 Information for S3 ViRGE, ViRGE/DX, ViRGE/GX, ViRGE/GX2, ViRGE/MX, ViRGE/VX,
                Trio3D, Trio3D/2X, Savage3D and Savage4 Users

                          The XFree86 Project Inc.

                                2 August 1999

1.  Supported hardware

Since release 3.3.2 of XFree86, there are now two servers which support the
ViRGE family of chips. The XF86_S3V server is a dedicated server which sup-
ports the S3 ViRGE (86C325), the ViRGE/DX (86C375), ViRGE/GX (86C385) and the
ViRGE/VX (86C988) chips. Use of that server is no longer recommended. It is
not actively being supported anymore.

The above ViRGE chipsets are supported in the XF86_SVGA server, which
includes a new ViRGE driver making use of the XAA acceleration architecture
and also supports ViRGE/GX2 (86C357), ViRGE/MX (86C260), Trio3D (86C365),
Trio3D/2X (86C362), Savage3D (86C391) and Savage4 (86C396/86C397) chips as of
3.3.5.

The following sections describe details of ViRGE support.  Be aware that
there are two servers described.  XF86_S3V is the ViRGE specific server and
was created first.  The new acceleration architecture support is found in the
XF86_SVGA server using the s3_virge driver.  Each has strengths and weak-
nesses.

2.  XF86_S3V server

The S3V server has some minor fixes since 3.3.1.  You should find that the
ViRGE server is stable at all depths.  The server supports 1 and 32 bpp
pixmap formats.  This fixes known problems with xanim and Netscape clients in
early versions of the S3V server.  It has been tested with ViRGE cards with 2
and 4MB DRAM, ViRGE/DX 4M, ViRGE/VX 8M (4M VRAM/4M DRAM), and with a 220MHz
ViRGE/VX card with 2MB VRAM up to 1600x1200 with 8/15/16bpp.

NOTE: This driver is pretty new, and not everything might work like you
expect it to. It shouldn't crash your machine, but you may have video arti-
facts or missing lines. Please report any and all problems to
XFree86@Xfree86.org using the appropriate bug report sheet.

2.1  Features:

   o Basic support for S3 ViRGE, ViRGE/DX, ViRGE/GX and ViRGE/VX video
     adapters

   o uses linear frame buffer

   o it should be possible to reach resolutions up to the maximum supported
     by your video card memory.  (eg. 1600x1200 at 8 and 16bpp, 1280x1024 at
     24/32 bpp for a 4 Meg. card)

   o it should be possible to use pixel depths of 8, 15, 16, 24, and 32 bits
     per pixel.

   o 32 bpp is implemented as translation to 24 bpp

2.2  Known limitations

   o No support for external RAMDACs on the ViRGE/VX.

   o No support for VLB cards.

   o No support for doublescan modes.

   o The driver only works with linear addressing.

   o For 24/32 bpp some simple dashed line acceleration is implemented, but
     sloped dash/double dash are drawn as solid lines.

   o No support for current chipsets.

   o No longer actively maintained.

2.3  Configuration:

The server auto-detects RAM size, RAMDAC and ClockChip. Do not bother putting
these in your "Device" section.  The "nolinear" option is unsupported.

2.3.1  Cursor:

   o The default is hardware cursor, no option is needed.

   o "sw_cursor" switches to software cursor.

3.  XF86_SVGA server

The XF86_SVGA ViRGE driver supports all current flavors of the S3 ViRGE
chipset including Trio3D and the Savage family.  It uses the XAA acceleration
architecture for acceleration, and allows color depths of 8, 15, 16, 24 and
32 bpp. It has been tested on several 2MB and 4MB ViRGE cards, a 4MB ViRGE/DX
card, a ViRGE/VX card and a 4MB Trio3D card. Resolutions of up to 1600x1200
have been achieved. This is an early release of this driver, and not every-
thing may work as expected. Please note that Trio3D support is an initial
release and not very well tested. Please report any problems to
XFree86@Xfree86.org using the appropriate bug report sheet.

