xref: /netbsd/share/man/man4/vga.4 (revision c4a72b64)
1.\" $NetBSD: vga.4,v 1.10 2002/07/17 22:02:13 hubertf Exp $
2.Dd March 20, 1999
3.Os
4.Dt VGA 4
5.Sh NAME
6.Nm vga
7.Nd VGA graphics driver for wscons
8.Sh SYNOPSIS
9.Cd options VGA_CONSOLE_SCREENTYPE="??x??"
10.Cd options VGA_CONSOLE_ATI_BROKEN_FONTSEL
11.Pp
12.Cd "vga0 at isa?"
13.Cd "vga* at pci?"
14.Cd "wsdisplay* at vga? console ?"
15.Sh DESCRIPTION
16This driver handles
17.Tn VGA
18graphics hardware within the
19.Xr wscons 4
20console framework. It doesn't provide direct device
21driver entry points but makes its functions available via
22the internal
23.Xr wsdisplay 4
24interface.
25.Pp
26The
27.Nm
28driver supports multiple virtual screens on one physical
29display. The screens allocated on one display can be of different
30.Dq types ,
31where a type refers to various display properties. The type is
32determined at the time the virtual screen is created and can't
33be changed later. Screens are either created at kernel startup
34(then the default type is used) or later with help of the
35.Xr wsconscfg 8
36utility.
37.Pp
38Currently, the following screen types are supported:
39.Bl -hang
40.It 80x25
41This is the standard
42.Tn VGA
43text mode with 80 columns and 25 rows. 16 different colors
44can be displayed at the same time. Characters are 8 x 16
45pixels large, and a font consists of 256 characters. A builtin
46font of this size is always present on a
47.Tn VGA
48card. It's also possible to use a downloaded font instead.
49.It 80x25bf
50is a modified version of the previous. It only allows 8
51colors to be displayed. In exchange, it can access two
52fonts at the same time, so that 512 different characters
53can be displayed.
54.It 80x40
55A text mode with 80 columns and 40 rows. Similar to the
56standard mode, 16 colors and 256 characters are available.
57Characters are 8 x 10 pixels large. For this mode to be useful,
58a font of that character size must be downloaded.
59.It 80x40bf
60is analogously to
61.Dq 80x25bf
62a version with 512 displayable characters but 8 colors only.
63.It 80x50
64A text mode with 80 columns and 50 rows. Similar to the
65standard mode, 16 colors and 256 characters are available.
66Characters are 8 x 8 pixels large. For this mode to be useful,
67a font of that character size must be downloaded.
68.It 80x50bf
69is analogously to
70.Dq 80x25bf
71a version with 512 displayable characters but 8 colors only.
72.It 80x24
73is a variant of the
74.Dq 80x25
75screen type which displays 24 lines only. It uses the standard 8x16 VGA font.
76This mode might be useful for applications which depend on closer
77.Tn DEC VT100
78compatibility.
79.It 80x24bf
80Analogously, like
81.Dq 80x24
82but with 512 character slots and 8 colors.
83.El
84.Pp
85The
86.Nm
87driver can display fonts of the original
88.Tn IBM
89type and ISO-8859-1 encoded fonts. As an experimental feature, the
90.Dq higher half
91fonts of the former
92.Nx Ns /i386
93.Nm pcvt
94driver distribution can be used too if the kernel option
95.Dq WSCONS_SUPPORT_PCVTFONTS
96was set at compile time. This is only useful with the
97.Dq *bf
98screen types; a font containing the
99.Tn ASCII
100range of characters must be available too on this screen.
101.Pp
102If you have an Ati videocard and you are experiencing problems with
103fonts other than 80x25, you can try to set
104.Cd options VGA_CONSOLE_ATI_BROKEN_FONTSEL
105in you kernel configuration and see if it helps.
106.Sh SEE ALSO
107.Xr isa 4 ,
108.Xr pcdisplay 4 ,
109.Xr pci 4 ,
110.Xr wscons 4 ,
111.Xr wsconscfg 8 ,
112.Xr wsfontload 8
113.Sh BUGS
114Only a subset of the possible text modes is supported.
115.Pp
116.Tn VGA
117cards are supposed to emulate an
118.Tn MDA
119if a monochrome display is connected. In this case, the
120device will naturally not support colors at all, but
121offer the capability to display underlined characters instead.
122The
123.Dq 80x25bf ,
124.Dq 80x40bf ,
125.Dq 80x50bf
126and
127.Dq 80x24bf
128screen types will not be available. This mode of operation
129is not tested.
130