1svgalib(7) Svgalib User Manual svgalib(7)
2
6 svgalib - a low level graphics library for linux
7
9 0. Introduction
10 1. Installation
11 2. How to use svgalib
12 3. Description of svgalib functions
13 4. Overview of supported SVGA chipsets and modes
14 5. Detailed comments on certain device drivers
15 6. Goals
16 7. References (location of latest version, apps etc.)
17 8. Known bugs
18
21 This is a low level graphics library for Linux, originally based on
22 VGAlib 1.2 by Tommy Frandsen. VGAlib supported a number of standard VGA
23 graphics modes, as well as Tseng ET4000 high resolution 256-color
24 modes. As of now, support for many more chipsets has been added. See
25 section 4 Overview of supported SVGA chipsets and modes
26 It supports transparent virtual console switching, that is, you can
28 switch consoles to and from text and graphics mode consoles using
29 alt-[function key]. Also, svgalib corrects most of VGAlib's textmode
30 corruption behaviour by catching SIGSEGV, SIGFPE, SIGILL, and other
31 fatal signals and ensuring that a program is running in the currently
32 visible virtual console before setting a graphics mode.
33 Note right here that SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2 are used to manage console
35 switching internally in svgalib. You can not use them in your pro‐
36 grams. If your program needs to use one of those signals, svgalib can
37 be compiled to use other signals, by editing libvga.h
38 This version includes code to hunt for a free virtual console on its
40 own in case you are not starting the program from one (but instead over
41 a network or modem login, from within screen(1) or an xterm(1)). Pro‐
42 vided there is a free console, this succeeds if you are root or if the
43 svgalib calling user own the current console. This is to avoid people
44 not using the console being able to fiddle with it. On graceful exit
45 the program returns to the console from which it was started. Other‐
46 wise it remains in text mode at the VC which svgalib allocated to allow
47 you to see any error messages. In any case, any I/O the svgalib makes
48 in text mode (after calling vga_init(3)) will also take place at this
49 new console.
50 Alas, some games misuse their suid root privilege and run as full root
52 process. svgalib cannot detect this and allows Joe Blow User to open a
53 new VC on the console. If this annoys you, ROOT_VC_SHORTCUT in Make‐
54 file.cfg allows you to disable allocating a new VC for root (except
55 when he owns the current console) when you compile svgalib. This is the
56 default.
57 When the library is used by a program at run-time, first the chipset is
59 detected and the appropriate driver is used. This means that a graphics
60 program will work on any card that is supported by svgalib, if the mode
61 it uses is supported by the chipset driver for that card. The library
62 is upwardly compatible with VGAlib.
63 The set of drawing functions provided by svgalib itself is limited
65 (unchanged from VGAlib) and unoptimized; you can however use vga_set‐
66 page(3) and vga_getgraphmem(3) (which points to the 64K VGA frame‐
67 buffer) in a program or graphics library. A fast external framebuffer
68 graphics library for linear and banked 1, 2, 3 and 4 bytes per pixel
69 modes is included (it also indirectly supports planar VGA modes). It is
70 documented in vgagl(7).
71 One obvious application of the library is a picture viewer. Several are
73 available, along with animation viewers. See the 7. References at the
74 end of this document.
75 I have added a simple VGA textmode font restoration utility (restore‐
77 font(1)) which may help if you suffer from XFree86 textmode font cor‐
78 ruption. It can also be used to change the textmode font. It comes with
79 some other textmode utilities: restoretextmode(1) (which saves/restores
80 textmode registers), restorepalette(1), and the script textmode(1). If
81 you run the savetextmode(1) script to save textmode information to
82 /tmp, you'll be able to restore textmode by running the textmode(1)
83 script.
84
87 Installation is easy in general but there are many options and things
88 you should keep in mind. This document however assumes that svgalib is
89 already installed.
90 If you need information on installation see 0-INSTALL which comes with
92 the svgalib distribution.
93 However, even after installation of the library you might need to con‐
95 figure svgalib using the file /etc/vga/libvga.config. Checkout section
96 4 Overview of supported SVGA chipsets and modes and libvga.config(5)
97 for information.
98
101 For basic svgalib usage (no mouse, no raw keyboard) add #include
102 <vga.h> at the beginning your program. Use vga_init(3) as your first
103 svgalib call. This will give up root privileges right after initializa‐
104 tion, making setuid-root binaries relatively safe.