3.1  Features

   o Supports PCI hardware, ViRGE, ViRGE/DX, ViRGE/GX, ViRGE/GX2, ViRGE/MX,
     ViRGE/VX, Trio3D and the Savage family.

   o Supports 8bpp, 15/16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp.

   o VT switching seems to work well, no corruption reported at all color
     depths.

   o Acceleration is pretty complete: Screen-to-screen copy, solid rectangle
     fills, CPU-to-screen color expansion, 8x8 pattern mono and color fills.
     Currently, the color expansion appears to be substantially faster than
     the accel server due to the optimized XAA routines.

   o Acceleration at 32bpp is limited: only ScreenToScreen bitblit and solid
     rectangles are supported. The ViRGE itself has no support for 32bpp
     acceleration, so the graphics engine is used in 16bpp mode.

   o All modes include support for a hardware cursor.

3.2  Known limitations in the Savage family support (s3_savage driver)

The Savage family driver for the Savage3D and the Savage4 was donated to
XFree86 by S3 very closely before the release of XFree86-3.3.5. The driver
violates a few design principles and goals, but since there is massive demand
for it, we decided to include it in XFree86-3.3.5.

The following issues and problems will be addressed for a future release of
this driver:

   o Only supported on Linux/x86 due to use of the Linux Real Mode Interface.

   o Restricted to modes that the BIOS supports. The Modeline specified in
     the XF86Config file is being ignored.

   o Limited acceleration.

   o Limited testing.

3.3  Known limitations of the s3_virge driver

   o No support for external RAMDACs on the ViRGE/VX.

   o No support for VLB cards.

   o No support for doublescan modes.

   o The driver only works with linear addressing.

   o Lines and polygons are not accelerated yet (but XAA still provides some
     acceleration in this respect).

   o Burst Command Interface (BCI) support and 32bpp support not implemented
     for the Trio3D.

   o Trio3D support only works for some modelines. Many of the standard mode-
     lines do not work (often slightly modifying the dot clock works,
     though).  The following two modelines seem to work reliably at 8bpp and
     24bpp:

          Modeline "1024x768"  75  1024 1048 1184 1328  768  771  777  806 -hsync -vsync
          Modeline "1280x1024" 135 1280 1312 1416 1664  1024 1027 1030 1064

     The following two modelines seem to work reliably at 16bpp:

          Modeline "640x480"  45.80 640 672 768 864 480 488 494 530 -hsync -vsync
          Modeline "800x600"  36      800  824  896 1024    600  601  603  625

3.4  Configuration

The ViRGE SVGA driver supports a large number of XF86Config options, which
can be used to tune PCI behavior and improve performance.

Memory options:

   o "slow_edodram" will switch the ViRGE to 2-cycle edo mode. Try this if
     you encounter pixel corruption on the ViRGE. Using this option will
     cause a large decrease in performance.

   o "early_ras_precharge" and "late_ras_precharge" will modify the memory
     timings, and may fix pixel corruption on some cards. The default behav-
     ior is set by the BIOS, and is normally "late_ras_precharge".

   o "set_mclk value" sets the video memory clock rate to 'value' (in MHz).
     The performance of the card is directly proportional to the memory
     clocking, so this may provide a performance increase. The BIOS setting
     for your card is printed at server start-up. Often, "low-cost" cards use
     the S3 default of 50MHz. This can often be exceeded with faster memory,
     some cards may function reliably at 60 or 65 MHz (even higher on some
     recent /DX and /GX cards). Note that S3 only officially supports an MCLK
     of 50MHz and XFree86 does not encourage exceeding those specs.  ***
     Note: This option should not be preceded by the "Option" keyword!

Acceleration and graphic engine:

   o "noaccel" turns off all acceleration

   o "fifo_aggressive", "fifo_moderate" and "fifo_conservative" alter the
     settings for the threshold at which the pixel FIFO takes over the inter-
     nal memory bus to refill itself. The smaller this threshold, the better
     the acceleration performance of the card. You may try the fastest set-
     ting ("aggressive") and move down if you encounter pixel corruption.
     The optimal setting will probably depend on dot-clock and on color
     depth. Note that specifying any of these options will also alter other
     memory settings which should increase performance, so you should at
     least use "fifo_conservative" (this uses the chip defaults).

