screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games

[swefal]

intel pentium 4 3ghz processor with 1 GB ram and NVidia Gforce 6200, double-mount XP and kubuntu on two hard drives.
i've tried to play both Diablo 2 (from both EXT4 and FAT32) and FreedroidRPG and every time i start each of those games the screen goes into power save mode and gives a very short message that the frequency is "out of range". what's the problem and how can i fix it?

[doctordruidphd]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games + no screen savers

Have you installed the NVIDIA drivers for your video card?

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...4892#msg164892

Also see here for current driver informatin:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122606

Have you set up the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for your card?

Does compositing work?
SystemSettings>Desktop>EnableSpecialEffects

[swefal]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games + no screen savers

yes, i've installed the latest driver, the one which had [recommended] next to it and had the most advanced version number, i don't remember the exact version but it was the latest nvidia driver.
i don't know the first thing in setting up the xorg.conf file but desktop effects and other openGL things work perfectly so the driver must work. i have opensuse on my laptop and the driver there is messed up (ati card) so things that are even remotely related to 3D don't work at all there.

[dibl]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games + no screen savers

the frequency is "out of range". what's the problem and how can i fix it?

That is actually coming from the monitor or LCD. There are a couple of threads on this forum from folks who had that problem -- basically the monitor is giving wrong information to the driver, regarding its vertical and/or horizontal refresh rates. I haven't personally dealt with that, but I believe the solution involves determining what the real capabilities of the specific model of display are, and then inserting a "modeline" into the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to control it.

You might try opening nvidia-settings in root mode, via Alt-F2 "kdesudo nvidia-settings", and on the X Server display configuration tab click the "detect displays" button, then do "Save Configuration to X file" -- it might pick it up that way. Make sure you leave the refresh rate in nvidia-settings set to "auto", unless/until you learn what the display requires.

[swefal]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games + no screen savers

thanks for the quick reply but it didn't help.
the screen says it's a frequency problem indeed but the message appears too briefly for me to write down the given frequencies and the supported ones.

[update]
i checked the monitor and the operational horizontal refresh rate is 80 KHz and the vertical is 75 Hz.

[dibl]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games

And in nvidia-settings you have refresh set to "Auto"?

[swefal]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games

And in nvidia-settings you have refresh set to "Auto"?

the resolution is set to "auto" and therefore the refresh rate is set to "auto" without a possibility to change it (unless i manually set the resolution, which is 1280 x 1024).

[dibl]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games

Does nvidia-settings show you the name/model of the monitor? ( I assume you already tried "Detect Displays" as I wrote above.)

[swefal]

Re: screen shuts down when trying to play 3D games

Does nvidia-settings show you the name/model of the monitor? ( I assume you already tried "Detect Displays" as I wrote above.)

definitely. it recognises it as "KTC L-9005L", which may be possible since it's a swedish "store brand". i thought that might be the problem but the nvidia config won't let me choose a screen on my own so i can't test it.