Max Screen Resolution

[wolf25]

What is the max screen resolution I can get? Currently, I am limited to 1400x1050x32, my monitor is capable of 1920x1200pixels.
Host: Mandriva Spring 2010 64 bit,
Guest: Windows 2000,
CPU: Intel Q8400 @2.66GHz, 4GB RAM,
VirtualBox version 3.1.8_OSE r61349

VBoxManage list systemproperties (excerpts):
Max Guest RAM Size: 16348 Megabytes
Max Guest video RAM size: 128 Megabytes

Any other info I ought to supply?

Thanks

Wolf

[Sasquatch]

Can I assume you installed the Guest Additions? Because with that, you can go up to 4800 x 2400. Don't assume your max resolution by opening the Display settings in the Guest OS, but change the size of the window instead or go to full screen. You have to make sure you don't have any resolution in xorg.conf (if you have one at all). Also make sure that you have dynamic resizing enabled. Click on the Machine menu, if it says "Disable automatic resize of guest window", it's enabled.

[wolf25]

Thanks for this partial answer. With regards to Guest Additions, yes, they are installed, and yes, with my current settings the VirtualBox window can fill the whole monitor area.
Sorry for phrasing my question not precisely enough; I should have asked for "usable" or "useful" screen resolution, resolution available to the guest, since the light gray areas outside of Win2000's blue are inaccessible to the guest and thus best regarded as "wasted space" and -to me- of no utility. This blue area is limited to 1400x1050 pixels, and I would like to increase it to full monitor size?
When, by the way, running the same guest operating system under VMware Player, on the same host, the guest reports in its display settings a max resolution of 2560x1600 pixels. Can I take it this implies that xorg is setup adequately? Are we to conclude from here that something is missing in the Guest Additions, and a BUG REPORT should be filed? If yes, how would I go about it?

Wolf

[Sasquatch]

I was a little off with the xorg.conf file. I thought you were running Linux as guest, instead of Windows 2000.

You should not look at the max resolution that you can set in the Display Properties. This will always be one step below the maximum. If you go to full screen, the whole display should be used. So if the Host has a resolution of 1600 x 1050 on a single monitor, the Guest will use that too. If your resolution of 2560 x 1600 is spanned across multiple monitors, that resolution cannot be obtained due to restrictions to one monitor. You can stretch the window to that though.

[wolf25]

Sigh - And I always thought of my native German "Teutsche Spraak, schwere Spraak" (German language, difficult language). In the hope that it helps, I have attached a full screen shot of my monitor (FullScreen.png), in its full 1920x1200 pixel glory. The blue area is what I can use under Windows 2000, all 1400x1050 pixels, the grey area is useless stuff that VirtualBox adds. I am asking what can I do to paint the whole screen blue. I want to run CAD there, and for CAD no screen area will ever be big enough.

As I said before, VMware Player does do it, and as you keep repeating, VirtualBox can do it. Only question left then is _HOW_ ? HOW to convert "can do" into "does do it"?

Sigh

Wolf

[Sasquatch]

Only thing I can suggest is to try it with Windows XP. Doesn't solve your Windows 2000 resolution issue, but it does give a better idea as for how it goes.

One thing you can try, is to reduce the VRAM setting to whatever the value is that is still in the green area. That should allow you to get to full screen resolution without issues. Which is what I'm wondering too, you show a windowed screen, but have you tried putting your VM into full screen to see how that goes?

[wolf25]

Success
The proper answer to setting screen resolution is, with Guest Additions installed
1. set display options in the guest to any value. VirtualBox will override them if in
2. Machine->Auto-resize Guest Display
the icon contains a little tick. Absence of this tick creates the problem this thread is about.

This is very easy to overlook, and allow me to suggest to the developers that they
a) add to the User Manual the information about maximum screen resolution
as provided by Sasquatch, and
b) add proper tick boxes to the menu, rather than hiding the tick mark inside an icon,
so that the user may see at a glance what the setting is, without knowing where to look.
Who was to suspect that one icon had been piled on top of another?
or, from my point of view, what is the best solution, and programmatically very simple to do
c) set Screen Resolution permanently to Auto-resize,
in particular if accompanied with an appropriate entry in the User Manual


May I ask Sasquatch to send the Developers a little note making reference to this thread? Or inform me what the appropriate medium is? Otherwise, thanks for your effort,

Problem solved

Wolf

[Sasquatch]

I believe I told you to check the Machine menu to see what text it says. One says "Enable ...", which would mean it's enabled, the other is "Disable ..." which would indicate it's disabled. Could be that I stated this in another thread (too lazy to scroll now ).

For improvements and such, open a ticket in the Bugtracker (separate account needed).