1OPENCHROME(4)              Kernel Interfaces Manual              OPENCHROME(4)
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NAME

6       openchrome - video driver for VIA Unichromes
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SYNOPSIS

9       Section "Device"
10         Identifier "devname"
11         Driver "openchrome"
12         ...
13       EndSection
14
15

DESCRIPTION

17       openchrome  is  an Xorg driver for VIA chipsets that have an integrated
18       Unichrome graphics engine.
19
20       The  openchrome  driver  supports  the  following   chipsets:   CLE266,
21       KM400/KN400/KM400A/P4M800,       CN400/PM800/PN800/PM880,       K8M800,
22       CN700/VM800/P4M800Pro,  CX700,  P4M890,   K8M890,   P4M900/VN896/CN896,
23       VX800,  VX855  and  VX900.   The driver includes 2D acceleration and Xv
24       video overlay extensions.  Flat panel, TV, and  VGA  outputs  are  sup‐
25       ported, depending on the hardware configuration.
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27       3D  direct  rendering is available using experimental drivers from Mesa
28       (www.mesa3d.org).  There is also an XvMC client  library  for  hardware
29       acceleration  of  MPEG1/MPEG2  decoding  (not available on the KM/N400)
30       that uses the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI).  The  XvMC  client
31       library implements a non-standard "VLD" extension to the XvMC standard.
32       The current Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel module  is  available
33       at dri.sourceforge.net.
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35       The  driver  supports  free  modes  for  Unichrome Pros (K8M800/K8N800,
36       PM800/PN800, and CN400).  For plain Unichromes  (CLE266,  KM400/KN400),
37       it currently supports only a limited number of dotclocks, so if you are
38       using X modelines you must make sure that the dotclock is one of  those
39       supported.   Supported  dotclocks on plain Unichromes are currently (in
40       MHz): 25.2, 25.312, 26.591, 31.5, 31.704, 32.663, 33.750,  35.5,  36.0,
41       39.822,  40.0,  41.164, 46.981, 49.5, 50.0, 56.3, 57.284, 64.995, 65.0,
42       65.028,  74.480,  75.0,  78.8,  81.613,  94.5,  108.0,  108.28,  122.0,
43       122.726,  135.0,  148.5,  155.8,  157.5,  161.793, 162.0, 175.5, 189.0,
44       202.5, 204.8, 218.3, 229.5.  On top of this, bandwidth restrictions ap‐
45       ply for both Unichromes and Unichrome Pros.
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CONFIGURATION DETAILS

