Richard

I tried all of your suggestions, without success. See inline comments:

Note device and monitor section of xorg.conf at end:

I've had one further idea. I have a 4-port kvm switch (Cybex), it has
never interferred with anything in the past four or five years. Wonder
if. . . , maybe that could be having an effect.  

One other thought. In full screen, ever other line is black, giving
the awful looking screen. Couldn't that have something to do with
interlacing?? Wish I understood all of this better.

On 21:05 Fri 15 Jul , Richard Fish wrote:
> Well, nothing obvious is popping out at me, but see my comments
> inline below...
> 
> Bill Roberts wrote:
> 
> >I am going NUTS trying to figure out how to make full-screen mode
> >work properly in vmware-workstation 5.
> >
> >I can go into full-screen mode, but it looks like only half of the
> >lines get drawn, so it's very ugly, impossible to read.
> > 
> A major reason for this can be enabling framebuffer graphics in the
> kernel.  If you are using framebuffer graphics, try compiling a new
> kernel with only text-mode console support.  Full-screen vmware
> sessions seem most reliable this way.
> 
I did have framebuffer graphics enabled, just for the smaller fonts. I
diabled them, didn't make any difference. Also, when I had good full
screens, I did have framebuffer graphics enabled.

> >I had beautiful screens in 4.5.2 which turned ugly at some point
> >(don't know causal factor). I emerged 5, got beautiful screens again.
> >
> >I have been trying to get mplayer & hdtv working, so I've been playing
> >around with xorg.conf a lot, and I guess I managed to break it. I think
> >I need additional modelines to make vmware work properly, not sure how
> >to get the right ones. 
> 
> My guess is that this has nothing to do with the modelines, because on a 
> modern system with a DDC capable monitor, everything should be 
> autodetected.  Specifically, double check your monitor section and try 
> commenting out any HorizSync or VertRefresh settings that you have.
> 
Modelines are supposed to be generally obsolete, and my Dell monitor
is DDC compliant, but I've been having difficulty with mplayer/mythtv.
Also, VmWare says I can run into these kind of problems if there isn't
an appropriate resolution available.

> >Oh, one other oddity. The vmware modules vmmon and vmnet which should
> >be loaded by /etc/init.d/vmware in default mode, don't get loaded.
> >Can't figure out why.
> 
> Explain a bit more please...are you saying the vmware init script runs 
> as part of your startup, but produces errors?  You didn't by chance 
> accidentally replace this with the VMWare version, did you?  The second 
> line of that script should say "Copyright ... Gentoo Foundation".
> 
I did a "rc-update add vmware default" and back when, it actually
started the vmmon/vmnet modules. No longer. No error messages, no
hiccups, nothing. And when I manually do a "/etc/init.d/vmware start",
it works perfectly. The "Copyright ..." is there.

> If this doesn't give you any ideas, I would like to see the device and 
> monitor sections from your xorg.conf file. 
> 
Here are the device and monitor sections of xorg.conf, plus a couple
of extra, maybe pertinent items.

Section "Monitor"
        DisplaySize       350   255     # mm
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "DEL"
        ModelName    "DELL D1226H"
#       HorizSync    30.0 - 95.0
#       VertRefresh  50.0 - 160.0
        Option      "DPMS"
EndSection


Section "Device"
        Identifier  "n6600gt"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        Option       "NoLogo" "1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "n6600gt"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth      24    
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth     16
                Modes     "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth     24
                Modes     "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Maybe some of the following should be disabled???

Section "Module"
        Load  "record"
        Load  "extmod"
        Load  "dbe"
        Load  "glx"
        Load  "xtrap"
        Load  "type1"
        Load  "freetype"
EndSection