1 Information for SiS and XGI Users
2 Thomas Winischhofer (thomas@winischhofer.net)
3 6 July 2005
4 ____________________________________________________________
5
6 Table of Contents
7
8
9 1. Introduction
10 2. xorg.conf Options
11 2.1 For all chipsets
12 2.2 Old series specific options
13 2.3 300/315/330/340 series specific options
14 2.4 300 series specific options
15 2.5 315/330/340 series specific options
16
17
18 ______________________________________________________________________
19
20 1. Introduction
21
22
23 This driver is written by Thomas Winischhofer and is a (nearly)
24 complete re-write of a driver written for the SiS6326 and SiS530 by
25 Alan Hourihane and others.
26
27 It currently supports the following chipsets:
28
29 o old series: SiS 5597/5598, 6236/AGP/DVD, 530/620
30
31 o 300 series: SiS 300/305, 540, 630/730
32
33 o 315 series: SiS 315/E/PRO, 55x, 650, 651, M650, 740,
34 [M]661&[F/M/G]X, [M]741[GX]
35
36 o 330 series: SiS 330 ("Xabre"), [M]760[GX], [M]761[GX]
37
38 o 340 series: SiS 34x, XGI Volari Z7, V3XT, V5, V8
39
40 Among other features, the driver supports
41
42 o 8/16/24 bits color depth; old series also 15
43
44 o Hardware cursor; 315/330/340 series: Color HW cursor
45
46 o XAA; EXA; XVideo (Xv); RENDER and other extensions
47
48 o 6326: TV output
49
50 o 300/315/330/340 series: TV output via Chrontel TV encoders or SiS
51 video bridges
52
53 o 300/315/330/340 series: LCD output via LVDS transmitters or SiS
54 video bridges
55
56 o 300/315/330/340 series: Dual head mode; Xinerama; Merged
57 framebuffer mode
58
59 o 300/315/330/340 series: Interface for SiSCtrl (see below)
60
61 This document provides a brief overview over the driver's features and
62 configuration options. Please see
63 http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsisvga.shtml for detailed
64 documentation and updates.
65
66
67 2. xorg.conf Options
68
69
70 The following options are of particular interest for the SiS driver.
71 Each of them must be specified in the Device section of the xorg.conf
72 file for this card.
73
74 In the list below, the options' arguments are described by type. For
75 "boolean", the keywords "on", "true" and "yes", as well as "off",
76 "false" and "no" respectively have the same meaning.
77
78
79 2.1. For all chipsets
80
81
82
83 Option
84 >
85
86 Option
87 These options select whether the software (SW) or hardware (HW)
88 cursor should be used. The default is using the hardware cursor.
89
90 Option
91 Disables 2D acceleration. By default, 2D acceleration is
92 enabled.
93
94 Option
95 Determines which acceleration architecture should be used.
96 Possible arguments are "XAA" or "EXA". As of this writing, EXA
97 is still experimental and it is not recommended to be used on
98 production machines. By default, XAA will be used.
99
100 Option
101 This option enables clockwise ("CW") or counter-clockwise
102 ("CCW") rotation of the display. Enabling either CW or CCW
103 rotation disables the RandR extension as well as all 2D
104 acceleration and Xv support. Default: no rotation.
105
106 Option
107 This option enables reflecting the display horizontally ("X"),
108 vertically ("Y") or in both directions ("XY"). Enabling
109 reflection disables the RandR extension as well as all 2D
110 acceleration and Xv support. Default: no rotation.
111
112 Option
113 This option enables the shadow framebuffer layer. By default, it
114 is disabled.
115
116 Option
117 Disables the XVideo (Xv) support. Apart from the XGI Volari Z7,
118 all chipsets support Xv. By default, XVideo support is enabled.
119
120 Option
121 Enables or disables gamma correction. Default: gamma correction
122 is enabled.
123
124
125 2.2. Old series specific options
126
127
128
129 Option
130 Enables 1 cycle memory access for read and write operations. The
131 default depends on the chipset used.
132
133 Option
134 SiS chipsets have the ability to extend the engine command queue
135 in video RAM. This concept is called "TurboQueue" and gives some
136 performance improvement. Due to hardware bugs, the TurboQueue is
137 disabled on the 530/620, otherwise enabled by default.
138
139 Option
140 For 5597/5598 only. This option, if set, disables the CPU to VGA
141 host bus. Disabling the host bus will result in a severe
142 performance regression.
143
144 VideoRAM [size]
145 The SiS 6326 can only directly address 4096K bytes of video RAM.
146 However, there are some cards out there featuring 8192K (8MB) of
147 video RAM. This RAM is not addressable by the engines.
148 Therefore, by default, the driver will only use 4096K. This
149 behavior can be overridden by specifying the amount of video RAM
150 using the VideoRAM keyword. If more than 4096K is specified, the
151 driver will disable 2D acceleration, Xv and the HW cursor. On
152 all other chipsets, this keyword is ignored. The size argument
153 is expected in KB, but without "KB".
154
155 Option
156 Due to hardware bugs, XVideo may display a corrupt image when
157 using YV12 encoded material. This option, if set, disables
158 support for YV12 and hence forces the Xv-aware application to
159 use either YUV2 or XShm for video output.
160
161 Option
162 (6326 only) Selects the TV output standard. May be PAL or NTSC.
163 By default, this is selected by a jumper on the card.
164
165
166 2.3. 300/315/330/340 series specific options
167
168
169
170 Option
171 This option enables/disables the driver's interface for the
172 SiSCtrl utility. Please see
173 http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsisvga.shtml for more
174 information.