105 The function vga_getdefaultmode(3) checks the environment variable
107 SVGALIB_DEFAULT_MODE for a default mode, and returns the corresponding
108 mode number. The environment string can either be a mode number or a
109 mode name as in (G640x480x2, G640x480x16, G640x480x256 , G640x480x32K,
110 G640x480x64K, G640x480x16M). As an example, to set the default graph‐
111 ics mode to 640x480, 256 colors, use:
112 export SVGALIB_DEFAULT_MODE=G640x480x256
114 on the bash(1) command line. If a program needs just a linear VGA/SVGA
116 resolution (as required by vgagl(7)), only modes where bytesperpixel in
117 the vga_modeinfo structure returned by vga_getmodeinfo(3) is greater or
118 equal to 1 should be accepted (this is 0 for tweaked planar 256-color
119 VGA modes).
120 Use vga_setmode(graphicsmode) to set a graphics mode. Use vga_set‐
122 mode(TEXT) to restore textmode before program exit.
123 Programs that use svgalib must #include<vga.h>; if they also use the
125 external graphics library vgagl(7), you must also #include<vgagl.h>.
126 Linking must be done with -lvga (and -lvgagl before -lvga, if vgagl(7)
127 is used). You can save binary space by removing the unused chipset
128 drivers in Makefile.cfg if you only use specific chipsets. However this
129 reduces the flexibility of svgalib and has a significant effect only
130 when you use the static libraries. You should better use the shared
131 libraries and these will load only the really used parts anyway.
132 Functions in the vgagl(7) library have the prefix gl_. Please see
134 vgagl(7) for details.
135 There are demos with sources available which will also help to get you
137 started, in recomended order of interest: vgatest(6), keytest(6),
138 mousetest(6), eventtest(6), forktest(6), bg_test(6), scrolltest(6),
139 speedtest(6), fun(6), spin(6), testlinear(6), lineart(6), testgl(6),
140 accel(6), testaccel(6), plane(6), and wrapdemo(6).
141 Debugging your programs will turn out to be rather difficult, because
143 the svgalib application can not restore textmode when it returns to the
144 debugger.
145 Happy are the users with a serial terminal, X-station, or another way
147 to log into the machine from network. These can use
148 textmode </dev/ttyN
150 on the console where the program runs and continue.
152 However, the vga_flip(3) function allows you to switch to textmode by
154 entering a call to it blindly into your debugger when your program
155 stops in graphics mode. vga_flip(3) is not very robust though. You
156 shall not call it when svgalib is not yet initialized or in textmode.
157 Before continuing your program, you must then call vga_flip(3) again to
159 return to graphics mode. If the program will not make any screen
160 accesses or svgalib calls before it returns to the debugger, you can
161 omit that, of course.
162 This will only work if your program and the debugger run in the same
164 virtual linux console.
165
168 Each function has it's own section 3 manual page. For a list of vgagl
169 functions see vgagl(7).
170 Initialization
172 vga_init(3)
173 - initialize svgalib library.
174 vga_disabledriverreport(3)
175 - makes svgalib not emit any startup messages.
176 vga_claimvideomemory(3)
177 - declare the amount of video memory used.
178 vga_safety_fork(3)
179 - start a parallel process to restore the console at a crash.
180 vga_setchipset(3)
181 - force chipset.
182 vga_setchipsetandfeatures(3)
183 - force chipset and optional parameters.
184 Inquire hardware configuration
186 vga_getmousetype(3)
187 - returns the mouse type configured.
188 vga_getcurrentchipset(3)
189 - returns the current SVGA chipset.
190 vga_getmonitortype(3)
191 - returns the monitor type configured.
192 Setting video modes
194 vga_setmode(3)
195 - sets a video mode.
196 vga_setdisplaystart(3)
197 - set the display start address.
198 vga_setlogicalwidth(3)
199 - set the logical scanline width.
200 vga_setlinearaddressing(3)
201 - switch to linear addressing mode.
202 vga_setmodeX(3)
203 - try to set Mode X-like memory organization .
204 vga_ext_set(3)
205 - set and query several extended features.
206 vga_screenoff(3), vga_screenon(3)
207 - turn generation of the video signal on or off.
208 Get video mode information
210 vga_getxdim(3), vga_getydim(3), vga_getcolors(3)
211 - return the current screen resolution.
212 vga_white(3)
213 - return the color white in the current screen resolution.
214 vga_getcurrentmode(3)
215 - returns the current video mode.
216 vga_hasmode(3)
217 - returns if a video mode is supported.
218 vga_getmodeinfo(3)
219 - returns pointer to mode information structure for a mode.
220 vga_getdefaultmode(3)
221 - returns the default graphics mode number.
222 vga_lastmodenumber(3)
223 - returns the last video mode number.
224 vga_getmodename(3)
225 - return a name for the given video mode.
226 vga_getmodenumber(3)
227 - return a number for the given video mode.
228 Drawing primitives
230 vga_clear(3)
231 - clear the screen.
232 vga_setcolor(3)
233 - set the current color.
234 vga_setrgbcolor(3)
235 - set the current color.
236 vga_setegacolor(3)
237 - set the current color.
238 vga_drawpixel(3)
239 - draw a pixel on the screen.
