Banding in images

[Oceanwatcher]

Is there a way to check what bitdepth my graphicscard and monitor is using? I am getting banding in images and this is usually because the bitdepth is set too low (ie. not 32 bit).

I tried to find the control for this and was unable to do so.

One thing - I have not been able to run the updates for 9.04 yet. I have a plain alpha6 install. Will run the update during the night as the lines here are very slow.

[hteles]

Re: Banding in images

I think this should do the trick!

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log |grep bpp

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Banding in images

Can you explain what the command do?

What I am looking for is an application with a nice little gui that allow me to control various aspects regarding my graphics card and monitor. Anyone know where I can find it? I am pretty sure it has to be here somewhere, just can not figure out where it is... And I even have my reading glasses on!

[hteles]

Re: Banding in images

Hi,

what it does is outputting the Xorg Log file and after that iy filters the results to just show the lines with "bpp" (bits per pixel) on the file.

I surely can't remember anyone >

But if you use the proprietary drivers for Nvidia or Ati cards they both have control panels that show you all info including memory timings, GPU clocking, temperatures, and so on.

Maybe someone can help you.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Banding in images

Thx. Maybe I should try to enable the nVidia driver again. I ran an update last night, so it might work now :-)

Here is the output of the command you suggested:

"Default Screen" for depth/fbbpp 24/32
[ 0.556019] (==) NV(0): Depth 24, [ 0.556032] (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[ 0.605822] (--) Depth 24 pixmap format is 32 bpp


I see a lot of 24 here. Can it be that this is what causing the banding? Normally this is what you get when the bitdepth is below 32 on other systems. But I have no idea on Kubuntu. Never seen this before.

[flarson]

Re: Banding in images

This si X, not KDE. All linux systems will be the same in this regard. You are running the nv driver from X which has no hardware acceleration or direct rendering. you should indeed install the proprietary drive.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Banding in images

After trying several times, and with rebboting between the failures, I give up on this for now.

This is the message I get:

Sorry, the Jockey backend crashed. Please file a bug at: https://launchpad.net/jockey/+filebug Trying to recover by restarting backend.

I have no idea about the horses that this system rides, but I will try to file the bug :-)

Bug filed. Let us hope I can find a way to get the drivers installed.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Banding in images

Weirdest things happen.

After the countless number of failed driver installations (and reboots) yesterday, I booted my laptop this morning to find nVidia driver 180 activated! Not only that, but it had activated desktop effects. This I found out when I started Twhirl and tried to restore it from the sys tray. I finally managed to restart the laptop and then went straight to turn off desktop effects. Now things are semi normal.

I can not tell yet if the images look better. The room I am sitting in is too bright. It is easier to see in the evening. But I can definitely tell that I have a font that is bigger than the one I had yesterday. And in Firefox, it looks really horrible. Here, the font is not only bigger, it is also bold (for buttons). If anyone know how to fix that, I am all ears. I have looked in settings, changed a couple of things, rebooted... Maybe it will be ok tomorrow :-D Seem like this laptop likes to sleep on things!