[plug] Aopen graphics card & Linux

[Rick (VK6EP)]

Below is a page of the SIS info. It may mean something to you?? To me it
means that I may have purchased the wrong video card???


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Information for SiS Users : XF86Config Options 

3. XF86Config Options 

The following options are of particular interest for the SiS driver. Each
of them must be specified in the `svga' driver section of the XF86Config
file, within the Screen subsections of the depths to which they are
applicable (you can enable options for all depths by specifying them in the
Device section).

Option "set_mclk"

    This option lets you to modify the memory clocking of your card. (only
for 5597 and 6326)     Modifying the memory timings can destroy the device,
but usually the only ill effects of     overclocking is to have some noise
an drawing errors, but BE CAREFUL. Usually a little     increment can
improve the drawing speed, and allows also higher dotclocks. The server
reports default memclock on starting messages, so take it as a base. Units
are in MHZ.

Option "dac_speed"

    This option lets you to modify the maximum allowed dotclock (only for
5597 and 6326).     Without it, the server makes a conservative guess based
on memory clock, speed and     number of banks. If your monitor supports
higher dotclocks and you know that your card     can do it, give a try. If
the speed is too high for your configuration (but not for your
monitor), the effects can vary from some noise on screen to a black screen.
Don't use     speeds greater than 135 Mhz, (175 for 6326), even if your
monitor supports the dot-clock. 

Option "noaccel"

    By default the XAA (XFree86 Acceleration Architecture) is used. This
option will disable the     use of the XAA and will enable the old BitBlt
acceleration operations. (see below).

Option "hw_clocks"

    On chips 86c202 and later, the default is to use the programmable clock
for all clocks. It is    possible to use the fixed clocks supported by the
chip instead of using this option    (manufacturer dependent).

Option "sw_cursor", "hw_cursor"

    The default is for using the hardware cursor.

Option "no_linear"

    By default linear addressing is used on all chips. However this might
be broken in some     implementations. It is possible to turn the linear
addressing off with this option. Note that     H/W acceleration and
16/24bpp are only supported with linear addressing.

Option "no_bitblt"

    This option will disable the use of all the BitBLT engine. It is useful
for problems related to     acceleration problems. In general this will
result in a reduced performance.

Option "no_imageblt"

    It is useful for problems related to image writing, and possible
stipple acceleration     problems. In general this will result in a reduced
performance. 

Option "ext_eng_queue"

    5597/8 and 6326 have the option to extend the engine command queue on
VRAM. With    extended queue length, the driver only checks queue status on
some color-expansion    commands. This gives some performance improvement,
but is possible to lose some    commands, corrupting screen output. As the
size of extended command queue is 16-32K,    the probability is very low,
but exists. The performance gain observed is around 8-10%.    Currently,
using this option with xaa_benchmark freezes the acceleration engine,
causing    weird image display.

Option "pci_burst_on"

    This set a bit on some registers. Although documented, the utility of
this option is unknown    for me. I can't see any difference on stability
or performance.

Option "fast_vram"

    Enables 1 cycle memory access. Try it. Increased memory bandwidth
reduces the    possibility of glitches and noise on high resolution modes. 

Option "fifo_moderate","fifo_conservative","fifo_aggressive"

    These options modify the arbitration thresholds on CRT FIFO.
Fifo_aggressive gives more    time to CPU for accessing the VRAM.
Fifo_conservative reduces the possibility of noise    caused when the CRT
tries to read memory when it is used by CPU, but reduces    performance.
The default is between aggressive and moderate (more aggressive than
moderate).


Information for SiS Users : XF86Config Options 



Cheers
Rick

E=Mail    - rickd at iinet.net.au
Home Page - http://opera.iinet.net.au/~rickd/index.html