| Intel 830M/845G/852GM/855GM/865G/915G/945G Framebuffer driver | |
| ================================================================ | |
| A. Introduction | |
| This is a framebuffer driver for various Intel 8xx/9xx compatible | |
| graphics devices. These would include: | |
| Intel 830M | |
| Intel 845G | |
| Intel 852GM | |
| Intel 855GM | |
| Intel 865G | |
| Intel 915G | |
| Intel 915GM | |
| Intel 945G | |
| Intel 945GM | |
| Intel 945GME | |
| Intel 965G | |
| Intel 965GM | |
| B. List of available options | |
| a. "video=intelfb" | |
| enables the intelfb driver | |
| Recommendation: required | |
| b. "mode=<xres>x<yres>[-<bpp>][@<refresh>]" | |
| select mode | |
| Recommendation: user preference | |
| (default = 1024x768-32@70) | |
| c. "vram=<value>" | |
| select amount of system RAM in MB to allocate for the video memory | |
| if not enough RAM was already allocated by the BIOS. | |
| Recommendation: 1 - 4 MB. | |
| (default = 4 MB) | |
| d. "voffset=<value>" | |
| select at what offset in MB of the logical memory to allocate the | |
| framebuffer memory. The intent is to avoid the memory blocks | |
| used by standard graphics applications (XFree86). Depending on your | |
| usage, adjust the value up or down, (0 for maximum usage, 63/127 MB | |
| for the least amount). Note, an arbitrary setting may conflict | |
| with XFree86. | |
| Recommendation: do not set | |
| (default = 48 MB) | |
| e. "accel" | |
| enable text acceleration. This can be enabled/reenabled anytime | |
| by using 'fbset -accel true/false'. | |
| Recommendation: enable | |
| (default = set) | |
| f. "hwcursor" | |
| enable cursor acceleration. | |
| Recommendation: enable | |
| (default = set) | |
| g. "mtrr" | |
| enable MTRR. This allows data transfers to the framebuffer memory | |
| to occur in bursts which can significantly increase performance. | |
| Not very helpful with the intel chips because of 'shared memory'. | |
| Recommendation: set | |
| (default = set) | |
| h. "fixed" | |
| disable mode switching. | |
| Recommendation: do not set | |
| (default = not set) | |
| The binary parameters can be unset with a "no" prefix, example "noaccel". | |
| The default parameter (not named) is the mode. | |
| C. Kernel booting | |
| Separate each option/option-pair by commas (,) and the option from its value | |
| with an equals sign (=) as in the following: | |
| video=intelfb:option1,option2=value2 | |
| Sample Usage | |
| ------------ | |
| In /etc/lilo.conf, add the line: | |
| append="video=intelfb:mode=800x600-32@75,accel,hwcursor,vram=8" | |
| This will initialize the framebuffer to 800x600 at 32bpp and 75Hz. The | |
| framebuffer will use 8 MB of System RAM. hw acceleration of text and cursor | |
| will be enabled. | |
| Remarks | |
| ------- | |
| If setting this parameter doesn't work (you stay in a 80x25 text-mode), | |
| you might need to set the "vga=<mode>" parameter too - see vesafb.txt | |
| in this directory. | |
| D. Module options | |
| The module parameters are essentially similar to the kernel | |
| parameters. The main difference is that you need to include a Boolean value | |
| (1 for TRUE, and 0 for FALSE) for those options which don't need a value. | |
| Example, to enable MTRR, include "mtrr=1". | |
| Sample Usage | |
| ------------ | |
| Using the same setup as described above, load the module like this: | |
| modprobe intelfb mode=800x600-32@75 vram=8 accel=1 hwcursor=1 | |
| Or just add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf | |
| options intelfb mode=800x600-32@75 vram=8 accel=1 hwcursor=1 | |
| and just do a | |
| modprobe intelfb | |
| E. Acknowledgment: | |
| 1. Geert Uytterhoeven - his excellent howto and the virtual | |
| framebuffer driver code made this possible. | |
| 2. Jeff Hartmann for his agpgart code. | |
| 3. David Dawes for his original kernel 2.4 code. | |
| 4. The X developers. Insights were provided just by reading the | |
| XFree86 source code. | |
| 5. Antonino A. Daplas for his inspiring i810fb driver. | |
| 6. Andrew Morton for his kernel patches maintenance. | |
| ########################### | |
| Sylvain |