Man page 7 : svgalib

R vga_init (3)

    - initialize svgalib library.

R vga_disabledriverreport (3)

    - makes svgalib not emit any startup messages.

R vga_claimvideomemory (3)

    - declare the amount of video memory used.

R vga_safety_fork (3)

    - start a parallel process to restore the console at a crash.

R vga_setchipset (3)

    - force chipset.

R vga_setchipsetandfeatures (3)

    - force chipset and optional parameters.

R vga_getmousetype (3)

    - returns the mouse type configured.

R vga_getcurrentchipset (3)

    - returns the current SVGA chipset.

R vga_getmonitortype (3)

    - returns the monitor type configured.

R vga_setmode (3)

    - sets a video mode.

R vga_setdisplaystart (3)

    - set the display start address.

R vga_setlogicalwidth (3)

    - set the logical scanline width.

R vga_setlinearaddressing (3)

    - switch to linear addressing mode.

R vga_setmodeX (3)

    - try to set Mode X-like memory organization .

R vga_ext_set (3)

    - set and query several extended features.

R vga_screenoff

    - turn generation of the video signal on or off.

R vga_getxdim

    - return the current screen resolution.

R vga_white (3)

    - return the color white in the current screen resolution.

R vga_getcurrentmode (3)

    - returns the current video mode.

R vga_hasmode (3)

    - returns if a video mode is supported.

R vga_getmodeinfo (3)

    - returns pointer to mode information structure for a mode.

R vga_getdefaultmode (3)

    - returns the default graphics mode number.

R vga_lastmodenumber (3)

    - returns the last video mode number.

R vga_getmodename (3)

    - return a name for the given video mode.

R vga_getmodenumber (3)

    - return a number for the given video mode.

R vga_clear (3)

    - clear the screen.

R vga_setcolor (3)

    - set the current color.

R vga_setrgbcolor (3)

    - set the current color.

R vga_setegacolor (3)

    - set the current color.

R vga_drawpixel (3)

    - draw a pixel on the screen.

R vga_drawscanline (3)

    - draw a horizontal line of pixels.

R vga_drawscansegment (3)

    - draw a horizontal line of pixels.

R vga_drawline (3)

    - draw a line on the screen.

R vga_getpixel (3)

    - get a pixels value from the screen.

R vga_getscansegment (3)

    - get a list of consecutive pixel values.

R vga_waitretrace (3)

    - wait for vertical retrace.

R vga_getch (3)

    - wait for a key.

R vga_getkey (3)

    - read a character from the keyboard without waiting.

R vga_waitevent (3)

    - wait for various I/O events.

R vga_setpage (3)

    - set the 64K SVGA page number.

R vga_setreadpage (3)

    - set the 64K SVGA page number.

R vga_setwritepage (3)

    - set the 64K SVGA page number.

R vga_getgraphmem (3)

    - returns the address of the VGA memory.

R vga_copytoplanar256 (3)

    - copy linear pixmap into Mode X video memory.

R vga_copytoplanar16 (3)

    - copy linear pixmap into VGA 16 color mode video memory.

R vga_copytoplane (3)

    - copy linear pixmap to some planes of VGA 16 color mode video memory.

R vga_setpalette (3)

    - set a color in the color lookup table.

R vga_getpalette (3)

    - get a color in the color lookup table.

R vga_setpalvec (3)

    - sets colors in the color lookup table.

R vga_getpalvec (3)

    - gets colors from the color lookup table.

R vga_setmousesupport (3)

    - enable mouse support.

R mouse_init

    - specifically initialize a mouse.

R mouse_close (3)

    - explicitly close a mouse.

R mouse_update (3)

    - updates the mouse state.

R mouse_waitforupdate (3)

    - wait for an mouse update.

R mouse_setscale (3)

    - sets a mouse scale factor.

R mouse_setwrap (3)

    - set what happens at the mouse boundaries.

R mouse_setxrange

    - define the boundaries for the mouse cursor.

R mouse_getx

    - query the mouse state.

R mouse_setposition (3)

    - set the current mouse position.

R mouse_getposition_6d

    - provide an interface to 3d mice.

R mouse_seteventhandler

    - set a mouse event handler.

R keyboard_init

    - initialize the keyboard to raw mode.

R keyboard_close (3)

    - return the keyboard to normal operation from raw mode.

R keyboard_update

    - process raw keyboard events.

