prabhg

I have been reading people discussing abt this realVGA thing and how it makes the screen more usable, readable and increases the real estate of the screen and what not.... my question is what exactly is it, what does it do, how does it help and if it will work with Treo 850 screen???

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jessessays

Typically the realVGA is commonly used with WM6 devices. and the 850 is 6.1 so you should have no problems in that area. What realVGA does is it increases the DPI (dots per inch) of your device which gives you a better picture.

CrunchDude

VGA is 640x480. What difference is there between this "realVGA" and actual VGA?

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Me2

RealVGA is the name of a freeware application/hack for Windows Mobile 6. It supercedes hacks like oZVGA and TrueVGA which were around for WM5.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=327830

On a device with a VGA 640x480 screen, Windows Mobile uses pixel doubling to emulate a standard QVGA 320x240 screen. This makes most software display exactly the same as it does on QVGA, with the same sized fonts and number of lines etc., but with much smoother fonts.

Worse still, on a device with a 320x320 screen, WM "pretends" the screen is actually 240x240, so displays exactly the same info as you would see on a 240x240 screen (e.g. Treo 750, Ipaq 69xx), but with smoother fonts. Pretty pathetic really, when you consider you have a higher res screen, but can only display less information than a standard 320x240 PocketPC!

Microsoft's reason for all this is to allow you to run any WM application designed for an "old" QVGA screen, without it having to be VGA-aware. Much the same as hi-res 320x320 screens on PalmOS devices pixel-double all the menus and standard Palm applications that were written to work with the "original" 160x160 Palm Pilot screens.

The higher res does allows you to reduce the text size smaller than you would on a QVGA screen (e.g. to 6pt on the Today screen) but still be able to read it, and some applications will use the higher res mode internally if they specifically support it - but you still have to put up with the huge top and bottom status bars and OS menus / limited lines.

What the RealVGA application does is to force Windows Mobile 6 and above to dispense with the emulation and run everything at the native resolution of the screen. So on a VGA screen, all the title bars, menus and fonts are shrunk to 50%. This makes best use of the new hardware, but it also means text can be very small, as effectively you're just shrinking what people used to view on old 12-14" VGA PC monitors down to a couple of inches! This works fine on a 5 or 3.5" screen (e.g. HTC Advantage or Universal) but you need really good eyesight to use it on the common 2.8" VGA screened smartphone.

However, on a 320x320 screen, it works pretty well. I use it on my Samsung i780 and while the text is small, it is perfectly readable, and well worth the extra information you can squeeze onto the screen.

RealVGA allows you to switch between resolutions at will, with just a soft reset required to change. On a VGA device you get the choice of 144, 128 and 96dpi and on a 320x320 screen, 128 and 96dpi (96dpi is the highest res, smallest font mode the screen will do).

As for using it on the new Palms, although originally written for the HTC Advantage, RealVGA worked pretty much straight away on the i780 (which was the first WM device with a 320x320 screen), so hopefully it should be pretty straightforward to use on the Palm. The only real difficulty is with a few programs that use non-scalable graphics that need a bit of tweaking to look right (e.g. phone dialler skins, games etc).

berdinkerdickle

I had a little bit of a hard time knowing exactly which files to use.
So I thought I would consolidate

First go here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=327830

and download 'RealVGA_11.CAB' and 'ResPack96dpi.ARM.CAB'

It's suggested you do a 'Hard Reset' before installing. You have to reinstall all your apps, just like you just got your brand new Pro.
I didn't bother to confirm, I just started over to be sure.

Now after you install both 'RealVGA_11.CAB' and 'ResPack96dpi.ARM.CAB' Go to 'Start Menu -> Programs' and click on the RealVGA icon, choose 96dpi from the drop down and:When I first clicked 'Ok' I got a message saying it couldn't find ipsecvpnres.96.dll, everything worked fine, but I went ahead and searched the forums and found it. It may not matter either way, but I put it in my windows folder.
(attached below - unzip before putting in windows)

So then I went back in to 'Start Menu -> Programs' and clicked on the RealVGA icon, chose 96dpi from the drop down, unticked the "Disable phone skin" box, tapped 'Ok' at the bottom, and this time it asked if I wanted to allow the dll to run, I said yes, and since then I haven't got any messages.
Like I said; it may or may not matter.





