Re: How to change start up screen resolution for X?

["nate" <debian-user@aphroland.org>]

Ross Boylan said:
> I am looking for a way to get hardware accelerated 3d performance out of
> my video card.  For reasons detailed below, this seems to come down to the
> need to start X in a lower resolution and depth than I
> customarily use.  I am looking for a good way to do that, or the
> encouraging news that some other approach is possible.


put the mode you wish to use on startup as the first mode. e.g. for my
system I use 1600x1200 as my primary modeline, and my
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4 has:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "Nvidia Geforce3"
    Monitor     "Viewsonic PF790"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1024x768"
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1024x768"
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768"
    EndSubsection
EndSection


you should be able to start multiple X servers by doing something like
this on the command line

startx -- :1

though, last time I tried I couldn't figure out a good way to specify
a resolution to be used along with color depth on the command line if
I wanted it in a different resolution, so my workaround was to rename my
XF86Config-4 after I started my initial X server for the 2nd one to load,
then rename it back(if needed). I've only tried this once or twice, wasn't
real useful to me. Changing out of an X virtual terminal is sometimes
dangerous(can cause video hardware to hang on some systems).

nate