VIDEOGEN(1)

💖 VIDEOGEN(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the videogen manual page, section 1, from the General Commands Manual — the whole girlie is about generating Modelines for Xorg servers, and honestly? she ate. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

videogen — generate Modelines for Xorg servers

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

videogen [-v|-q] [-fb|-nfb] [-nv|-nnv] [-f=<file|->] [-m=mode] [-mdc=n]
  [-mhf=n] [-mvf=n] [-dvf=n] [-hv=n] [-vv=n] [-hfp=n] [-hbp=n] [-hsp=n]
  [-vfp=n] [-vbp=n] [-vsp=n]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So basically videogen generates Modelines for Xorg servers (or XFree86 servers, we don't gatekeep) so you can reach the highest possible vertical refresh rate at all resolutions, or just match whatever refresh rate you're feeling. 💅 And as a new feature — new!! — it can obey the non-free NVidia driver's timing constraints. It can also print the calculated results in the Linux framebuffer device format. Versatile queen. 👑

ATTENTION!! 🚨 You only have to specify the maximum dot clock, the maximum horizontal frequency, the maximum vertical refresh, and of course the modes (resolutions) to generate the appropriate Modelines. Everything else is just there for tweaking or solving special problems — there are hardcoded defaults for all of them that are suitable for the vast majority of cases. So don't stress fr fr. 🫶

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🎀 CONFIGURATION FILE 🎀

A configuration file can be used to specify all or part of the parameters videogen needs to do its calculations. This can be very comfortable in many cases. You can also specify a configuration file path on the command line instead of the default (~/.videogen), or read from stdin — which is lowkey helpful if you want to call videogen from another program or from a script. 🧚

The general syntax rules are the following: parameters are specified using name=value pairs. The parameter names are matched in a case insensitive manner. Blanks are optional. Multiple name=value pairs can be specified on a single line separated by ";" characters. Any string after a "#" character is treated as a comment up to the end of the line.

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💜 COMMAND LINE 💜

The command line options always override the parameters set in the configuration file. This also applies to the mode list, so when one or more modes are specified on the command line, the entire list of modes read from the configuration file is replaced by these. no cap.

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

The command line options are described below together with their configuration file variable counterparts (if present). One bullet per option, as the universe intended. 🌈

• -v
• -q
• verbose=on|off — Turn on/off verbose output. FYI -q stands for quiet ;) (default=on)
• -fb
• -nfb
• fbset=on|off — Turn on/off fbset (Linux framebuffer timings) mode. In this mode, fbset timings are printed instead of Modelines. (default=off)
• -nv
• -nnv
• nvidia=on|off — Turn on/off non-free NVidia Linux driver compatibility mode. (default=on)
• -f=filespec — Use filespec as the configuration file. This accepts - to read the options from the standard input. The "~" character gets expanded to the home directory of the user running videogen. (default=~/.videogen)
• -m=modespec
• mode=modespec — Adds modespec to the list of modes to calculate a Modeline for. This must be in the form 800x600 (width x height) and it can be specified more than once to add several modes.
• -mdc=freq — Set freq to the maximum dot clock rate of your video card or the bandwidth of your monitor, whichever is lower, in MHz.
• -mhf=freq — Set freq to the maximum horizontal refresh frequency of your monitor in kHz.
• -mvf=freq — Set freq to the maximum vertical refresh frequency of your monitor in Hz.
• -dvf=freq — Set freq to the vertical refresh frequency which you think would be optimal for you, in Hz. The program will try to match this frequency at all resolutions, instead of the maximum frequency that would be technically possible. (optional)
• -hv=percent — Set percent to the percentage of the horizontal frame length you want the visible resolution to be. (optional)
• -vv=percent — Set percent to the percentage of the vertical frame length you want the visible resolution to be. (optional)
• -hfp=duration — Set duration to the horizontal front porch duration of your monitor in clock ticks. (optional)
• -hbp=duration — Set duration to the horizontal back porch duration of your monitor in clock ticks. (optional)
• -hsp=duration — Set duration to the minimum horizontal sync pulse duration of your monitor in clock ticks. (optional)
• -vfp=duration — Set duration to the vertical front porch duration of your monitor in clock ticks. (optional)
• -vbp=duration — Set duration to the vertical back porch duration of your monitor in clock ticks. (optional)
• -vsp=duration — Set duration to the minimum vertical sync pulse duration of your monitor in clock ticks. (optional)

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💀 ERRORS 💀

You can expect the following error codes to be returned by videogen — screenshot these for later bestie:

• 100 — system error (memory allocation problems, or other)
• 101 — command line option error
• 102 — configuration file error
• 103 — bad resolution error, currently returned when no (valid) modes have been specified anywhere
• 104 — bad maximum dot clock rate, currently returned when no proper value has been specified anywhere
• 105 — bad maximum horizontal refresh, currently returned when no proper value has been specified anywhere
• 106 — bad maximum vertical refresh, currently returned when no proper value has been specified anywhere

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🍓 FIXED DOT CLOCKS 🍓

If your display adapter does not have a programmable clockchip then you will need to get a list of available clocks somehow and enter these as the maximum dot clock frequency. This way videogen will have to adjust (decrease) the horizontal refresh frequency to get exactly the given dot clock rate. A similar method can be used to match the proper frequencies of a fixed frequency monitor. Iconic workaround behavior. ✨

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🌈 FILES 🌈

• ~/.videogen — The default location for the videogen configuration file.
• /etc/X11/xorg.conf — The Xserver configuration file where Modelines generated with videogen can be inserted. Currently this must be done by hand. 😭
• /etc/X11/XF86Config
• /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 — Names of the Xserver configuration file in older releases of X.

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

some_modes(1), Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5), xvidtune(1)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Szabolcs Rumi <rumi_at_rtfm_dot_hu>

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💜 COPYING 💜

GNU General Public License Version 2 (found in /usr/share/common-licenses on Debian systems)

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and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀 this was videogen in the General Commands Manual, page VIDEOGEN(1), written by Szabolcs Rumi — love that for him. go forth and generate those Modelines, you absolute main character. 💖✨🦋