monitor refresh problem

[peacesquid]

hi,

i installed HL2 and after several problems with Steam I finally managed to get it working. But then I changed the resolution to 1024 x 768 and the monitor blacked out. I tried another monitor and i had the same problem although this time the monitor itself reported that it couldnt display at 80.1khz.

I run plenty of a games at 1024 so I know thats not the problem. Can I drop the refresh rate somehow?

 

[the_lone_wolf]

your monitors refresh rate is independent of the game, you can set it by right clicking on the desktop and clicking properties, then settings, advanced, monitor.

make sure you check the box saying "only display rates my monitor can display" or similar, since if you set it too high it won't show anything or may damage your screen

 

[meganox]

HL2 doesn't seem to be too hot at working with video mode changes and selecting a good refresh rate, although I don't play enough games to know if it's worse than any others

At 1024x768 my max refresh for my monitor is 75Hz, but HL2 decides to run at 60Hz unless I put -refresh 75 in my launch options

I've just dropped down to 800x600 @ 100Hz, so I've put -width 800 -height 600 -refresh 100 in launch options -- specifying the width and height is a safety measure to prevent me running at 1024x768@100Hz, which might be dangerous. I don't know what happens if I change to a higher resolution in-game, whether it will try 100Hz and break my monitor. Seems to me this is the best way of setting video mode, it's easy to cause a lockup otherwise. Please check the available modes for your card/monitor before changing anything!