Hi i am installing Xubuntu/Bodhi Linux for older machines that have the following GPUs
#1 HD 2400 Pro (AMD/ATI) VGA/DVI #2 GF 9600GT (Nvidia) dual DVI
Neither of the 2 have HDMI on them but both have a S-Video to component port (and respective “TV breakout” cables still around!) I also learnt that ATI/Nvidia ancient GPUs have unique cables and one won’t work on the other! gasps
The only display around currently only has HDMI ports and a component input so i tried the S-Video to component adapters and wow after so many years i am gob smacked they actually work and display with correct colours on the TV!
Thing is the resolution is so low i am struggling to install the above linux distros! How do i get the resolution high enough so that the experience would be better? Is S-Video to component so ancient that this is not in the kernel or something anymore? Do i need to boot the installer in some special mode then edit some config file or something?? Feel free to dumb it down as am a linux newbie haha
It is not just the video card output, but also the TV input. If the display is LCD digital then handling an analog input requires a AD converter stage and displays often cheap out. It can probably only handle 720i at best.
The card output might be limited similarly.
You say the cards have DVI. You should be able to use a DVI to HDMI converter. You might have to buy one if there isn’t one laying around. Or find a recycler or someone else selling used monitors cheap and get one with a DVI input. I bet you can get it for $30. Probably the same price as a DVI to HDMI converter.
I’ve had good luck with cheap DVI-HDMI cables. I didn’t realize at first that they also work with sound, although you may need to switch output devices for it to work. I originally got one for a Raspberry Pi to connect to a DVI monitor input, but it works both ways.
Oh wow had no idea one could transmit audio over DVI?
one link i searched says
“If you want to transmit audio over DVI, you’ll need to use a special DVI-to-HDMI cable Assuming your computer’s video card supports HDMI audio via DVI, this cable will allow you to transmit both video and audio using a single cable. The good news is that most modern video cards support this feature. If you have an older video card, however, you may have to upgrade it.”
Hmm so is the HD 2400 Pro and 9600GT able to transmit audio via a DVI-to HDMI adapter then i wonder?
It works on my HD 4870, I haven’t tried it on anything older. It comes up as one of the audio devices along with analog and Bluetooth. It shocked me too as I had been using it the other way, then one day used it to connect a PC to a TV and started hearing sound out of nowhere.