240 vga_drawscanline(3)
241 - draw a horizontal line of pixels.
242 vga_drawscansegment(3)
243 - draw a horizontal line of pixels.
244 vga_drawline(3)
245 - draw a line on the screen.
246 vga_getpixel(3)
247 - get a pixels value from the screen.
248 vga_getscansegment(3)
249 - get a list of consecutive pixel values.
250 vga_waitretrace(3)
251 - wait for vertical retrace.
252 Basic (non raw) keyboard I/O
254 vga_getch(3)
255 - wait for a key.
256 vga_getkey(3)
257 - read a character from the keyboard without waiting.
258 vga_waitevent(3)
259 - wait for various I/O events.
260 Direct VGA memory access
262 vga_setpage(3)
263 - set the 64K SVGA page number.
264 vga_setreadpage(3)
265 - set the 64K SVGA page number.
266 vga_setwritepage(3)
267 - set the 64K SVGA page number.
268 vga_getgraphmem(3)
269 - returns the address of the VGA memory.
270 vga_copytoplanar256(3)
271 - copy linear pixmap into Mode X video memory.
272 vga_copytoplanar16(3)
273 - copy linear pixmap into VGA 16 color mode video memory.
274 vga_copytoplane(3)
275 - copy linear pixmap to some planes of VGA 16 color mode video
276 memory.
277 Manage color lookup tables
279 vga_setpalette(3)
280 - set a color in the color lookup table.
281 vga_getpalette(3)
282 - get a color in the color lookup table.
283 vga_setpalvec(3)
284 - sets colors in the color lookup table.
285 vga_getpalvec(3)
286 - gets colors from the color lookup table.
287 Mouse handling
289 vga_setmousesupport(3)
290 - enable mouse support.
291 mouse_init(3), mouse_init_return_fd(3)
292 - specifically initialize a mouse.
293 mouse_close(3)
294 - explicitly close a mouse.
295 mouse_update(3)
296 - updates the mouse state.
297 mouse_waitforupdate(3)
298 - wait for an mouse update.
299 mouse_setscale(3)
300 - sets a mouse scale factor.
301 mouse_setwrap(3)
302 - set what happens at the mouse boundaries.
303 mouse_setxrange(3), mouse_setyrange(3)
304 - define the boundaries for the mouse cursor.
305 mouse_getx(3), mouse_gety(3), mouse_getbutton(3)
306 - query the mouse state.
307 mouse_setposition(3)
308 - set the current mouse position.
309 mouse_getposition_6d(3), mouse_setposition_6d(3), mouse_setrange_6d(3)
310 - provide an interface to 3d mice.
311 mouse_seteventhandler(3), mouse_setdefaulteventhandler(3)
312 - set a mouse event handler.
313 Raw keyboard handling
315 keyboard_init(3), keyboard_init_return_fd(3)
316 - initialize the keyboard to raw mode.
317 keyboard_close(3)
318 - return the keyboard to normal operation from raw mode.
319 keyboard_update(3), keyboard_waitforupdate(3)
320 - process raw keyboard events.
321 keyboard_translatekeys(3)
322 - modify scancode mappings in raw keyboard mode.
323 keyboard_keypressed(3)
324 - check if a key is pressed when in raw keyboard mode.
325 keyboard_getstate(3)
326 - get a pointer to a buffer holding the state of all keys in raw
327 keyboard mode.
328 keyboard_clearstate(3)
329 - reset the state of all keys when in raw keyboard mode.
330 keyboard_seteventhandler(3), keyboard_setdefaulteventhandler(3)
331 - define an event handler for keyboard events in raw mode.
332 Joystick handling
334 joystick_init(3)
335 - initialize and calibrate joysticks.
336 joystick_close(3)
337 - close a joystick device.
338 joystick_update(3)
339 - query and process joystick state changes.
340 joystick_sethandler(3), joystick_setdefaulthandler(3)
341 - define own joystick even handler.
342 joystick_getnumaxes(3), joystick_getnumbuttons(3)
343 - query the capabilities of a joystick.
344 joystick_getaxis(3), joystick_getbutton(3)
345 - query the state of a joystick.
346 joystick_button1|2|3|4(3), joystick_getb1|2|3|4(3), joystick_x|y|z(3),
347 joystick_getx|y|z(3)
348 - convenience macros to query the joystick position.
349 Accelerator interface (new style)
351 vga_accel(3)
352 - calls the graphics accelerator.
353 Accelerator interface (old style)
355 vga_bitblt(3)
356 - copy pixmap on screen using an accelerator.
357 vga_fillblt(3)
358 - fill rectangular area in video memory with a single color.
359 vga_hlinelistblt(3)
360 - draw horizontal scan lines.
361 vga_imageblt(3)
362 - copy a rectangular pixmap from system memory to video memory.
