| ================= |
| What is matroxfb? |
| ================= |
| |
| .. [This file is cloned from VesaFB. Thanks go to Gerd Knorr] |
| |
| |
| This is a driver for a graphic framebuffer for Matrox devices on |
| Alpha, Intel and PPC boxes. |
| |
| Advantages: |
| |
| * It provides a nice large console (128 cols + 48 lines with 1024x768) |
| without using tiny, unreadable fonts. |
| * You can run XF{68,86}_FBDev or XFree86 fbdev driver on top of /dev/fb0 |
| * Most important: boot logo :-) |
| |
| Disadvantages: |
| |
| * graphic mode is slower than text mode... but you should not notice |
| if you use same resolution as you used in textmode. |
| |
| |
| How to use it? |
| ============== |
| |
| Switching modes is done using the video=matroxfb:vesa:... boot parameter |
| or using `fbset` program. |
| |
| If you want, for example, enable a resolution of 1280x1024x24bpp you should |
| pass to the kernel this command line: "video=matroxfb:vesa:0x1BB". |
| |
| You should compile in both vgacon (to boot if you remove you Matrox from |
| box) and matroxfb (for graphics mode). You should not compile-in vesafb |
| unless you have primary display on non-Matrox VBE2.0 device (see |
| Documentation/fb/vesafb.rst for details). |
| |
| Currently supported video modes are (through vesa:... interface, PowerMac |
| has [as addon] compatibility code): |
| |
| |
| Graphic modes |
| ------------- |
| |
| === ======= ======= ======= ======= ======= |
| bpp 640x400 640x480 768x576 800x600 960x720 |
| === ======= ======= ======= ======= ======= |
| 4 0x12 0x102 |
| 8 0x100 0x101 0x180 0x103 0x188 |
| 15 0x110 0x181 0x113 0x189 |
| 16 0x111 0x182 0x114 0x18A |
| 24 0x1B2 0x184 0x1B5 0x18C |
| 32 0x112 0x183 0x115 0x18B |
| === ======= ======= ======= ======= ======= |
| |
| |
| Graphic modes (continued) |
| ------------------------- |
| |
| === ======== ======== ========= ========= ========= |
| bpp 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1408x1056 1600x1200 |
| === ======== ======== ========= ========= ========= |
| 4 0x104 0x106 |
| 8 0x105 0x190 0x107 0x198 0x11C |
| 15 0x116 0x191 0x119 0x199 0x11D |
| 16 0x117 0x192 0x11A 0x19A 0x11E |
| 24 0x1B8 0x194 0x1BB 0x19C 0x1BF |
| 32 0x118 0x193 0x11B 0x19B |
| === ======== ======== ========= ========= ========= |
| |
| |
| Text modes |
| ---------- |
| |
| ==== ======= ======= ======== ======== ======== |
| text 640x400 640x480 1056x344 1056x400 1056x480 |
| ==== ======= ======= ======== ======== ======== |
| 8x8 0x1C0 0x108 0x10A 0x10B 0x10C |
| 8x16 2, 3, 7 0x109 |
| ==== ======= ======= ======== ======== ======== |
| |
| You can enter these number either hexadecimal (leading `0x`) or decimal |
| (0x100 = 256). You can also use value + 512 to achieve compatibility |
| with your old number passed to vesafb. |
| |
| Non-listed number can be achieved by more complicated command-line, for |
| example 1600x1200x32bpp can be specified by `video=matroxfb:vesa:0x11C,depth:32`. |
| |
| |
| X11 |
| === |
| |
| XF{68,86}_FBDev should work just fine, but it is non-accelerated. On non-intel |
| architectures there are some glitches for 24bpp videomodes. 8, 16 and 32bpp |
| works fine. |
| |
| Running another (accelerated) X-Server like XF86_SVGA works too. But (at least) |
| XFree servers have big troubles in multihead configurations (even on first |
| head, not even talking about second). Running XFree86 4.x accelerated mga |
| driver is possible, but you must not enable DRI - if you do, resolution and |
| color depth of your X desktop must match resolution and color depths of your |
| virtual consoles, otherwise X will corrupt accelerator settings. |
| |
| |
| SVGALib |
| ======= |
| |
| Driver contains SVGALib compatibility code. It is turned on by choosing textual |
| mode for console. You can do it at boot time by using videomode |
| 2,3,7,0x108-0x10C or 0x1C0. At runtime, `fbset -depth 0` does this work. |
| Unfortunately, after SVGALib application exits, screen contents is corrupted. |
