Re: [TCLUG:6627] res and refresh w/ fb

[JellyD <jellyd@jellyd.org>]

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On Sun, 20 Jun 1999, Ben Luey wrote:

> How can I set the terminal resolution and refresh rate on my MAtrox
> Mystique 220 with frame buffer support. I tried running fbset -xres 1024
> -yres 768  and it just brought my monitor into dpms mode.  The commands
> in teh kernel documentation don't convert the hexidecal to numbers,
> which I need to use lilo to pass the commands and they don't tell me how
> to change the refresh mode.

[ pipes in where innerFire would if he still had the card I have now ]

Okay, I've had mixed results with this. If you read back a few
days on the list I post some stuff about working with FB X on a
Mystique 220. So you can play with it, here are some settings
I've found to work:

[ from /etc/fb.modes ]

mode "640x480"
    geometry 640 480 640 6547 8
    timings 39683 48 16 33 10 96 2
endmode

mode "1024x768"
    geometry 1024 768 1024 768 8
    timings 15385 168 8 29 3 144 6
    laced false
endmode

[ end stuff ]

If you put those lines in /etc/fb.modes (among other things; I
copied the default one from the fbset-10 package and appended
these lines to it), you can change modes (as root of course)
with 'fbset 1024x768' or 'fbset 640x480' and the like.

I gleaned these settings from my existing XF86_SVGA settings,
using the conversion factors found in (the tree of)
/var/X11R6/lib/doc/html/fbdev_toc.html . You may or may not
have these files; I do because I installed the full version of
XFree86-3.3.3 . If you don't have them / can't find them on
XFree's website, I copied mine to http://www.jellyd.org/fbdocs/
for convenience.

All that stuff up there is just for changing console-mode
resolution (which, as far as I can tell, does _not_ carry over
to X running on FB). Here are the lines from my /etc/XF86Config
file:

[ from /etc/XF86Config ]

Section "Screen"
    Driver          "fbdev"
    Device          "Primary Card"
    Monitor         "Primary Monitor"
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "default"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

[ end stuff ]

Now, some notes:

+ Putting the path to XF86_FBDev in my .xserverrc file did
nothing but cause X to lock up. The only way I could make it
work was by removing the 'X' symlink (that usually points to
XF86_SVGA) and pointing it to XF86_FBDev instead. Hmm.

+ No matter what console resolution I'm in, it always starts
out in the 'default' resolution (I'd assume that, given the
specification of "default" resolution, but I'd assume it'd use
the default of whatever the console I launched it from was),
which on my system (through no configuration of mine, merely
from installing the kernel matroxfb driver) is 640x480x640x6547
(yes, that's a virtual resolution of sixty-five hundred pixels
tall).

Ooh, I think I may have something here [ playing with stuff ]:

Grr. Nevermind. I think I figured out the X modes to use for
the card on my monitor:

Mode "1024x768_fb"
    # H: 31.500 kHz, V: 59.999 Hz
    DotClock 25.201
    HTimings 640 656 752 800
    VTimings 480 490 492 525
    Flags    "-HSync" "-VSync" "-CSync"
EndMode

Mode "640x480_fb"
    # H: 31.500 kHz, V: 59.999 Hz
    DotClock 25.201
    HTimings 640 656 752 800
    VTimings 480 490 492 525
    Flags    "-HSync" "-VSync" "-CSync"
EndMode

I put them in my monitor's ``Section "Monitor"'' section, but
when I start X, it removes the 1024x768_fb mode (doesn't say
anything about 640x480_fb) and then complains about not having
any video modes, even though I changed the ``Section "Screen"''
section to say:

[ begin :r !tail -6 /etc/XF86Config ]

    SubSection "Display"
        Depth       32
        Modes       "1024x768_fb" "640x480_fb"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

[ end stuff ]

If I remove the 1024x768_fb reference, it simply fails saying
no modes found (not saying it removed the 640x480_fb one).

If those X mode settings don't work for you (they probably
won't, I've got a sh*tty monitor that'll only do 1024x768 at
60Hz, max res [15" Packard H*ll]) you can dump the X config
settings from whatever console mode res you're at by going
`fbset -x' as root. I just switched modes around a few times
and dumped them all down to text files and read them into my
/etc/XF86Config .


If you get things to work better than I have, please, tell me /
post to the list, because I'm dying to ditch this standard SVGA
X server. I hate mode-switching.

Oh, and I don't know if it's just my p133 speaking (it's not
the 88mb physram + 128mb swap, that's for sure), but I get
nothing but the sh*ttiest performance [in textmode] at
1024x768; it's fast enough scrolling downwards (I've found that
setting the virtual y-resolution to 6547 or whatever makes it
scroll down smoother; it probably buffers using more of the
4MB of ram that the card has or something) but there's no way
in hell I can make it scroll up at more than one line per
second. This sucks @$$, by the way. You just _cannot_ code if
you can't scroll upwards without having to wait the time to pour
a new cup of coffee.

Oh, one last thing that I just noticed:

If you [I] set the video mode from the bootup default of
640x480x640x6547 to, for example, the 1024x768 settings above,
then switch back, the upwards-scrolling problem still takes
place, albeit not quite to the same degree (i.e. it's still
enough to make me wish I were back on a 2.0.37 kernel without
FB support).


Sigh.  -_-

- --
[----------------------------------------------------------------------]
| Joshua Becker                    - aka -                      JellyD |
| email: jellyd@jellyd.org                          IRC: EFnet, DALnet |
[----------------------------------------------------------------------]

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