363 vga_blitwait(3)
364 - wait for any accelerator operation to finish.
365 Controlling VC switches
367 vga_lockvc(3)
368 - disables virtual console switching for safety.
369 vga_unlockvc(3)
370 - re-enables virtual console switching.
371 vga_oktowrite(3)
372 - indicates whether the program has direct access to the SVGA.
373 vga_runinbackground(3)
374 - enable running of the program while there is no VGA access.
375 vga_runinbackground_version(3)
376 - returns the version of the current background support.
377 Debugging aids
379 vga_dumpregs(3)
380 - dump the contents of the SVGA registers.
381 vga_gettextfont(3), vga_puttextfont(3)
382 - get/set the font used in text mode.
383 vga_gettextmoderegs(3), vga_settextmoderegs(3)
384 - get/set the vga state used in text mode.
385 vga_flip(3)
386 - toggle between text and graphics mode.
387 vga_setflipchar(3)
388 - set the character causing a vga_flip().
389
391 VGA and compatibles
392 320x200x256, and the series of 16-color and non-standard planar 256
393 color modes supported by VGAlib, as well as 720x348x2.
394 ALI2301
397 Supports 640x480x256, 800x600x256, 1024x768x256 SVGA modes
398 AT3D (AT25)
401 Also known as Promotion at25. Popular as the 2D part of a voodoo rush
402 card. As of this writing there are a few known problems with this
403 driver. Read below.
404 ARK Logic ARK1000PV/2000PV
407 Full support, limited RAMDAC support. Only ARK1000PV tested. Supports
408 Clocks and Ramdac lines in config file.
409 ATI SVGA (VGA Wonder and friends)
412 This is no real driver. I do not support any new modes. However it
413 saves additional card setup and thus allows use of the plain VGA modes
414 even when you are using non standard text modes. It is possible to
415 enforce use of this driver even on ATI Mach32 but not very useful.
416 ATI Mach32
419 The driver by Michael Weller supports all ATI BIOS-defined modes and
420 more... It hits the best out of your card. Some modes may not have
421 nice default timings but it uses the ATI's EEPROM for custom config or
422 allows to specify modes in libvga.config(5). Some problems may occur
423 with quite some third party cards (usually on board) Mach32 based con‐
424 trollers as they do not completely conform to the Mach32 data sheets.
425 Check out svgalib.mach32(7) (and libvga.config(5)).
426 ATI Mach64 (rage)
429 A driver for ATi Mach64 based cards with internal DAC.
430 Chips and Technologies chipsets 65525, 65535, 65546, 65548, 65550, and
433 65554 (usually in laptops).
434 This server was written using the SVGALIB patch from Sergio and Angelo
435 Masci as a starting point. This version of the code resembled the XFree
436 server code that was used up to XFree 3.1.2. As such it was incapable
437 of programming the clocks, using linear addressing, Hi-Color, True-
438 Color modes or the hardware acceleration. All of these features have
439 since been added to the code. The 64200 and 64300 chips are unsup‐
440 ported, however these chips are very similar to the 6554x chips which
441 are supported.
442 Cirrus Logic GD542x/3x
445 All the modes, including 256 color, 32K/64K color, 16M color (3 bytes
446 per pixel) and 32-bit pixel 16M color modes (5434). Some bitblt func‐
447 tions are supported. The driver doesn't work with mode dumps, but uses
448 a SVGA abstraction with mode timings like the X drivers.
449 Genoa(?) GVGA6400 cards.
452 Supported.
453 Hercules Stingray 64/Video
456 Is supported as an ARK2000PV
457 NV3 driver for the Riva128.
460 This driver was written by Matan Ziv-Av and is derived from the XFree86
461 driver by David J. Mckay. It lacks 24bit modes (can the card do them at
462 all?), acceleration support and pageflipping in threeDKit is broken.
463 Oak Technologies OTI-037/67/77/87
466 Driver by Christopher Wiles; includes 32K color modes for OTI-087.
467 S3
470 The driver is not complete, but should work on a number of cards/RAM‐
471 DACs, and 640x480x256 should work on most card. The best support is for
472 a 801/805 with AT&T20C490-compatible RAMDAC, and S3-864 + SDAC. All
473 256/32K/64K/16M works for them (within the bounds of video memory &
474 ramdac restrictions).
475 The supported cards include S3 Virge and S3 Trio64 cards.
477 None of the acceleration function is supported yet.
479 The chip level code should work with the 964/868/968, but most likely
481 the card they come on would use an unsupported ramdac/clock chip. Sup‐
482 port for these chips is slowly being added.