R keyboard_translatekeys (3)

    - modify scancode mappings in raw keyboard mode.

R keyboard_keypressed (3)

    - check if a key is pressed when in raw keyboard mode.

R keyboard_getstate (3)

    - get a pointer to a buffer holding the state of all keys in raw keyboard mode.

R keyboard_clearstate (3)

    - reset the state of all keys when in raw keyboard mode.

R keyboard_seteventhandler

    - define an event handler for keyboard events in raw mode.

R joystick_init (3)

    - initialize and calibrate joysticks.

R joystick_close (3)

    - close a joystick device.

R joystick_update (3)

    - query and process joystick state changes.

R joystick_sethandler

    - define own joystick even handler.

R joystick_getnumaxes

    - query the capabilities of a joystick.

R joystick_getaxis

    - query the state of a joystick.

R joystick_button1|2|3|4

    - convenience macros to query the joystick position.

R vga_accel (3)

    - calls the graphics accelerator.

R vga_bitblt (3)

    - copy pixmap on screen using an accelerator.

R vga_fillblt (3)

    - fill rectangular area in video memory with a single color.

R vga_hlinelistblt (3)

    - draw horizontal scan lines.

R vga_imageblt (3)

    - copy a rectangular pixmap from system memory to video memory.

R vga_blitwait (3)

    - wait for any accelerator operation to finish.

R vga_lockvc (3)

    - disables virtual console switching for safety.

R vga_unlockvc (3)

    - re-enables virtual console switching.

R vga_oktowrite (3)

    - indicates whether the program has direct access to the SVGA.

R vga_runinbackground (3)

    - enable running of the program while there is no VGA access.

R vga_runinbackground_version (3)

    - returns the version of the current background support.

R vga_dumpregs (3)

    - dump the contents of the SVGA registers.

R vga_gettextfont

    - get/set the font used in text mode.

R vga_gettextmoderegs

    - get/set the vga state used in text mode.

R vga_flip (3)

    - toggle between text and graphics mode.

R vga_setflipchar (3)

    - set the character causing a vga_flip().

320x200x256, and the series of 16-color and non-standard planar 256 color modes supported by VGAlib, as well as 720x348x2.

Supports 640x480x256, 800x600x256, 1024x768x256 SVGA modes

Also known as Promotion at25. Popular as the 2D part of a voodoo rush card. As of this writing there are a few known problems with this driver. Read below.

Full support, limited RAMDAC support. Only ARK1000PV tested. Supports Clocks and Ramdac lines in config file.

This is no real driver. I do not support any new modes. However it saves additional card setup and thus allows use of the plain VGA modes even when you are using non standard text modes. It is possible to enforce use of this driver even on ATI Mach32 but not very useful.

The driver by Michael Weller supports all ATI BIOS-defined modes and more... It hits the best out of your card. Some modes may not have nice default timings but it uses the ATI's EEPROM for custom config or allows to specify modes in

R libvga.config (5). Some problems may occur with quite some third party cards (usually on board) Mach32 based controllers as they do not completely conform to the Mach32 data sheets. Check out

R svgalib.mach32 (7) (and

R libvga.config (5)).

A driver for ATi Mach64 based cards with internal DAC.

This server was written using the SVGALIB patch from Sergio and Angelo Masci as a starting point. This version of the code resembled the XFree server code that was used up to XFree 3.1.2. As such it was incapable of programming the clocks, using linear addressing, Hi-Color, True-Color modes or the hardware acceleration. All of these features have since been added to the code. The 64200 and 64300 chips are unsupported, however these chips are very similar to the 6554x chips which are supported.

All the modes, including 256 color, 32K/64K color, 16M color (3 bytes per pixel) and 32-bit pixel 16M color modes (5434). Some bitblt functions are supported. The driver doesn't work with mode dumps, but uses a SVGA abstraction with mode timings like the X drivers.

Supported.

Is supported as an ARK2000PV

This driver was written by Matan Ziv-Av and is derived from the XFree86 driver by David J. Mckay. It lacks 24bit modes (can the card do them at all?), acceleration support and pageflipping in threeDKit is broken.

Driver by Christopher Wiles; includes 32K color modes for OTI-087.