| Switching to another console and back fixes it. I hope that it is SVGALib's |
| problem and not mine, but I'm not sure. |
| |
| |
| Configuration |
| ============= |
| |
| You can pass kernel command line options to matroxfb with |
| `video=matroxfb:option1,option2:value2,option3` (multiple options should be |
| separated by comma, values are separated from options by `:`). |
| Accepted options: |
| |
| ============ =================================================================== |
| mem:X size of memory (X can be in megabytes, kilobytes or bytes) |
| You can only decrease value determined by driver because of |
| it always probe for memory. Default is to use whole detected |
| memory usable for on-screen display (i.e. max. 8 MB). |
| disabled do not load driver; you can use also `off`, but `disabled` |
| is here too. |
| enabled load driver, if you have `video=matroxfb:disabled` in LILO |
| configuration, you can override it by this (you cannot override |
| `off`). It is default. |
| noaccel do not use acceleration engine. It does not work on Alphas. |
| accel use acceleration engine. It is default. |
| nopan create initial consoles with vyres = yres, thus disabling virtual |
| scrolling. |
| pan create initial consoles as tall as possible (vyres = memory/vxres). |
| It is default. |
| nopciretry disable PCI retries. It is needed for some broken chipsets, |
| it is autodetected for intel's 82437. In this case device does |
| not comply to PCI 2.1 specs (it will not guarantee that every |
| transaction terminate with success or retry in 32 PCLK). |
| pciretry enable PCI retries. It is default, except for intel's 82437. |
| novga disables VGA I/O ports. It is default if BIOS did not enable |
| device. You should not use this option, some boards then do not |
| restart without power off. |
| vga preserve state of VGA I/O ports. It is default. Driver does not |
| enable VGA I/O if BIOS did not it (it is not safe to enable it in |
| most cases). |
| nobios disables BIOS ROM. It is default if BIOS did not enable BIOS |
| itself. You should not use this option, some boards then do not |
| restart without power off. |
| bios preserve state of BIOS ROM. It is default. Driver does not enable |
| BIOS if BIOS was not enabled before. |
| noinit tells driver, that devices were already initialized. You should use |
| it if you have G100 and/or if driver cannot detect memory, you see |
| strange pattern on screen and so on. Devices not enabled by BIOS |
| are still initialized. It is default. |
| init driver initializes every device it knows about. |
| memtype specifies memory type, implies 'init'. This is valid only for G200 |
| and G400 and has following meaning: |
| |
| G200: |
| - 0 -> 2x128Kx32 chips, 2MB onboard, probably sgram |
| - 1 -> 2x128Kx32 chips, 4MB onboard, probably sgram |
| - 2 -> 2x256Kx32 chips, 4MB onboard, probably sgram |
| - 3 -> 2x256Kx32 chips, 8MB onboard, probably sgram |
| - 4 -> 2x512Kx16 chips, 8/16MB onboard, probably sdram only |
| - 5 -> same as above |
| - 6 -> 4x128Kx32 chips, 4MB onboard, probably sgram |
| - 7 -> 4x128Kx32 chips, 8MB onboard, probably sgram |
| G400: |
| - 0 -> 2x512Kx16 SDRAM, 16/32MB |
| - 2x512Kx32 SGRAM, 16/32MB |
| - 1 -> 2x256Kx32 SGRAM, 8/16MB |
| - 2 -> 4x128Kx32 SGRAM, 8/16MB |
| - 3 -> 4x512Kx32 SDRAM, 32MB |
| - 4 -> 4x256Kx32 SGRAM, 16/32MB |
| - 5 -> 2x1Mx32 SDRAM, 32MB |
| - 6 -> reserved |
| - 7 -> reserved |
| |
| You should use sdram or sgram parameter in addition to memtype |
| parameter. |
| nomtrr disables write combining on frame buffer. This slows down driver |
| but there is reported minor incompatibility between GUS DMA and |
| XFree under high loads if write combining is enabled (sound |
| dropouts). |
| mtrr enables write combining on frame buffer. It speeds up video |
| accesses much. It is default. You must have MTRR support enabled |
| in kernel and your CPU must have MTRR (f.e. Pentium II have them). |
| sgram tells to driver that you have Gxx0 with SGRAM memory. It has no |