483 Clocks and Ramdac lines in libvga.config(5) supported.
485 The maximum pixel clock (in MHz) of the ramdac can be set using a Dac‐
487 speed line in the config file. A reasonable default is assumed if the
488 Dacspeed line is omitted. Clocks should be the same as in XFree86.
489 Supported ramdac IDs: Sierra32K, SC15025, SDAC, GenDAC, ATT20C490,
490 ATT20C498, IBMRGB52x.
491 Example:
493 Clocks 25.175 28.3 40 70 50 75 36 44.9 0 118 77 31.5 110 65 72 93.5
494 Ramdac att20c490
495 DacSpeed 85
496 Also supported, at least in combination with the SC15025/26A ramdac, is
498 the ICD 2061A clock chip. Since it cannot be autodetected you need to
499 define it in the config file using a Clockchip line. As there is no way
500 to read the current settings out of the 2061, you have the option to
501 specify the frequency used when switching back to text mode as second
502 argument in the Clockchip line.
503 This is especially required if your text mode is an 132 column mode,
505 since these modes use a clock from the clock chip, while 80 column
506 modes use a fixed clock of 25 MHz. The text mode frequency defaults to
507 40 MHz, if omitted.
508 Example:
510 ClockChip icd2061a 40.0
511 Trident TVGA 8900C/9000 (and possibly also 8800CS/8900A/B) and also TVGA
514 9440
515 Derived from tvgalib by Toomas Losin. TVGA 9440 support by ARK
516 <ark@lhq.com, root@ark.dyn.ml.or>.
517 Supports 640x480x256, 800x600x256, 1024x768x256 (interlaced and non-
519 interlaced) Might be useful to add 16-color modes (for those equipped
520 with a 512K TVGA9000) for the 8900 and 9000 cards.
521 320x200x{32K, 64K, 16M}, 640x480x{256, 32K, 64K, 16M}, 800x600x{256,
523 32K, 64K, 16M}, 1024x768x{16, 256}, 800x600x{16, 256, 32K, 64K} modes
524 are supported for the TVGA 9440.
525 Autodetection can be forced with a:
527 chipset TVGA memory flags
529 line in the config file.
531 memory is the amount of VGA memory in KB, flags is composed of three
533 bits:
534 bit2 = false, bit1 = false
536 force 8900.
537 bit2 = false, bit1 = true
539 force 9440.
540 bit2 = true, bit1 = false
542 force 9680.
543 bit0 = true
545 force noninterlaced.
546 bit0 = false
548 force interlaced which only matters on 8900's with at
549 least 1M since there is no 512K interlaced mode on the
550 8900 or any of the other cards.
551 Tseng ET4000/ET4000W32(i/p)
554 Derived from VGAlib; not the same register values. ET4000 register
555 values are not compatible; see svgalib.et4000(7).
556 Make sure the colors are right in hicolor mode; the vgatest program
558 should draw the same color bars for 256 and hicolor modes (the DAC type
559 is defined at compilation in et4000.regs or the dynamic registers
560 file). ET4000/W32 based cards usually have an AT&T or Sierra 15025/6
561 DAC. With recent W32p based cards, you might have some luck with the
562 AT&T DAC type. If the high resolution modes don't work, you can try
563 dumping the registers in DOS using the program in the et4000/ directory
564 and putting them in a file (/etc/vga/libvga.et4000 is parsed at runtime
565 if DYNAMIC is defined in Makefile.cfg at compilation (this is
566 default)).
567 Supported modes are 640x480x256, 800x600x256, 1024x768x256,
569 640x480x32K, 800x600x32K, 640x480x16M, etc.
570 Reports of ET4000/W32i/p functionality are welcome.
572 There may be a problem with the way the hicolor DAC register is han‐
574 dled; dumped registers may use one of two timing methods, with the
575 value written to the register for a particular DAC for a hicolor mode
576 (in vgahico.c) being correct for just one of the these methods. As a
577 consequence some dumped resolutions may work while others don't.
578 Tseng ET6000
581 Most modes of which the card is capable are supported. The 8 15 16 24
582 and 32 bit modes are supported.
583 The ET6000 has a built in DAC and there is no problem coming from that
585 area. The ET6000 is capable of acceleration, but this as well as
586 sprites are not yet implemented in the driver.
587 The driver now uses modelines in libvga.config for user defined modes.
589 It is sometimes useful to add a modeline for a resolution which does
590 not display well. For example, the G400x600 is too far to the right of
591 the screen using standard modes. This is corrected by including in
592 libvga.config the line
593 Modeline "400x600@72" 25.000 400 440 488 520 600 639 644 666
595 More examples are given below.
597 This driver was provided by Don Secrest.
599 VESA
602 Please read README.vesa and README.lrmi in doc subdirectory of the
603 standard distribution.
604 Go figure! I turned off autodetection in the release, as a broken bios
606 will be called too, maybe crashing the machine. Enforce VESA mode by
607 putting a chipset VESA in the end of your libvga.config(5).
608 Note that it will leave protected mode and call the cards bios opening
610 the door to many hazards.
