Thank God for my own website….

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is not something I listen to very well.

I did start trying to find some way to get my Apple Cinema Display’s full native resolution under Windows 98SE. I tried loading up some .inf files for monitors that had equivalent resolutions but had no luck. Then, I tried modifying the .inf files for the video card itself. Still, no luck. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but somehow I wound up with my Radeon 9550 video card uninstalled.

I tried installing using the CD that came with the video card. The installation routine would start and even come up with Win98 drivers, but it would halt with a “can’t find needed components” error message every time. Thinking that maybe it was looking for DirectX components, I installed (or reinstalled?) the latest version. Didn’t help at all. I tried a couple of downloaded drivers (Catalyst 4.3 and 4.10) from the ATI website and got the same result. After a couple of times of trying to get the normal installation routines to work, I searched for the write-up I had done when I had installed this card before. Much to my chagrin, I couldn’t find a copy on my PC! So, I went into the Computer Blog (yes, what you’re reading now) and found the entry where I described how I had installed the card before. I followed its instructions and, voila!, instant success!

Once I had the card reinstalled, I gave up trying to get some kind of .inf file that would work. Instead, I played with the monitor’s various resolutions and got it as close to its native resolution as I could and that didn’t look stretched or squashed. It’s running at something odd now like 1280 x 960.