Information for SiS and XGI Users
Thomas Winischhofer (thomas@winischhofer.net)
6 July 2005
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. xorg.conf Options
2.1 For all chipsets
2.2 Old series specific options
2.3 300/315/330/340 series specific options
2.4 300 series specific options
2.5 315/330/340 series specific options
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1. Introduction
This driver is written by Thomas Winischhofer and is a (nearly)
complete re-write of a driver written for the SiS6326 and SiS530 by
Alan Hourihane and others.
It currently supports the following chipsets:
o old series: SiS 5597/5598, 6236/AGP/DVD, 530/620
o 300 series: SiS 300/305, 540, 630/730
o 315 series: SiS 315/E/PRO, 55x, 650, 651, M650, 740,
[M]661&[F/M/G]X, [M]741[GX]
o 330 series: SiS 330 ("Xabre"), [M]760[GX], [M]761[GX]
o 340 series: SiS 34x, XGI Volari Z7, V3XT, V5, V8
Among other features, the driver supports
o 8/16/24 bits color depth; old series also 15
o Hardware cursor; 315/330/340 series: Color HW cursor
o XAA; EXA; XVideo (Xv); RENDER and other extensions
o 6326: TV output
o 300/315/330/340 series: TV output via Chrontel TV encoders or SiS
video bridges
o 300/315/330/340 series: LCD output via LVDS transmitters or SiS
video bridges
o 300/315/330/340 series: Dual head mode; Xinerama; Merged
framebuffer mode
o 300/315/330/340 series: Interface for SiSCtrl (see below)
This document provides a brief overview over the driver's features and
configuration options. Please see
http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsisvga.shtml for detailed
documentation and updates.
2. xorg.conf Options
The following options are of particular interest for the SiS driver.
Each of them must be specified in the Device section of the xorg.conf
file for this card.
In the list below, the options' arguments are described by type. For
"boolean", the keywords "on", "true" and "yes", as well as "off",
"false" and "no" respectively have the same meaning.
2.1. For all chipsets
Option
>
Option
These options select whether the software (SW) or hardware (HW)
cursor should be used. The default is using the hardware cursor.
Option
Disables 2D acceleration. By default, 2D acceleration is
enabled.
Option
Determines which acceleration architecture should be used.
Possible arguments are "XAA" or "EXA". As of this writing, EXA
is still experimental and it is not recommended to be used on
production machines. By default, XAA will be used.
Option
This option enables clockwise ("CW") or counter-clockwise
("CCW") rotation of the display. Enabling either CW or CCW
rotation disables the RandR extension as well as all 2D
acceleration and Xv support. Default: no rotation.
Option
This option enables reflecting the display horizontally ("X"),
vertically ("Y") or in both directions ("XY"). Enabling
reflection disables the RandR extension as well as all 2D
acceleration and Xv support. Default: no rotation.
Option
This option enables the shadow framebuffer layer. By default, it
is disabled.
Option
Disables the XVideo (Xv) support. Apart from the XGI Volari Z7,
all chipsets support Xv. By default, XVideo support is enabled.
Option
Enables or disables gamma correction. Default: gamma correction
is enabled.
2.2. Old series specific options
Option
Enables 1 cycle memory access for read and write operations. The
default depends on the chipset used.
Option
SiS chipsets have the ability to extend the engine command queue
in video RAM. This concept is called "TurboQueue" and gives some
performance improvement. Due to hardware bugs, the TurboQueue is
disabled on the 530/620, otherwise enabled by default.
Option
For 5597/5598 only. This option, if set, disables the CPU to VGA
host bus. Disabling the host bus will result in a severe
performance regression.
VideoRAM [size]
The SiS 6326 can only directly address 4096K bytes of video RAM.
However, there are some cards out there featuring 8192K (8MB) of
video RAM. This RAM is not addressable by the engines.
Therefore, by default, the driver will only use 4096K. This
behavior can be overridden by specifying the amount of video RAM
using the VideoRAM keyword. If more than 4096K is specified, the
driver will disable 2D acceleration, Xv and the HW cursor. On
all other chipsets, this keyword is ignored. The size argument
is expected in KB, but without "KB".
Option
Due to hardware bugs, XVideo may display a corrupt image when
using YV12 encoded material. This option, if set, disables
support for YV12 and hence forces the Xv-aware application to
use either YUV2 or XShm for video output.
Option
(6326 only) Selects the TV output standard. May be PAL or NTSC.
By default, this is selected by a jumper on the card.
2.3. 300/315/330/340 series specific options
Option
This option enables/disables the driver's interface for the
SiSCtrl utility. Please see
http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsisvga.shtml for more
information.
