I startx, I get a rude message about, screens found, but no workable configurations. I figured this had to do with MetaModes, so I tried again at a slightly lower resolution. No dice.
If I include a MetaMode that allows one monitor to be NULL, I have no problem: X will start. It doesn't seem to matter which monitor I set to NULL, just so long as one is off.

Has anybody else come across something like this?
I am using the latest NVIDIA drivers (to my knowledge, heads over to nvidia.com to check ...)

[bwkaz]

After a failed attempt, what's in /var/log/XFree86.0.log?

"Screens found, but none have a usable configuration" is indicative of some other kind of problem (which will be detailed in the log file).

[TheFr00n]

Wow.
There is certainly *something* wrong.
What confuses me is that I am using the same TwinView settings that I used to with Mandrake 9.1. Is there something about the new version of X that I don't know, or something?

Anyhoo.

The XFree86.0.log file was a mine of terror and dire warnings. It reminded me a lot of using Windows 95 back in the day, except it was lacking that nasty undertone of YOU did something wrong and your computer will now explode!

So, what it says a lot of is things like: (and this just a sampling)

(II) NVIDIA(0): Not using default mode "1024x768" (bad mode clock/interlace/doublescan)
(II) NVIDIA(0): Not using default mode "1024x768" (hsync out of range)

Another thing it likes to say is something like:
(II) NVIDIA(0): Not using default mode "1152x864" (width too large for virtual size)

But this, I believe, is the kicker:

(WW) NVIDIA(0): Mode "1024x768,1024x768" is larger than virtual size 1024 x
(WW) NVIDIA(0): 768; discarding mode

Which leaves it defaulting to the remaining 1024x786,NULL mode: which is not a totally bad thing because it means I can type these nice appeals for help :D

Any ideas?

[bwkaz]

If you're using TwinView, you probably need to set your Virtual setting up (in your Screen section) to be the size of the entire TwinView'ed area. In your case, use "Virtual 2048 768".

Or, just disable using a Virtual entirely, by deleting (or commenting out) the line, and using "ViewPort 0 0" (if it's not there already).

Virtual gives the size of the entire virtual display. ViewPort gives the initial coordinates of the top-left corner.

Most of those "Not using default mode XxY" messages are actually harmless. ;)

[TheFr00n]

AH!
It's working now! your suggestion about the virtual size thingy was spot on.

Thankyou bwkaz :)

[highspl]

had a similar problem here, with a small change to the fix.....

XF86Config-4 was choking at this line:
Option "MetaModes" "1152x768, 1152x768; 1024x768,1024x768"

didn't like having two numbers in there with the comma:
1152x768, 1152x768

i commented out every Display subsection of screen and added this subsection:

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1152x768" "1152x768"
EndSubsection

now everybody is happy.