PCI options:

   o "pci_burst_on" will enable PCI burst mode. This should work on all but a
     few "broken" PCI chipsets, and will increase performance.

   o "pci_retry" will allow the driver to rely on PCI Retry to program the
     ViRGE registers. "pci_burst_on" must be enabled for this to work.  This
     will increase performance, especially for small fills/blits, because the
     driver does not have to poll the ViRGE before sending it commands to
     make sure it is ready. It should work on most recent PCI chipsets. A
     possible side-effect is that it may interfere with DMA operations on the
     PCI bus (e.g. sound cards, floppy drive).

Cursor:

   o "hw_cursor" turns on the hardware cursor.

Color depth options and limitations:

   o Pixel multiplexing is used above 80MHz for 8bpp on the ViRGE.

   o 15bpp is supported, use "-bpp 15" as an option to the server.

   o 24bpp is supported using the STREAMS engine.

   o 32bpp uses STREAMS as well; however, because the ViRGE does not really
     support 32 bpp "natively", acceleration is quite limited.

   o Both 24bpp and 32bpp do not support interlace modes.

   o 32bpp is limited to a width of < 1024 pixels.  (1024x768 is not possi-
     ble, even if you have the memory.)  This is a hardware limit of ViRGE
     chips.

3.5  Hints for LCD configuration (S3 ViRGE/MX)

If LCD is active the CRT will always output 1024x768 (or whatever is the
_physical_ LCD size) and smaller modes are zoomed to fit on the LCD unless
you specify Option "lcd_center" in the device section.

The pixel clock for this physical size (e.g. 1024x768) mode...

   o ...can explicitly set in the config file (device section) with  e.g.
     `Set_LCDClk 70' (resulting 70 MHz pixel clock being used for all modes
     when LCD is on)

   o ...is taken from the _first_ mode in the modes line iff this mode's dis-
     play size is the same as the physical LCD size

   o ...the default LCD pixel clock of BIOS initialisation setup is used.
     This value is output at server startup in the line `LCD size ...' unless
     you're specifying a value using `Set_LCDClk ...'

If LCD is _not_ active, the normal mode lines and pixel clocks are used for
the VGA output.

Whenever you switch output sources with Fn-F5 or similar, the Xserver won't
get informed and pixel clock and other settings are wrong.  Because of this
you have to switch modes _after_ switch output sources!  Then the server will
check which outputs are active and select the correct clocks etc.  So the
recommended key sequence to switch output is

Fn-F5  Ctrl-Alt-Plus  Ctrl-Alt-Minus

and everything should be ok..

on the Toshiba keypad you can first hold down Ctrl-Alt, then press `Fn' addi-
tionally before pressing Plus/Minus too to avoid to explicitly enable/disable
the numeric keypad for mode switching.

4.  Authors

4.1  XF86_S3V server

Harald Koenig <koenig@tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de>

and:

   o Kevin Brosius Cobra@compuserve.com

   o Berry Dijk berry_dijk@tasking.nl

   o Dirk Hohndel hohndel@XFree86.Org

   o Huver Hu huver@amgraf.com

   o Dirk Vangestel gesteld@sh.bel.alcatel.be

4.2  XF86_SVGA ViRGE driver

Sebastien Marineau <marineau@genie.uottawa.ca>

and:

   o Harald Koenig <koenig@tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de>

   o Kevin Brosius Cobra@compuserve.com

   o Sebastian Kloska kloska@mpimp-golm.mpg.de

   o Alok Ladsariya alok@XFree86.Org

   o Dirk Hohndel hohndel@XFree86.Org

     Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/S3V.sgml,v 3.3.2.12 1999/08/02 12:45:00 hohndel Exp $


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