I also attached below the batti cab because RealVga messes up the battery icon.

If I think of anything else, I will update this post.

Attached Files

	ipsecvpnres.96.zip (2.4 KB, 343 views)
	Batti-2.4.cab (142.0 KB, 347 views)

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jwebb56

So, if I understand this correctly, on a 320x320 screen realVGA would force programs not explicitly written to support the 320x320 square screen to either a 320x240 landscape or 240x320 portrait, correct? Or in the case of a 240x240 program will it just use ~75% of the screen (in both height and width)?

extreme99

I think this the best solution for people who are new to windows mobile professional. I personally dont ever want to use a stylus so i plan to install realvga and the touchflo theme. I've been in windows mobile smartphone edition user for the past 3-4 years and a iPhone user. I just dont want to use the stylus all the time

sabre23t

Programs not explicitly written to use 320x320 would just use some portion of it.
* Many would automatically expand to use the full 320x320 with no gaps at all.
* Some portrait program will take the centre 240x320 (bejeweled2)
* Some portrait program will take the left-most 240x320 (skyforcereloaded).

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RichChestmat

I'm getting my treo today so sorry if this is a dumb question.

Without realVGA will things that used to appear cramped on my 750 be clearer?

Example: Will the month view in AgendaOne or Pocket Informant show more detail wihtOUT realVGA? Or will I get the same detail but with clearer fonts?

2: Will Googlemaps show 50% more coverage withOUT realVGA?

3: Would I see 50% more webpage in pocketIE or opera mini when zoomed in? Or will I need realVGA for that?

I'm not that wild about smoother fonts but I'm also quite okay I think with the standard menu bar sizes. I tend to just reduce the text size a bit using the built-in options. I'm also happy with program icons at default size as I can use my thumb nail on them.

I'm also concerned about screwing stuff up. How risky is this product? Does it disable or uninstall easily?

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saucycg

I'm really bummed because this application looks FANTASTIC but has some rather serious flaws. It seems that the 96dpi resource file is for WM6 and it causes some rather odd inconsistencies in WM6.1.

I've got an ATT EPIX, which as far as I can tell is a US version of the i780 with WM6.1. The screen looks SIMPLY AMAZING at 96dpi but there are key elements missing and the phone app is totally hosed.

Also I get constant cprog.exe errors once realVGA is installed. I wish I was a bit more code savvy and could update the res pack for WM6.1.....

As far an uninstall goes.....hard reset seems to be the only option. Uninstalling the app just messed up WM6.1 really bad...

jwebb56

Uh oh. I'd be counting on RealVGA to make a Pro or Epix screen more functional but both of them have WM6.1. Anyone else have RealVGA running on a 6.1 machine that can comment on how well (or now well) it operates?

berdinkerdickle

All Pro users are 6.1
I think saucycg's issue is the EPIX. Infact I know it is, guys over at xda-developers are running on various devices which also have 6.1
There are posts here at TC about others, including myself that are running it on the Pro.
I'm totally diggin it.

jwebb56

Berd: Why would it operate differently on an EPIX. After all the guts of WM6.1 has to be the same for all phones, right?

berdinkerdickle

Why would I say it works good on the Pro?

However; I do know that the 800 guys initially had issues and they had to create a modified version that wouldn't leave things scrambled.
What's different about the 800 that it gave them trouble?

Maybe EPIX customizations don't play nice with RealVGA

berdinkerdickle

Tell you guys what,
I will post more screen shots tomorrow.


Any special requests?

jwebb56

Berd: A third party app that use 240x230 or 320x240 of the Pro's screen. Curious how readable that is.

extreme99

Have you tried installing the touch flow theme?

Thats my #1 request

sabre23t

Berd, do you also find that the SMS/MMS apps loses icons, in RealVGA 96dpi mode? And the "conversation" view shows a IE style "x" (as when a web page cannot load an image)? Not show-stopper but ugly.

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berdinkerdickle

Yea sms loses it's icons, I feel the gains out way the losses.
There are actually some things that render better, PIE+ for example.
It might be my imagination, but switching app or screens seems to refresh quicker.

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berdinkerdickle

Sure, do you have link?
Is it running ok on 240x240?