| effect without `init`. |
| sdram tells to driver that you have Gxx0 with SDRAM memory. |
| It is a default. |
| inv24 change timings parameters for 24bpp modes on Millennium and |
| Millennium II. Specify this if you see strange color shadows |
| around characters. |
| noinv24 use standard timings. It is the default. |
| inverse invert colors on screen (for LCD displays) |
| noinverse show true colors on screen. It is default. |
| dev:X bind driver to device X. Driver numbers device from 0 up to N, |
| where device 0 is first `known` device found, 1 second and so on. |
| lspci lists devices in this order. |
| Default is `every` known device. |
| nohwcursor disables hardware cursor (use software cursor instead). |
| hwcursor enables hardware cursor. It is default. If you are using |
| non-accelerated mode (`noaccel` or `fbset -accel false`), software |
| cursor is used (except for text mode). |
| noblink disables cursor blinking. Cursor in text mode always blinks (hw |
| limitation). |
| blink enables cursor blinking. It is default. |
| nofastfont disables fastfont feature. It is default. |
| fastfont:X enables fastfont feature. X specifies size of memory reserved for |
| font data, it must be >= (fontwidth*fontheight*chars_in_font)/8. |
| It is faster on Gx00 series, but slower on older cards. |
| grayscale enable grayscale summing. It works in PSEUDOCOLOR modes (text, |
| 4bpp, 8bpp). In DIRECTCOLOR modes it is limited to characters |
| displayed through putc/putcs. Direct accesses to framebuffer |
| can paint colors. |
| nograyscale disable grayscale summing. It is default. |
| cross4MB enables that pixel line can cross 4MB boundary. It is default for |
| non-Millennium. |
| nocross4MB pixel line must not cross 4MB boundary. It is default for |
| Millennium I or II, because of these devices have hardware |
| limitations which do not allow this. But this option is |
| incompatible with some (if not all yet released) versions of |
| XF86_FBDev. |
| dfp enables digital flat panel interface. This option is incompatible |
| with secondary (TV) output - if DFP is active, TV output must be |
| inactive and vice versa. DFP always uses same timing as primary |
| (monitor) output. |
| dfp:X use settings X for digital flat panel interface. X is number from |
| 0 to 0xFF, and meaning of each individual bit is described in |
| G400 manual, in description of DAC register 0x1F. For normal |
| operation you should set all bits to zero, except lowest bit. This |
| lowest bit selects who is source of display clocks, whether G400, |
| or panel. Default value is now read back from hardware - so you |
| should specify this value only if you are also using `init` |
| parameter. |
| outputs:XYZ set mapping between CRTC and outputs. Each letter can have value |
| of 0 (for no CRTC), 1 (CRTC1) or 2 (CRTC2), and first letter |
| corresponds to primary analog output, second letter to the |
| secondary analog output and third letter to the DVI output. |
| Default setting is 100 for cards below G400 or G400 without DFP, |
| 101 for G400 with DFP, and 111 for G450 and G550. You can set |
| mapping only on first card, use matroxset for setting up other |
| devices. |
| vesa:X selects startup videomode. X is number from 0 to 0x1FF, see table |
| above for detailed explanation. Default is 640x480x8bpp if driver |
| has 8bpp support. Otherwise first available of 640x350x4bpp, |
| 640x480x15bpp, 640x480x24bpp, 640x480x32bpp or 80x25 text |
| (80x25 text is always available). |
| ============ =================================================================== |
| |
| If you are not satisfied with videomode selected by `vesa` option, you |
| can modify it with these options: |
| |
| ============ =================================================================== |
| xres:X horizontal resolution, in pixels. Default is derived from `vesa` |
| option. |
| yres:X vertical resolution, in pixel lines. Default is derived from `vesa` |
| option. |
