Dual monitor, with a low resolution projector

Question

I need to show a presentaion to a conference tomorrow. Today I tryed my Ubuntu 10.04 with the projector. My notebook has a resolution of 1440x960, the projector seems to have a really lower resolution. However, thanks to nvidia-settings I configured my video card (a nvidia 9800), it works with other display, but not with the projector. I found the projector, configured as Twin-view, resolution Auto and pressed on Apply, then "Save to x Configuration". On projector is visualized just a quarter of my notebook display. I tryed also to reduce my resolution and to change the resolution of projector, but I obtained no better results. How can I Solve it? On windows all goes well, but I need Ubuntu for personal reasons. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Your problem sounds very similar to mine.

My summary answer is "trial and error" (unfortunately).

My detailed answer below...

I've found hit-and-miss detection of projectors after running 12.04 with Nvidia configured with Twinview.

I run an app called "disper indicator" - see this link for more details:
https://launchpad.net/~nmellegard/+archive/disper-indicator-ppa
(It's not available in the standard repositories).

This helps but is not a silver bullet due (I believe) to the underlying nvidia drivers.

This app allows me to switch easily between monitors, or to a "clone" setup. "Clone" is particularly useful for me as I'm a project manager and I often need to share my screen. I also use a web conferencing service who's linux client only works when sharing a single screen.

Anyway... enough of my use case...

My steps are:

1. Connect projector
2. Select Disper->Monitor Setup
   • 2a. I then select one of the dual screen options. I don't go straight to clone. This very often ends up locking up the screen; forcing me to reboot.
3. If this doesn't work (sometimes my laptop shows it's screen, but not the projector), I then open up "nvidia-settings" and just try setting different screen resolutions on the projector screen until it works. For some reason the auto-detect capability doesn't seem to work too well
4. Once I have a working dual screen config, I select "clone"
5. If this doesn't work - there are two failure modes:
   1. Black screen - hang - requires reboot
   2. main screen remains the same, projector doesn't display anything.
6. Regardless of the failure mode, the solution is to get to dual screen again, go to nvidia settings again and manually set the resolution to be the same.
7. Sometimes the setting of resoution doesn't work, and I just select a different resolution, hit apply, then select the one I wanted again and hit apply. Then it usually works.
8. Once the screen resolutions are correct, I hit clone, and mostly it works.

All convoluted I know - but obviously the drivers are buggy. Very frustrating.

Answer 2

Check Monitor settings under the gear icon (top right of your screen). There you can change resolutions for both screens individually. Choose one and then adjust settings, choose the other and do the same.