175
176 Option
177 (300 series only) SiS chipsets have the ability to extend the
178 engine command queue in video RAM. This concept is called
179 "TurboQueue" and gives some performance improvement. The
180 TurboQueue is enabled by default.
181
182 Option
183 Enables or disables CRT1 (= the external VGA monitor). By
184 default, the driver will use CRT1 if a monitor is detected
185 during server start. Some older monitors can't be detected, so
186 they may require setting this option to true. To disable CRT1
187 output, set this option to false.
188
189 Option
190 (For SiS 650, M650, 651, 661, 741, 760 with either SiS 301LV,
191 302LV or SiS 301C video bridge only) The argument may be "VGA",
192 "LCD" or "OFF". Specifying LCD will force the driver to use the
193 VGA controller's CRT1 channel for driving the LCD while CRT2 is
194 free for TV usage. "OFF" is the same as setting the option
195 ForceCRT1 to "false". Default is VGA.
196
197 Option
198 Selects the CRT2 output device type. Valid parameters are "LCD",
199 "TV", "SVIDEO", "COMPOSITE", "SVIDEO+COMPOSITE", "SCART", "VGA",
200 "YPBPR480I", "YPBPR480P", "YPBPR720P", "YPBPR1080I" or "NONE".
201 NONE disables CRT2. SVIDEO, COMPOSITE, SVIDEO+COMPOSITE, SCART
202 and all the YPBPR alternatives are only for systems with a SiS
203 video bridge and select the desired plug or TV standard type.
204 For Chrontel systems, TV should be used instead. VGA means
205 secondary VGA and is only available on some SiS video bridges
206 (301, 301B, 301C).
207
208 Option
209 (For SiS video bridges only) This option enables or disables
210 gamma correction for CRT2. Default: gamma correction for CRT2 is
211 enabled.
212
213 Option
214 Although this option is accepted for all chipsets, it currently
215 only makes sense on the 300 series; DRI is only supported on
216 these chipsets. This option enables/disables DRI.
217
218 Option
219 Selects the TV output standard. May be PAL or NTSC, on some
220 machines (depending on the hardware) also PALM and PALN.
221 Default: BIOS setting.
222
223 Option
224 >
225
226 Option
227 These options allow relocating the image on your TV. Both
228 options take an integer within the range of -16 to 16. Default:
229 0. Not supported for Chrontel 7019.
230
231 Option
232 (For Chrontel TV encoders only) Selects whether TV output should
233 be overscan or underscan.
234
235 Option
236 (For Chrontel 7005 TV encoders in PAL mode only) Selects whether
237 TV output should be super-overscan (slightly larger than the
238 viewable area) or not.
239
240 Option
241 >
242
243 Option
244 (For SiS video bridges only) These options allow zooming the
245 image on your TV. SISTVXScale takes an integer within the range
246 of -16 to 16. SISTVYScale accepts -4 to 3. Default: 0. Not all
247 modes can be scaled.
248
249
250 2.4. 300 series specific options
251
252
253
254 Option
255 This option might only be needed if you are running X on a Linux
256 2.4 series kernel. This option is not needed and should be
257 omitted on Linux 2.6 and *BSD.
258
259 The Linux kernel features a framebuffer driver named "sisfb"
260 which takes care of memory management for DRI/DRM (such as for
261 3D texture data). In order to keep the X driver and sisfb from
262 overwriting each other's video memory, sisfb reserves a certain
263 amount of video memory for the X driver. Reserved memory is for
264 X 2D, pixmap cache and video data only. Sisfb will not present
265 this memory to the DRI. The amount of reserved memory can either
266 be selected using sisfb's mem parameter or auto-selected
267 depending on the total amount of video RAM available.
268
269 Fact of the matter is, the X driver needs to know about the
270 amount of RAM sisfb reserved. For this purpose, the Option
271 "MaxXFBMem" exists.
272
273 If you start sisfb with a valid mode (ie you run a graphical
274 console), the X driver can communicate with sisfb and doesn't
275 require setting the MaxXFBMem option at all. The X driver will
276 receive enough information from sisfb in this case.
277
278 If you, on the other hand, use sisfb for memory management only,
279 ie you started sisfb with mode=none and still have a text mode
280 console, there is no communication between sisfb and the X
281 driver. In this - and ONLY this - case, you need to set
282 MaxXFBMem to the same value as you gave sisfb with its mem
283 parameter. If you didn't specify any mem parameter, sisfb will
284 reserve (and you will have to specify by MaxXFBMem) 12288KB if
285 more than 16MB of total video RAM is available, 8192KB if
286 between 12 and 16MB of video RAM is available, 4096KB in all
287 other cases. The size is expected in KB, without the "KB".
288
289 Final word of advice: If you intend to use DRI on an integrated
290 chipset (such as the 540/630/730), it is recommended to set the
291 total video memory in the BIOS setup utility to 64MB.
292
293
294 2.5. 315/330/340 series specific options
295
296
297
298 Option
299 Enables or disables RENDER acceleration. This feature, for
300 instance, accelerates output of anti-aliased text. By default,
301 RENDER acceleration is enabled. RENDER acceleration is currently
302 only supported for XAA, not EXA.
303
304 Option
305 (For 315, 650, 740, 330, 340 and XGI chips only) This option
306 selects whether the XVideo (Xv) overlay should be displayed on
307 CRT1 or CRT2. Setting this option means CRT2. The other CRT will
308 only display the (by default: blue) color key or a black/red
309 pattern.
310
311
312
313