48       Please  refer  to xorg.conf(5) for general configuration details.  This
49       section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.
50
51       The following driver options are supported:
52
53       Option "AccelMethod"  "string"
54              The driver supports "XAA" and "EXA" acceleration  methods.   The
55              default  method  is  XAA, since EXA is still experimental.  Con‐
56              trary to XAA, EXA implements acceleration for screen uploads and
57              downloads  (if  DRI is enabled) and for the Render/Composite ex‐
58              tension.
59
60       Option "AGPMem"  "integer"
61              Sets the amount of AGP memory that  is  allocated  at  X  server
62              startup.   The  allocated memory will be "integer" kB.  This AGP
63              memory is used for the AGP command buffer (if  the  option  "En‐
64              ableAGPDMA" is set to "true"), for DRI textures, and for the EXA
65              scratch area.  The driver will allocate at least one system page
66              of  AGP  memory,  or  -- if the AGP command buffer is used -- at
67              least 2 MB plus one system page.  If there is no  room  for  the
68              EXA  scratch  area in AGP space, it will be allocated from VRAM.
69              If there is no room for DRI textures,  they  will  be  allocated
70              from the DRI part of VRAM (see the option "MaxDRIMem").  The de‐
71              fault amount of AGP is 32768 kB.  Note that the AGP aperture set
72              in the BIOS must be able to accommodate the amount of AGP memory
73              specified here.  Otherwise no AGP memory will be available.   It
74              is safe to set a very large AGP aperture in the BIOS.
75
76       Option "DisableIRQ"  "boolean"
77              Disables  the vertical blank IRQ.  This is a workaround for some
78              mainboards  that  have  problems  with  IRQs  coming  from   the
79              Unichrome  engine.   With IRQs disabled, DRI clients have no way
80              to synchronize their drawing to Vblank.  (IRQ is disabled by de‐
81              fault on the KM400 and K8M800 chipsets.)
82
83       Option "DisableVQ"  "boolean"
84              Disables the use of the virtual command queue.  The queue is en‐
85              abled by default.
86
87       Option "EnableAGPDMA"  "boolean"
88              Enables the AGP DMA functionality in DRM.   This  requires  that
89              DRI  is enabled and will force 2D and 3D acceleration to use AGP
90              DMA.  The XvMC DRI client will also make  use  of  this  on  the
91              CLE266 to consume much less CPU.  (This option is enabled by de‐
92              fault, except on the K8M890 and P4M900.)
93
94       Option "ExaNoComposite"  "boolean"
95              If EXA is enabled (using the option "AccelMethod"), this  option
96              enables acceleration of compositing.  Since EXA, and in particu‐
97              lar its composite acceleration, is still experimental, this is a
98              way to disable a misbehaving composite acceleration.
99
100       Option "ExaScratchSize"  "integer"
101              Sets  the  size  of  the EXA scratch area to "integer" kB.  This
102              area is used by EXA as a last place to look for available  space
103              for pixmaps.  Too little space will slow compositing down.  This
104              option should be set to the size of the largest pixmap used.  If
105              you  have a screen width of over 1024 pixels and use 24 bpp, set
106              this to 8192.  Otherwise you can leave this at the default 4096.
107              The space will be allocated from AGP memory if available, other‐
108              wise from VRAM.
109
110       Option "MaxDRIMem"  "integer"
111              Sets the maximum amount of VRAM memory allocated for DRI clients
112              to  "integer"  kB.  Normally DRI clients  get half the available
113              VRAM size, but in some cases it may make  sense  to  limit  this
114              amount.   For  example, if you are using a composite manager and
115              you want to give as much memory as possible to  the  EXA  pixmap
116              storage area.
117
118       Option "MigrationHeuristic"  "string"
119              Sets  the  heuristic  for  EXA pixmap migration.  This is an EXA
120              core option, and starting from Xorg server  version  1.3.0  this
121              defaults  to "always".  The openchrome driver performs best with
122              "greedy", so you should really add this option to your  configu‐
123              ration file.  The third possibility is "smart".
124
125       Option "NoAccel"  "boolean"
126              Disables  the use of hardware acceleration.  Acceleration is en‐
127              abled by default.
128
129       Option "NoXVDMA"  "boolean"
130              If DRI is enabled, Xv normally uses PCI DMA  to  transfer  video
131              images  from  system  to  frame-buffer memory.  This is somewhat
132              slower than direct copies due to the limitations of the PCI bus,
133              but on the other hand it decreases CPU usage significantly, par‐
134              ticularly on computers with fast processors.  Some video players
135              are  buggy  and will display rendering artifacts when PCI DMA is
136              used.  If you experience this, or don't want your PCI bus to  be
137              stressed with Xv images, set this option to "true".  This option
138              has no effect when DRI is not enabled.
139
140       Option "RotationType"  "string"
141              Enabled rotation by using RandR. The driver only  support  unac‐
142              celerated   RandR   rotations   "SWRandR".   Hardware  rotations
143              "HWRandR" is currently unimplemented.
144
145       Option "Rotate"  "string"
146              Rotates the display either  clockwise  ("CW"),  counterclockwise
147              ("CCW") and upside-down ("UD"). Rotation is only supported unac‐
148              celerated.  Adding option "Rotate", enables RandR rotation  fea‐
149              ture.  The RandR allows clients to dynamically change X screens.
150
151       Option "ShadowFB"  "boolean"
152              Enables the use of a shadow frame buffer.  This is required when
153              rotating the display, but otherwise defaults to disabled.
154
155       Option "SWCursor"  "boolean"
156              Enables the use of a software cursor.  The default is  disabled:
157              the hardware cursor is used.
158
159       Option "TVDeflicker"  "integer"
160              Specifies the deflicker setting for TV output.  Valid values are
161              "0", "1", and "2".  Here 0 means no deflicker, 1 means 1:1:1 de‐
162              flicker, and 2 means 1:2:1 deflicker.
163
164       Option "TVDotCrawl"  "boolean"
165              Enables dot-crawl suppression.  The default is disabled.
166
167       Option "TVOutput"  "string"
168              Specifies  which  TV  output  to  use.   The driver supports "S-
169              Video", "Composite", "SC", "RGB",  and  "YCbCr"  outputs.   Note
170              that on some EPIA boards the composite-video port is shared with
171              audio-out and is selected via a jumper.
172
173       Option "TVPort"  "string"
174              Specifies  TV  port.   The  driver  currently  supports  "DVP0",
175              "DVP1", "DFPHigh" and "DFPLow" ports.
176
177       Option "TVType"  "string"
178              Specifies  TV  output  format.   The  driver  currently supports
179              "NTSC" and "PAL" timings only.
180

TV ENCODERS

182       Unichromes tend to be paired with several different TV encoders.
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184       VIA Technologies VT1621
185              Still untested, as no combination with a Unichrome is  known  or
186              available.   Supports  the following normal modes: "640x480" and
187              "800x600".  Use "640x480Over"  and  "800x600Over"  for  vertical
188              overscan.   These  modes are made available by the driver; mode‐
189              lines provided in xorg.conf will be ignored.
190
191       VIA Technologies VT1622, VT1622A, VT1623
192              Supports the following modes: "640x480", "800x600",  "1024x768",
193              "848x480",  "720x480" (NTSC only) and "720x576" (PAL only).  Use
194              "640x480Over",  "800x600Over",  "1024x768Over",   "848x480Over",
195              "720x480Over"  (NTSC) and "720x576Over" (PAL) for vertical over‐
196              scan.  The modes "720x480Noscale"  (NTSC)  and  "720x576Noscale"
197              (PAL)  (available on VT1622 only) provide cleaner TV output (un‐
198              scaled with only minimal overscan).  These modes are made avail‐
199              able  by the driver; modelines provided in xorg.conf will be ig‐
200              nored.
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SEE ALSO

204       Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5), Xserver(1), X(7), EXA(5), Xv(5)
205

AUTHORS

207       Authors include: ...
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211X Version 11             xf86-video-openchrome 0.6.400           OPENCHROME(4)
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