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Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2012 22:58:08 -0700 (MST)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: perryh@pluto.rain.com
Subject: Re: question about my new Dell 3010
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Cc: kline@thought.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
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On Sat, 8 Dec 2012, perryh@pluto.rain.com wrote:

> Gary Kline <kline@thought.org> wrote:
>
>> one of the remaining problems --hopefuully the Last-- with my
>> Dell 3010 quad i5 is that the resolution stops at 5:4.  it's
>> something like 1280x1014 ...
>
> Probably 1280x1024 -- a common size before widescreen.
> The largest commonly seen back then was 1600x1200.
>
>> ... whereas my widescreen Dell needs 1920x1280 or close to that.
>
> Probably 1920x1200.
>
>> do I need to go out and find a videocard?  or is there a way of
>> taking my 6GB of RAM and giving it to the video?
>
> Dunno about currently-supported versions, nor your particular
> display hardware, but 1920x1200 works for me on an ancient Dell
> Optiplex GX1 with ATI Mach64 under 6.1.  Maybe something in the
> (attached) conf and/or log will help.

Core i5 has new Intel graphics, which needs 9.1 or 9-stable for the KMS 
support, a couple of entries in make.conf, and the newer xorg.

http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=187947&postcount=3

If you don't do that, xorg will use the vesa driver, which supports only 
a few common resolutions, usually not widescreen ones.