The driver is not complete, but should work on a number of cards/RAMDACs, and 640x480x256 should work on most card. The best support is for a 801/805 with AT&T20C490-compatible RAMDAC, and S3-864 + SDAC. All 256/32K/64K/16M works for them (within the bounds of video memory & ramdac restrictions). The supported cards include S3 Virge and S3 Trio64 cards. None of the acceleration function is supported yet. The chip level code should work with the 964/868/968, but most likely the card they come on would use an unsupported ramdac/clock chip. Support for these chips is slowly being added. Clocks and Ramdac lines in

R libvga.config (5) supported. The maximum pixel clock (in MHz) of the ramdac can be set using a

Dacspeed line in the config file. A reasonable default is assumed if the

Dacspeed line is omitted.

Clocks should be the same as in XFree86. Supported ramdac IDs:

R Sierra32K Example:

Clocks 25.175 28.3 40 70 50 75 36 44.9 0 118 77 31.5 110 65 72 93.5

Ramdac att20c490

DacSpeed 85 Also supported, at least in combination with the SC15025/26A ramdac, is the ICD 2061A clock chip. Since it cannot be autodetected you need to define it in the config file using a

Clockchip line. As there is no way to read the current settings out of the 2061, you have the option to specify the frequency used when switching back to text mode as second argument in the

Clockchip line. This is especially required if your text mode is an 132 column mode, since these modes use a clock from the clock chip, while 80 column modes use a fixed clock of 25 MHz. The text mode frequency defaults to 40 MHz, if omitted. Example:

ClockChip icd2061a 40.0

Derived from tvgalib by Toomas Losin. TVGA 9440 support by ARK <, >. Supports 640x480x256, 800x600x256, 1024x768x256 (interlaced and non-interlaced) Might be useful to add 16-color modes (for those equipped with a 512K TVGA9000) for the 8900 and 9000 cards. 320x200x{32K, 64K, 16M}, 640x480x{256, 32K, 64K, 16M}, 800x600x{256, 32K, 64K, 16M}, 1024x768x{16, 256}, 800x600x{16, 256, 32K, 64K} modes are supported for the TVGA 9440. Autodetection can be forced with a:

chipset TVGA memory flags line in the config file. memoryis the amount of VGA memory in KB, flagsis composed of three bits:

bit2 = false, bit1 = false

    force 8900.

bit2 = false, bit1 = true

    force 9440.

bit2 = true, bit1 = false

    force 9680.

bit0 = true

    force noninterlaced.

bit0 = false

    force interlaced which only matters on 8900's with at least 1M since there is no 512K interlaced mode on the 8900 or any of the other cards.

Derived from VGAlib; not the same register values. ET4000 register values are not compatible; see

R svgalib.et4000 (7). Make sure the colors are right in hicolor mode; the vgatest program should draw the same color bars for 256 and hicolor modes (the DAC type is defined at compilation in et4000.regsor the dynamic registers file). ET4000/W32 based cards usually have an AT&T or Sierra 15025/6 DAC. With recent W32p based cards, you might have some luck with the AT&T DAC type. If the high resolution modes don't work, you can try dumping the registers in DOS using the program in the et4000/directory and putting them in a file ( /etc/vga/libvga.et4000 is parsed at runtime if

DYNAMIC is defined in Makefile.cfg at compilation (this is default)). Supported modes are 640x480x256, 800x600x256, 1024x768x256, 640x480x32K, 800x600x32K, 640x480x16M, etc. Reports of ET4000/W32i/p functionality are welcome. There may be a problem with the way the hicolor DAC register is handled; dumped registers may use one of two timing methods, with the value written to the register for a particular DAC for a hicolor mode (in vgahico.c) being correct for just one of the these methods. As a consequence some dumped resolutions may work while others don't.

Most modes of which the card is capable are supported. The 8 15 16 24 and 32 bit modes are supported. The ET6000 has a built in DAC and there is no problem coming from that area. The ET6000 is capable of acceleration, but this as well as sprites are not yet implemented in the driver. The driver now uses modelines in libvga.config for user defined modes. It is sometimes useful to add a modeline for a resolution which does not display well. For example, the G400x600 is too far to the right of the screen using standard modes. This is corrected by including in

libvga.config the line Modeline "" 25.000 400 440 488 520 600 639 644 666 More examples are given below. This driver was provided by Don Secrest.

Please read README.vesa and README.lrmi in doc subdirectory of the standard distribution. Go figure! I turned off autodetection in the release, as a broken bios will be called too, maybe crashing the machine. Enforce

VESA mode by putting a

chipset VESA in the end of your libvga.config (5). Note that it will leave protected mode and call the cards bios opening the door to many hazards.

