Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4020 mails)

[Jim Sabatke <jsabatke@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm confused.  While I know that is no surprise to many of you, there is 
probably good reason this time.  I want to get an external monitor for 
my HP laptop for two reasons:  preserving the existing LCD monitor on 
the lappy, and providing a larger high-resolution area for doing photo 
editing.  I haven't looked at specs for new hardware in years, and am 
surprised at how litttle information is presented, or I should say, how 
little useful information is buried in the volumes of marketting info on 
the OEMs' web sites.

For example, my HP has an Nvidia GeForce FX Go5700 graphics card.  It's 
been ages since I've looked at graphics cards specs to choose a 
compatible monitor and there always used to be some sort of a listing of 
frequencies and resolutions the card supported.  I can't find that for 
this card.  I do see some references to frequencies, but nothing that 
shows me what monitors it will work with, and the only resolution is the 
ubiquitous "native resolution" numbers that seem to indicate what the 
cards and monitors are comfortable running at.

I've looked at tons of sites for spec's, downloaded lots of PDF files, 
visited technical review sites, and none of the information gives me any 
useful information for chosing a monitor.  Has the method of specifying 
compatibility changed in the past few years, or does on just make a 
guess, build a configuration and hope for the best?

Does anyone know if this card will support 1600 x 1200 monitors, or even 
more horizontal resolution in wide-screen monitors?  Or better yet, 
point me to a man page where I can read and understand this black magic.

Thanks,

Jim