611
614 This section contains detailed information by the authors on certain
615 chipsets.
616 AT3D (AT25)
619 Also known as Promotion at25. Popular as the 2D part of a voodoo rush
620 card.
621 I have written a driver for this chipset, based on the XF86 driver for
623 this chipset.
624 The programs that work with this driver include all the programs in the
626 demos directory, zgv and dvisvga (tmview).
627 I believe it should be easy to make it work on AT24, AT6422.
629 ATI Mach32
632 Please see svgalib.mach32(7).
633 ATI Mach64
636 The rage.c driver works only on mach64 based cards with internal DAC.
637 The driver might misdetect the base frequency the card uses, so if when
638 setting any svgalib modes the screen blanks, or complains about out of
639 bound freqencies, or the display is unsynced, then try adding the
640 option RageDoubleClock to the config file.
641 Chips and Technologies chipsets 65525, 65535, 65546, 65548, 65550, and
644 65554 (usually in laptops).
645 Please see svgalib.chips(7).
646 Tseng ET4000/ET4000W32(i/p)
649 Please see svgalib.et4000(7).
650 Tseng ET6000
653 I have only 2 Mbytes of memory on my ET6000 card, so I am not able to
654 get all possible modes running. I haven't even tried to do all of the
655 modes which I am capable of doing, but I am confident that I can manage
656 more modes when I have time. I have enough modes working to make the
657 card useful, so I felt it was worth while to add the driver to svgalib
658 now.
659 Linear graphics is working on this card, both with and without BACK‐
661 GROUND enabled, and vga_runinbackground works.
662 I decided it was best to quit working on more modes and try to get
664 acceleration and sprites working.
665 My et6000 card is on a PCI bus. The card will run on a vesa bus, but
667 since I don't have one on my machine I couldn't develop vesa bus han‐
668 dling. I quit if the bus is a vesa bus.
669 I check for an et6000 card, which can be unequivocally identified. The
671 et4000 driver does not properly identify et4000 cards. It thinks the
672 et6000 card is an et4000, but can only run it in vga modes.
673 I have found the following four modelines to be useful in libvga.config
675 or in ~/.svgalibrc for proper display of some modes.
676 Modeline "512x384@79" 25.175 512 560 592 640 384 428 436 494
678 Modeline "400x300@72" 25.000 400 456 472 520 300 319 332 350 DOUBLES‐
679 CAN
680 Modeline "512x480@71" 25.175 512 584 600 656 480 500 510 550
681 Modeline "400x600@72" 25.000 400 440 488 520 600 639 644 666
682 Don Secrest <secrest@uiuc.edu> Aug 21, 1999
684 Oak Technologies OTI-037/67/77/87
688 First a few comments of me (Michael Weller <eowmob@exp-math.uni-
689 essen.de>):
690 As of this writing (1.2.8) fixes were made to the oak driver by Frodo
692 Looijaard <frodol@dds.nl> to reenable OTI-067 support. It is unknown
693 right now if they might have broken OTI-087 support. The author of the
694 '87 support Christopher Wiles <wileyc@moscow.com> owns no longer an
695 OTI-087 card and can thus no longer give optimal support to this
696 driver. Thus you might be better off contacting me or Frodo for ques‐
697 tions. If you are a knowledgable OTI-087 user and experience problems
698 you are welcome to provide fixes. No user of a OTI-087 is currently
699 known to me, so if you are able to fix problems with the driver please
700 do so (and contact me) as noone else can.
701 Michael.
703 Now back to the original Oak information:
705 The original OTI driver, which supported the OTI-067/77 at 640x480x256,
707 has been augmented with the following features:
708 1) Supported resolutions/colors have been expanded to 640x480x32K,
711 800x600x256/32K, 1024x768x256, and 1280x1024x16.
712 2) The OTI-087 (all variants) is now supported. Video memory is
714 correctly recognized.
715 The driver as it exists now is somewhat schizoid. As the '87 incorpo‐
717 rates a completely different set of extended registers, I found it nec‐
718 essary to split its routines from the others. Further, I did not have
719 access to either a '67 or a '77 for testing the new resolutions. If
720 using them causes your monitor/video card to fry, your dog to bite you,
721 and so forth, I warned you. The driver works on my '87, and that's all
722 I guarantee. Period.
723 Heh. Now, if someone wants to try them out ... let me know if they
725 work.
726 New from last release:
728 32K modes now work for 640x480 and 800x600. I found that the Sierra
730 DAC information in VGADOC3.ZIP is, well, wrong. But, then again, the
731 information for the '87 was wrong also.
732 64K modes do not work. I can't even get Oak's BIOS to enter those
734 modes.
735 I have included a 1280x1024x16 mode, but I haven't tested it. My moni‐
737 tor can't handle that resolution. According to the documentation, with
738 2 megs the '87 should be able to do an interlaced 1280x1024x256 ...