| upper:X top boundary: lines between end of VSYNC pulse and start of first |
| pixel line of picture. Default is derived from `vesa` option. |
| lower:X bottom boundary: lines between end of picture and start of VSYNC |
| pulse. Default is derived from `vesa` option. |
| vslen:X length of VSYNC pulse, in lines. Default is derived from `vesa` |
| option. |
| left:X left boundary: pixels between end of HSYNC pulse and first pixel. |
| Default is derived from `vesa` option. |
| right:X right boundary: pixels between end of picture and start of HSYNC |
| pulse. Default is derived from `vesa` option. |
| hslen:X length of HSYNC pulse, in pixels. Default is derived from `vesa` |
| option. |
| pixclock:X dotclocks, in ps (picoseconds). Default is derived from `vesa` |
| option and from `fh` and `fv` options. |
| sync:X sync. pulse - bit 0 inverts HSYNC polarity, bit 1 VSYNC polarity. |
| If bit 3 (value 0x08) is set, composite sync instead of HSYNC is |
| generated. If bit 5 (value 0x20) is set, sync on green is turned |
| on. Do not forget that if you want sync on green, you also probably |
| want composite sync. |
| Default depends on `vesa`. |
| depth:X Bits per pixel: 0=text, 4,8,15,16,24 or 32. Default depends on |
| `vesa`. |
| ============ =================================================================== |
| |
| If you know capabilities of your monitor, you can specify some (or all) of |
| `maxclk`, `fh` and `fv`. In this case, `pixclock` is computed so that |
| pixclock <= maxclk, real_fh <= fh and real_fv <= fv. |
| |
| ============ ================================================================== |
| maxclk:X maximum dotclock. X can be specified in MHz, kHz or Hz. Default is |
| `don`t care`. |
| fh:X maximum horizontal synchronization frequency. X can be specified |
| in kHz or Hz. Default is `don't care`. |
| fv:X maximum vertical frequency. X must be specified in Hz. Default is |
| 70 for modes derived from `vesa` with yres <= 400, 60Hz for |
| yres > 400. |
| ============ ================================================================== |
| |
| |
| Limitations |
| =========== |
| |
| There are known and unknown bugs, features and misfeatures. |
| Currently there are following known bugs: |
| |
| - SVGALib does not restore screen on exit |
| - generic fbcon-cfbX procedures do not work on Alphas. Due to this, |
| `noaccel` (and cfb4 accel) driver does not work on Alpha. So everyone |
| with access to `/dev/fb*` on Alpha can hang machine (you should restrict |
| access to `/dev/fb*` - everyone with access to this device can destroy |
| your monitor, believe me...). |
| - 24bpp does not support correctly XF-FBDev on big-endian architectures. |
| - interlaced text mode is not supported; it looks like hardware limitation, |
| but I'm not sure. |
| - Gxx0 SGRAM/SDRAM is not autodetected. |
| - If you are using more than one framebuffer device, you must boot kernel |
| with 'video=scrollback:0'. |
| - maybe more... |
| |
| And following misfeatures: |
| |
| - SVGALib does not restore screen on exit. |
| - pixclock for text modes is limited by hardware to |
| |
| - 83 MHz on G200 |
| - 66 MHz on Millennium I |
| - 60 MHz on Millennium II |
| |
| Because I have no access to other devices, I do not know specific |
| frequencies for them. So driver does not check this and allows you to |
| set frequency higher that this. It causes sparks, black holes and other |
| pretty effects on screen. Device was not destroyed during tests. :-) |
| - my Millennium G200 oscillator has frequency range from 35 MHz to 380 MHz |
| (and it works with 8bpp on about 320 MHz dotclocks (and changed mclk)). |
| But Matrox says on product sheet that VCO limit is 50-250 MHz, so I believe |
| them (maybe that chip overheats, but it has a very big cooler (G100 has |
| none), so it should work). |
| - special mixed video/graphics videomodes of Mystique and Gx00 - 2G8V16 and |
| G16V16 are not supported |
| - color keying is not supported |
| - feature connector of Mystique and Gx00 is set to VGA mode (it is disabled |