Option
(300 series only) SiS chipsets have the ability to extend the
engine command queue in video RAM. This concept is called
"TurboQueue" and gives some performance improvement. The
TurboQueue is enabled by default.
Option
Enables or disables CRT1 (= the external VGA monitor). By
default, the driver will use CRT1 if a monitor is detected
during server start. Some older monitors can't be detected, so
they may require setting this option to true. To disable CRT1
output, set this option to false.
Option
(For SiS 650, M650, 651, 661, 741, 760 with either SiS 301LV,
302LV or SiS 301C video bridge only) The argument may be "VGA",
"LCD" or "OFF". Specifying LCD will force the driver to use the
VGA controller's CRT1 channel for driving the LCD while CRT2 is
free for TV usage. "OFF" is the same as setting the option
ForceCRT1 to "false". Default is VGA.
Option
Selects the CRT2 output device type. Valid parameters are "LCD",
"TV", "SVIDEO", "COMPOSITE", "SVIDEO+COMPOSITE", "SCART", "VGA",
"YPBPR480I", "YPBPR480P", "YPBPR720P", "YPBPR1080I" or "NONE".
NONE disables CRT2. SVIDEO, COMPOSITE, SVIDEO+COMPOSITE, SCART
and all the YPBPR alternatives are only for systems with a SiS
video bridge and select the desired plug or TV standard type.
For Chrontel systems, TV should be used instead. VGA means
secondary VGA and is only available on some SiS video bridges
(301, 301B, 301C).
Option
(For SiS video bridges only) This option enables or disables
gamma correction for CRT2. Default: gamma correction for CRT2 is
enabled.
Option
Although this option is accepted for all chipsets, it currently
only makes sense on the 300 series; DRI is only supported on
these chipsets. This option enables/disables DRI.
Option
Selects the TV output standard. May be PAL or NTSC, on some
machines (depending on the hardware) also PALM and PALN.
Default: BIOS setting.
Option
>
Option
These options allow relocating the image on your TV. Both
options take an integer within the range of -16 to 16. Default:
0. Not supported for Chrontel 7019.
Option
(For Chrontel TV encoders only) Selects whether TV output should
be overscan or underscan.
Option
(For Chrontel 7005 TV encoders in PAL mode only) Selects whether
TV output should be super-overscan (slightly larger than the
viewable area) or not.
Option
>
Option
(For SiS video bridges only) These options allow zooming the
image on your TV. SISTVXScale takes an integer within the range
of -16 to 16. SISTVYScale accepts -4 to 3. Default: 0. Not all
modes can be scaled.
2.4. 300 series specific options
Option
This option might only be needed if you are running X on a Linux
2.4 series kernel. This option is not needed and should be
omitted on Linux 2.6 and *BSD.
The Linux kernel features a framebuffer driver named "sisfb"
which takes care of memory management for DRI/DRM (such as for
3D texture data). In order to keep the X driver and sisfb from
overwriting each other's video memory, sisfb reserves a certain
amount of video memory for the X driver. Reserved memory is for
X 2D, pixmap cache and video data only. Sisfb will not present
this memory to the DRI. The amount of reserved memory can either
be selected using sisfb's mem parameter or auto-selected
depending on the total amount of video RAM available.
Fact of the matter is, the X driver needs to know about the
amount of RAM sisfb reserved. For this purpose, the Option
"MaxXFBMem" exists.
If you start sisfb with a valid mode (ie you run a graphical
console), the X driver can communicate with sisfb and doesn't
require setting the MaxXFBMem option at all. The X driver will
receive enough information from sisfb in this case.
If you, on the other hand, use sisfb for memory management only,
ie you started sisfb with mode=none and still have a text mode
console, there is no communication between sisfb and the X
driver. In this - and ONLY this - case, you need to set
MaxXFBMem to the same value as you gave sisfb with its mem
parameter. If you didn't specify any mem parameter, sisfb will
reserve (and you will have to specify by MaxXFBMem) 12288KB if
more than 16MB of total video RAM is available, 8192KB if
between 12 and 16MB of video RAM is available, 4096KB in all
other cases. The size is expected in KB, without the "KB".
Final word of advice: If you intend to use DRI on an integrated
chipset (such as the 540/630/730), it is recommended to set the
total video memory in the BIOS setup utility to 64MB.
2.5. 315/330/340 series specific options
Option
Enables or disables RENDER acceleration. This feature, for
instance, accelerates output of anti-aliased text. By default,
RENDER acceleration is enabled. RENDER acceleration is currently
only supported for XAA, not EXA.
Option
(For 315, 650, 740, 330, 340 and XGI chips only) This option
selects whether the XVideo (Xv) overlay should be displayed on
CRT1 or CRT2. Setting this option means CRT2. The other CRT will
only display the (by default: blue) color key or a black/red
pattern.