739 again, I couldn't get the BIOS to do the mode. I haven't 2 megs any‐
740 way, so there it sits.
741 I have included routines for entering and leaving linear mode. They
743 should work, but they don't. It looks like a pointer to the frame buf‐
744 fer is not being passed to SVGALIB. I've been fighting with this one
745 for a month. If anyone wants to play with this, let me know if it can
746 be make to work. I've got exams that I need to pass.
747 Tidbit: I pulled the extended register info out of the video BIOS.
749 When the information thus obtained failed to work, I procured the
750 OTI-087 data book. It appears that Oak's video BIOS sets various modes
751 incorrectly (e.g. setting 8-bit color as 4, wrong dot clock frequen‐
752 cies, etc.). Sort of makes me wonder ...
753 Christopher M. Wiles (a0017097@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu)
755 12 September 1994
756
759 I think the ability to use a VGA/SVGA graphics resolution in one vir‐
760 tual console, and being able to switch to any other virtual console
761 and back makes a fairly useful implementation of graphics modes in the
762 Linux console.
763 Programs that use svgalib must be setuid root. I don't know how desir‐
765 able it is to have this changed; direct port access can hardly be done
766 without. Root privileges can now be given up right after initializa‐
767 tion. I noticed some unimplemented stuff in the kernel header files
768 that may be useful, although doing all register I/O via the kernel
769 would incur a significant context-switching overhead. An alternative
770 might be to have a pseudo /dev/vga device that yields the required per‐
771 missions when opened, the device being readable by programs in group
772 vga.
773 It is important that textmode is restored properly and reliably; it is
775 fairly reliable at the moment, but fast console switching back and
776 forth between two consoles running graphics can give problems. Wild
777 virtual console switching also sometimes corrupts the contents of the
778 textmode screen buffer (not the textmode registers or font). Also if a
779 program crashes it may write into the area where the saved textmode
780 registers are stored, causing textmode not be restored correctly. It
781 would be a good idea to somehow store this information in a 'safe' area
782 (say a kernel buffer). Note that the vga_safety_fork(3) thing has the
783 same idea.
784 Currently, programs that are in graphics mode are suspended while not
786 in the current virtual console. Would it be a good idea to let them run
787 in the background, virtualizing framebuffer actions (this should not be
788 too hard for linear banked SVGA modes)? It would be nice to have, say,
789 a raytracer with a real-time display run in the background (although
790 just using a separate real-time viewing program is much more elegant).
791 Anyone wanting to rewrite it all in a cleaner way (something with load‐
793 able kernel modules shouldn't hurt performance with linear frame‐
794 buffer/vgagl type applications) is encouraged.
795 Also, if anyone feels really strongly about a low-resource and true‐
797 color supporting graphical window environment with cut-and-paste, I
798 believe it would be surprisingly little work to come up with a simple
799 but very useful client-server system with shmem, the most useful appli‐
800 cations being fairly trivial to write (e.g. shell window, bitmap
801 viewer). And many X apps would port trivially.
802 This is old information, please be sure to read svgalib.faq(7) if you
804 are interested in further goals.
805
808 The latest version of svgalib can be found on sunsite.unc.edu in
809 /pub/Linux/libs/graphics or tsx-11.mit.edu in /pub/linux/sources/libs
810 as svgalib-X.X.X.tar.gz. As of this writing the latest version is
811 svgalib-1.4.1.tar.gz. There are countless mirrors of these ftp servers
812 in the world. Certainly a server close to you will carry it.
813 The original VGAlib is on tsx-11.mit.edu,
815 pub/linux/sources/libs/vgalib12.tar.Z. tvgalib-1.0.tar.Z is in the
816 same directory.
817 SLS has long been distributing an old version of VGAlib. Slackware
819 keeps a fairly up-to-date version of svgalib, but it may be installed
820 in different directories from what svgalib likes to do by default. The
821 current svgalib install tries to remove most of this. It also removes
822 /usr/bin/setmclk and /usr/bin/convfont, which is a security risk if
823 setuid-root. Actually the recent makefiles try to do a really good job
824 to cleanup the mess which some distributions make.
825 If you want to recompile the a.out shared library, you will need the
827 DLL 'tools' package (found on tsx-11.mit.edu, GCC dir). To make it
828 work with recent ELF compiler's you actually need to hand patch it. You
829 should probably not try to compile it. Compiling the ELF library is
830 deadly simple.
831 And here is a list of other references which is horribly outdated.
833 There are many more svgalib applications as well as the directories
834 might have changed. However, these will give you a start point and
835 names to hunt for on CD's or in ftp archives.
836 Viewers (in /pub/Linux/apps/graphics/viewers on sunsite.unc.edu):
839 spic Picture viewer; JPG/PPM/GIF; truecolor; scrolling.
