Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006, sindi keesan wrote:
> We have several ATI RAGE PCI cards that do framebuffer but not Xvesa, or
> Xvesa but not framebuffer.  An Emachine with ATI Rage IIc where Xvesa (or
> X SVGA) only works if you boot with lilo. A Compaq with Rage LT Pro that
> works with X SVGA server and loadlin, but not Xvesa.  ATIs are all
> different and most are not very standard or vesa-compatible.  But they
> made lots of PCI cards and onboard video chips.
.....

Our 2MB 264GT RAGE cards will do Xvesa after a loadlin boot (with 
himem.sys in config.sys), IF you don't use vesafb.  They work with xfbdev 
and I have not tried SVGA or MACH64 servers or svgalib.  mplayer -vo vesa 
does not work even without vesafb.

The onboard RAGE 128 chip in our Emachine and the 8MB ATI card with RAGE 
128 chip will NOT do XVESA when booted with himem.sys in config.sys, but 
they work perfectly with XVESA and -vo vesa if you boot with lilo or hit 
F5 during boot.  They work with SVGA or MACH64 X server.  I have not tried 
xfbdev with them.

Don't give up on ATI Xvesa without first booting without config.sys (F5 or 
lilo), and also try without vesafb.

Some other ATI cards don't do vesafb.  Highly inconsistent.

The Rage128 card will not work with svgalib (with setting chipset VESA or 
VGA, booting without himem.sys, links2 and zgv work once but then it 
crashes) but the zgv display looks like the wrong pixel clock settings - 
it is fuzzy and jittery when used with automatic chip detection, or mach64 
or VGA or VESA.

The mach32 instructions say it should auto detect and fix libvga.config 
with the right clock lines but this has not happened.   Has anyone on this 
list used svgalib with a mach64 chip?  There are warnings about destroying 
your hardware with the wrong settings.  Would this be video card or 
monitor and are the newer ones susceptible?

I am supposed to probe for clock settings - how?

Name-brand computers in the 330-500MHz range often have onboard ATI 
video.  (Compaq, Emachine).

Mplayer works with -vo vesa or x11 (without complaining about slow 
hardware, on this 800MHz, tho it disliked the 600 and 700), and links2 
works with x11.  But my partner likes zgv, which NEEDS svgalib.

Sindi