Maintain Display Ratio by default

[mykobrien]

This is a real problem to us! We are school with ~200 staff and 90 classrooms all fitted with interactive boards. 

Recently purchased Dell Latitude 5520 devices with intel Iris XE graphics. They are running Windows 10 20H2, and have the latest Intel Graphics Commander app and driver installed.

When attaching the laptops via HDMI to the board no signal is detected.

After diagnosing the problem we found the following:

• The 2nd display (i.e. the interactive board) defaults to 'Maintain Aspect Ratio'
• Switching to 'Maintain Display Ratio' solves the fault.

The problem: This needs setting on each of the 90 classroom boards by staff as they move around the building. This is not a sustainable approach, we need to administer and set the setting to 'Maintain Display Ratio' by default on all the devices on behalf of the (not so tech savvy) staff.

Please can you advise of a registry setting, or config file setting that I can change to achieve this as there is no option to set this by default in the Graphics Command Center.

[AndrewG_Intel]

Hello @mykobrien

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

In order to check this further, could you please provide the following information?

1- We understand these are new systems. Is the behavior happening since the first day that you have these systems? If this worked fine before at any moment, were there any recent changes like hardware or software changes? (for instance, Windows®, driver, or software updates?)

2- When you said "have the latest drivers", do you mean the latest customized graphics drivers from Dell*? Or the latest Intel® generic driver? Do you know if there is a specific (previous) driver version where the issue is not observed? (a known working driver?)

3- What is the brand and model of the HDMI interactive boards? Are you using a straight-through connection HDMI-to-HDMI with a single cable to connect the laptops and the boards?

4- If you connected another HDMI® device (monitor or TV) do they work fine? Are they properly detected?

5- Please provide a Report for Intel® Graphics Drivers following the steps on the link. Make sure the HDMI® board in question is connected to the computer.

6- Run the Intel® System Support Utility (Intel® SSU) to gather more details about the system.

• Download the Intel® SSU and save the application on your computer
• Open the application, check the "Everything" checkbox, and click "Scan" to see the system and device information. The Intel® SSU defaults to the "Summary View" on the output screen following the scan. Click the menu where it says "Summary" to change to "Detailed View".
• To save your scan, click Next and click Save.
• Once you have saved the file (.txt file), please attach it to your reply.
• To upload and attach a file, use the "Drag and drop here or browse files to attach" option below the response textbox.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[mykobrien]

Hello @AndrewG_Intel ,

1. Yes, first day, brand new out of box, problem manifests itself. In addition, we have also tried a fresh 20H2 build, Windows Update, Manual driver updates. Each time testing connection to the screens with no luck.

2. Two drivers have been available to  us, both issued by Intel, not Dell: 

v27.20.100.8853, 14.10.2020 - same issues observed

v27.20.100.9168, 08.01.2021 - same issues observed.

Please note my original post, which would suggest that this is not a driver issue as we can get the display working by changing the 'Maintain Aspect Ratio' setting to 'Maintain Display Scaling'.

What I require is a way to change the default behaviour for all users.

3. Promethean ActivPanel AP6-7f and AP7-75 and AP7-86. All show the same behaviour. All 4K resolution.

4. See response to point 3. Connecting to a 1920x1080 display does not show the same problem because both the laptop and display are the same resolution. The problem occurs when connecting to a different resolution screen (4K). The graphics setting defaults to 'Maintain Aspect Ratio'. I need to be able to change the default behaviour.

5. I am attaching two log files from the Graphics Command Center: one with the display settings for 'Maintain Aspect Ratio' (i.e. 2nd screen not working) and one with the corrected 'Maintain Display Scaling' (where it is working fine).

6. I am also attaching two SSU reports, one where the display is working with the correct Graphics Commander settings, and one without.

To be clear, this is not a driver issue. I require a setting change to amend the default behaviour of the Graphics Command Center. We have 20 devices sat on a shelf waiting to be deployed.

I hope you can help.

[AndrewG_Intel]

Hello mykobrien

Thank you very much for your response and for all the details provided.

Please allow us to look into this and we will be posting back as soon as more details are available.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[AndrewG_Intel]

Hello mykobrien

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

After checking this further, system administrators and computer owners should request any customization from default Intel® Graphics Command Center behavior to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

If you wish to try to manually modify this behavior you can try with a registry modification and pair it with a script that you can distribute to other systems (perhaps batch file); however, we don't recommend customers to make the registry modifications themselves, we do not provide support for it, and are not liable for modifications made to the registry. Our recommendation is always to request driver customizations from the OEM.

The following registry can be modified (the path may differ depending on your configuration)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration\%display key%\00\00 

or  

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration\%display key%\01\00 

%display key% is the key for the display used. To find out which one it is delete all the keys and restart. There will be a new key created after restarting the system and this will be the key for the display.

Then, set the Scaling DWORD to "1" for Maintain Display Scaling.

DWORDs:

1 = maintain display scaling

2 = center image

3 = scale full screen/stretch

4 = maintain aspect ratio 

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[AndrewG_Intel]

Hello mykobrien

We are checking this thread and we would like to know if you were able to review our previous post.

For any other inquiries, please don't hesitate to contact us back.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[AndrewG_Intel]

Hello mykobrien

We have not heard back from you so we will proceed to close this thread now. If you need any additional information, please submit a new question as this thread will no longer be monitored.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[mykobrien]

Hello @AndrewG_Intel 

Yes, I can confirm that this approach worked. We connected and setup each external screen correctly, then exported the registry tree. This is now imported to all devices via GPO and works perfectly.

It would still be sensible to add a default switch to the Intel command centre, with a single registry item to control this in a future update, please.

Thank you for your help.