| by BIOS) |
| - DDC (monitor detection) is supported through dualhead driver |
| - some check for input values are not so strict how it should be (you can |
| specify vslen=4000 and so on). |
| - maybe more... |
| |
| And following features: |
| |
| - 4bpp is available only on Millennium I and Millennium II. It is hardware |
| limitation. |
| - selection between 1:5:5:5 and 5:6:5 16bpp videomode is done by -rgba |
| option of fbset: "fbset -depth 16 -rgba 5,5,5" selects 1:5:5:5, anything |
| else selects 5:6:5 mode. |
| - text mode uses 6 bit VGA palette instead of 8 bit (one of 262144 colors |
| instead of one of 16M colors). It is due to hardware limitation of |
| Millennium I/II and SVGALib compatibility. |
| |
| |
| Benchmarks |
| ========== |
| It is time to redraw whole screen 1000 times in 1024x768, 60Hz. It is |
| time for draw 6144000 characters on screen through /dev/vcsa |
| (for 32bpp it is about 3GB of data (exactly 3000 MB); for 8x16 font in |
| 16 seconds, i.e. 187 MBps). |
| Times were obtained from one older version of driver, now they are about 3% |
| faster, it is kernel-space only time on P-II/350 MHz, Millennium I in 33 MHz |
| PCI slot, G200 in AGP 2x slot. I did not test vgacon:: |
| |
| NOACCEL |
| 8x16 12x22 |
| Millennium I G200 Millennium I G200 |
| 8bpp 16.42 9.54 12.33 9.13 |
| 16bpp 21.00 15.70 19.11 15.02 |
| 24bpp 36.66 36.66 35.00 35.00 |
| 32bpp 35.00 30.00 33.85 28.66 |
| |
| ACCEL, nofastfont |
| 8x16 12x22 6x11 |
| Millennium I G200 Millennium I G200 Millennium I G200 |
| 8bpp 7.79 7.24 13.55 7.78 30.00 21.01 |
| 16bpp 9.13 7.78 16.16 7.78 30.00 21.01 |
| 24bpp 14.17 10.72 18.69 10.24 34.99 21.01 |
| 32bpp 16.15 16.16 18.73 13.09 34.99 21.01 |
| |
| ACCEL, fastfont |
| 8x16 12x22 6x11 |
| Millennium I G200 Millennium I G200 Millennium I G200 |
| 8bpp 8.41 6.01 6.54 4.37 16.00 10.51 |
| 16bpp 9.54 9.12 8.76 6.17 17.52 14.01 |
| 24bpp 15.00 12.36 11.67 10.00 22.01 18.32 |
| 32bpp 16.18 18.29* 12.71 12.74 24.44 21.00 |
| |
| TEXT |
| 8x16 |
| Millennium I G200 |
| TEXT 3.29 1.50 |
| |
| * Yes, it is slower than Millennium I. |
| |
| |
| Dualhead G400 |
| ============= |
| Driver supports dualhead G400 with some limitations: |
| + secondary head shares videomemory with primary head. It is not problem |
| if you have 32MB of videoram, but if you have only 16MB, you may have |
| to think twice before choosing videomode (for example twice 1880x1440x32bpp |
| is not possible). |
| + due to hardware limitation, secondary head can use only 16 and 32bpp |
| videomodes. |
| + secondary head is not accelerated. There were bad problems with accelerated |
| XFree when secondary head used to use acceleration. |
| + secondary head always powerups in 640x480@60-32 videomode. You have to use |
| fbset to change this mode. |
| + secondary head always powerups in monitor mode. You have to use fbmatroxset |
| to change it to TV mode. Also, you must select at least 525 lines for |
| NTSC output and 625 lines for PAL output. |
| + kernel is not fully multihead ready. So some things are impossible to do. |
| + if you compiled it as module, you must insert i2c-matroxfb, matroxfb_maven |
| and matroxfb_crtc2 into kernel. |
| |
| |
| Dualhead G450 |
| ============= |
| Driver supports dualhead G450 with some limitations: |
| + secondary head shares videomemory with primary head. It is not problem |
| if you have 32MB of videoram, but if you have only 16MB, you may have |
| to think twice before choosing videomode. |
| + due to hardware limitation, secondary head can use only 16 and 32bpp |
| videomodes. |
| + secondary head is not accelerated. |
| + secondary head always powerups in 640x480@60-32 videomode. You have to use |
| fbset to change this mode. |
| + TV output is not supported |
| + kernel is not fully multihead ready, so some things are impossible to do. |
| + if you compiled it as module, you must insert matroxfb_g450 and matroxfb_crtc2 |
| into kernel. |
| |
| Petr Vandrovec <vandrove@vc.cvut.cz> |