840 zgv Full-featured viewer with nice file selector.
841 see-jpeg
842 Shows picture as it is being built up.
843 mpeg-linux
844 svgalib port of the Berkeley MPEG decoder (mpeg_play); it also
845 includes an X binary.
846 flip FLI/FLC player (supports SVGA-resolution).
847 Games (in /pub/Linux/games on sunsite.unc.edu):
849 bdash B*lderdash clone with sound.
850 sasteroids
851 Very smooth arcade asteroids game.
852 yatzy Neat mouse controlled dice game.
853 vga_cardgames
854 Collection of graphical card games.
855 vga_gamespack
856 Connect4, othello and mines.
857 wt Free state-of-the-art Doom-like engine.
858 Maelstrom
859 A very nice asteroids style game port from Mac.
860 Koules A game. (I've no idea what it looks like)
861 Docs
863 In the vga directory of the SIMTEL MSDOS collection, there is a package
864 called vgadoc3 which is a collection of VGA/SVGA register information.
865 The XFree86 driver sources distributed with the link-kit may be help‐
867 ful.
868 Miscellaneous
871 There's an alternative RAW-mode keyboard library by Russell Marks for
872 use with svgalib on sunsite.unc.edu.
873 LIBGRX, the extensive framebuffer library by Csaba Biegl distributed
875 with DJGPP, has been ported to Linux. Contact Hartmut Schirmer
876 (phc27@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de, subject prefix "HARTMUT:"). A more up-to-
877 date port by Daniel Jackson (djackson@icomp.intel.com) is on sun‐
878 site.unc.edu.
879 The vgalib ghostscript device driver sources can be found on sun‐
881 site.unc.edu, /pub/Linux/apps/graphics. Ghostscript patches from
882 Slackware: ftp.cdrom.com, /pub/linux/misc. gnuplot patches are on sun‐
883 site.unc.edu.
884 Mitch D'Souza has written font functions that work in 16 color modes
886 and can use VGA textmode (codepage format) fonts; these can be found in
887 his g3fax package in sunsite.unc.edu. These functions may go into a
888 later version of svgalib.
889
892 This section is most probably outdated, none of these problems are no
893 longer reported.
894 Using a 132 column textmode may cause graphics modes to fail. Try using
896 something like 80x28.
897 The console switching doesn't preserve some registers that may be used
899 to draw in planar VGA modes.
900 Wild console switching can cause the text screen to be corrupted, espe‐
902 cially when switching between two graphics consoles.
903 On ET4000, having run XFree86 may cause high resolution modes to fail
905 (this is more XFree86's fault).
906 The Trident probing routine in the XFree86 server may cause standard
908 VGA modes to fail after exiting X on a Cirrus. Try putting a 'Chipset'
909 line in your Xconfig to avoid the Trident probe, or use the link kit to
910 build a server without the Trident driver. Saving and restoring the
911 textmode registers with savetextmode/textmode (restoretextmode) should
912 also work. [Note: svgalib now resets the particular extended register,
913 but only if the Cirrus driver is used (i.e. the chipset is not forced
914 to VGA)] [This is fixed in XFree86 v2.1]
915 Some Paradise VGA cards may not work even in standard VGA modes. Can
917 anyone confirm this?
918 Piping data into a graphics program has problems. I am not sure why. A
920 pity, since zcatting a 5Mb FLC file into flip on a 4Mb machine would be
921 fun.
922 The tseng3.exe DOS program include as source in the svgalib distribu‐
924 tion doesn't recognize any modes on some ET4000 cards. Also ET4000
925 cards with a Acumos/Cirrus DAC may only work correctly in 64K color
926 mode.
927
930 /etc/vga/libvga.config
931 /etc/vga/libvga.et4000
932
935 svgalib.et4000(7), svgalib.chips(7), svgalib.mach32(7), vgagl(7), lib‐
936 vga.config(5), 3d(6), accel(6), bg_test(6), eventtest(6), forktest(6),
937 fun(6), keytest(6), lineart(5), mousetest(6), joytest(6), mjoytest(6),
938 scrolltest(6), speedtest(6), spin(6), testaccel(6), testgl(6), testlin‐
939 ear(6), vgatest(6), plane(6), wrapdemo(6), convfont(1), dumpreg(1),
940 fix132x43(1), restorefont(1), restorepalette(1), restoretextmode(1),
941 runx(1), savetextmode(1), setmclk(1), textmode(1), mach32info(1).
942
945 There are many authors of svgalib. This page was edited by Michael
946 Weller <eowmob@exp-math.uni-essen.de>. The original documentation and
947 most of svgalib was done by Harm Hanemaayer <H.Hanemaayer@inter.nl.net>
948 though.
949Svgalib 1.4.1 16 December 1999 svgalib(7)