Information for S3 ViRGE, ViRGE/DX, ViRGE/GX, ViRGE/GX2, ViRGE/MX, ViRGE/VX, Trio3D, Trio3D/2X, Savage3D and Savage4 Users : XF86_SVGA server
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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 everything 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

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. For 3.3.6 some rewrites have been done, there is fallback code for non-BIOS modes.

3.3. Known limitations of the s3_virge driver

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:

Acceleration and graphic engine:

PCI options:

Cursor:

Color depth options and limitations:

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...

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' additionally before pressing Plus/Minus too to avoid to explicitly enable/disable the numeric keypad for mode switching.


Information for S3 ViRGE, ViRGE/DX, ViRGE/GX, ViRGE/GX2, ViRGE/MX, ViRGE/VX, Trio3D, Trio3D/2X, Savage3D and Savage4 Users : XF86_SVGA server
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