ATI Radeon and Desktop Panning

[Chozo4]

I'm beginning to rip my hair out over this issue with desktop panning/scrolling. I'd just gotten ahold of an ATI 9550se / 128mb (using last catalyst drivers available from ATI) from a friend of mine only to get reminded of why I stopped liking ATI cards.

The issue is that my monitor and windows normally only reports support up to 1600x1200 resolution. Now when I used the Nvidia cards, I could use a simply registry tweak (or powerstrip) to force and enable resolutions up to 2048x1536 which work natively without issues with the monitor (though MODE3 of the monitors EDID only report 1600x1200 while MODE1 reports 2048x1536). Now with the ATI card, if I enable/use any resolution beyond 1600x1200 res, it forces the desktop into virtual mode which is panning/scrolling of a 'larger' desktop space.

The question is, is there anyone who knows how this panning/scrolling mode can be disabled and 2048x1536 forced normally without the driver tossing it in this 'virtual' desktop size? If needed, is there any way to override the EDID which could be hard-capping this limitation for ATI cards?

Edited November 29, 2009 by Chozo4