Add additional resolutions to any monitor that is plugged in.

[Quasmo]

I work for a digital signage company as the product engineer. I have been put in charge of handling the "image" for our platform. We run our software application on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and use Microsoft Deployment Tools to handle our image builds.

In the past we have used VGA cables to run all of our displays. It allows for very long runs ~100ft, for very little cost, and has always been reliable. As we move into digital, we are having to deal with EDID issues more and more, especially with Ultra-wide monitors.

I am looking for a way, either programatically or automatically, to add needed resolutions to a monitor when it is plugged into the system. I have a bit of background in programming, but it is more script based (powershell, javascript, etc.)

Some of our legacy products use a 1360x768 resolution. In the past this has not been an issue as Windows will usually have this as a default resolution when using VGA. The problem now is that when EDID does not specifically have 1360 as a detailed timing. I would like to be able to add an additional EDID block for extra resolutions that we need.

We use a lot of signal extenders, and a LOT of them do not handle EDID very well. This would eliminate this problem as well.

We are going from VGA to HDMI, and one thing I would LOVE to do is put in an EDID block from HDMI that tells the system that the monitor does not support overscan. Not only is it an issue when using AMD video cards, but a lot of monitors will automatically adjust their displays to overscan automatically. It's just a support nightmare I am trying to avoid. Even if it is just from one end, it would eliminate that much more troubleshooting.

For the past two weeks I have been doing a LOT of research about EDID spoofing, .inf files, how Windows handles drivers... etc. I have tried to edit the default windows "monitor.inf" file with no real luck.

One of the issues is how windows deals with monitors that don't send an EDID packet. They're listed as a NonPNP-Monitor, and because of this do not have an EDID to override.

Does anyone know where these settings can be changed?

We are currently using older AMD 6350 video cards as well as newer W4100 and W4300 FirePro cards.

We are looking at moving to Intel, and I wanted to know if there were any caveats to this move as well. How well does intel handle EDID management, and can you emulate the EDID like you can with nVidia, and AMD?

Any help would be appreciated.

[ToastyX]

Didn't you email me about this? I replied but didn't get a response.

(09-26-2016 03:14 PM)Quasmo Wrote:  I am looking for a way, either programatically or automatically, to add needed resolutions to a monitor when it is plugged into the system. I have a bit of background in programming, but it is more script based (powershell, javascript, etc.)

This is a bit complicated. You'd have to write a program to detect when a monitor is connected and then add an EDID override, which requires a driver restart, or you'd have to use driver-specific APIs to add custom resolutions. AMD FirePro and NVIDIA Quadro/NVS cards also have an EDID management feature that can override the EDID by port. Have you tried the EDID emulation function in the FirePro control panel? Another option is to use hardware EDID emulators.

(09-26-2016 03:14 PM)Quasmo Wrote:  We are going from VGA to HDMI, and one thing I would LOVE to do is put in an EDID block from HDMI that tells the system that the monitor does not support overscan. Not only is it an issue when using AMD video cards, but a lot of monitors will automatically adjust their displays to overscan automatically. It's just a support nightmare I am trying to avoid. Even if it is just from one end, it would eliminate that much more troubleshooting.

You could add a video capability data block with that information, but I don't think that will do anything. If you don't need audio, you can leave out the HDMI support data block, and then it will be treated as DVI, which might avoid the overscan problems.

(09-26-2016 03:14 PM)Quasmo Wrote:  For the past two weeks I have been doing a LOT of research about EDID spoofing, .inf files, how Windows handles drivers... etc. I have tried to edit the default windows "monitor.inf" file with no real luck.

One of the issues is how windows deals with monitors that don't send an EDID packet. They're listed as a NonPNP-Monitor, and because of this do not have an EDID to override.

Does anyone know where these settings can be changed?

EDID overrides are stored in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY\(Display ID)\(Instance ID)\Device Parameters\EDID_OVERRIDE" as REG_BINARY values ("0" being the base block, and "1" being the first extension block). This works even for non-PnP monitors (the display ID would be "Default_Monitor"). I don't know if there's a way to automatically install an EDID override for every monitor. I haven't tried editing the default monitor.inf file.

(09-26-2016 03:14 PM)Quasmo Wrote:  We are looking at moving to Intel, and I wanted to know if there were any caveats to this move as well. How well does intel handle EDID management, and can you emulate the EDID like you can with nVidia, and AMD?

Intel is the worst for custom resolutions. Adding a custom resolution through their control panel doesn't always work, and Intel does not currently support EDID overrides, although they are working on it:

https://communities.intel.com/thread/25904
https://communities.intel.com/thread/78158