Also known as Promotion at25. Popular as the 2D part of a voodoo rush card. I have written a driver for this chipset, based on the XF86 driver for this chipset. The programs that work with this driver include all the programs in the demos directory, zgv and dvisvga (tmview). I believe it should be easy to make it work on AT24, AT6422.

Please see

R svgalib.mach32 (7).

The rage.c driver works only on mach64 based cards with internal DAC. The driver might misdetect the base frequency the card uses, so if when setting any svgalib modes the screen blanks, or complains about out of bound frequencies, or the display is unsynced, then try adding the option

R RageDoubleClock to the config file.

Please see

R svgalib.chips (7).

Please see

R svgalib.et4000 (7).

I have only 2 Mbytes of memory on my ET6000 card, so I am not able to get all possible modes running. I haven't even tried to do all of the modes which I am capable of doing, but I am confident that I can manage more modes when I have time. I have enough modes working to make the card useful, so I felt it was worth while to add the driver to svgalib now. Linear graphics is working on this card, both with and without BACKGROUND enabled, and vga_runinbackground works. I decided it was best to quit working on more modes and try to get acceleration and sprites working. My et6000 card is on a PCI bus. The card will run on a vesa bus, but since I don't have one on my machine I couldn't develop vesa bus handling. I quit if the bus is a vesa bus. I check for an et6000 card, which can be unequivocally identified. The et4000 driver does not properly identify et4000 cards. It thinks the et6000 card is an et4000, but can only run it in vga modes. I have found the following four modelines to be useful in

libvga.config or in

~/.svgalibrc for proper display of some modes.
Modeline "" 25.175 512 560 592 640 384 428 436 494
Modeline "" 25.000 400 456 472 520 300 319 332 350 DOUBLESCAN
Modeline "" 25.175 512 584 600 656 480 500 510 550
Modeline "" 25.000 400 440 488 520 600 639 644 666 Don Secrest <> Aug 21, 1999

First a few comments of me (Michael Weller <>): As of this writing (1.2.8) fixes were made to the oak driver by Frodo Looijaard <> to reenable OTI-067 support. It is unknown right now if they might have broken OTI-087 support. The author of the '87 support Christopher Wiles <> owns no longer an OTI-087 card and can thus no longer give optimal support to this driver. Thus you might be better off contacting me or Frodo for questions. If you are a knowledgeable OTI-087 user and experience problems you are welcome to provide fixes. No user of a OTI-087 is currently known to me, so if you are able to fix problems with the driver please do so (and contact me) as noone else can. Michael. Now back to the original Oak information: The original OTI driver, which supported the OTI-067/77 at 640x480x256, has been augmented with the following features:

1)

    Supported resolutions/colors have been expanded to 640x480x32K, 800x600x256/32K, 1024x768x256, and 1280x1024x16.

2)

    The OTI-087 (all variants) is now supported. Video memory is correctly recognized.

The driver as it exists now is somewhat schizoid. As the '87 incorporates a completely different set of extended registers, I found it necessary to split its routines from the others. Further, I did not have access to either a '67 or a '77 for testing the new resolutions. If using them causes your monitor/video card to fry, your dog to bite you, and so forth, I warned you. The driver works on my '87, and that's all I guarantee. Period. Heh. Now, if someone wants to try them out ... let me know if they work. New from last release: 32K modes now work for 640x480 and 800x600. I found that the Sierra DAC information in VGADOC3.ZIP is, well, wrong. But, then again, the information for the '87 was wrong also. 64K modes

do not work. I can't even get Oak's BIOS to enter those modes. I have included a 1280x1024x16 mode, but I haven't tested it. My monitor can't handle that resolution. According to the documentation, with 2 megs the '87 should be able to do an interlaced 1280x1024x256 ... again, I couldn't get the BIOS to do the mode. I haven't 2 megs anyway, so there it sits. I have included routines for entering and leaving linear mode. They

should work, but they don't. It looks like a pointer to the frame buffer is not being passed to SVGALIB. I've been fighting with this one for a month. If anyone wants to play with this, let me know if it can be make to work. I've got exams that I need to pass. Tidbit: I pulled the extended register info out of the video BIOS. When the information thus obtained failed to work, I procured the OTI-087 data book. It appears that Oak's video BIOS sets various modes incorrectly (e.g. setting 8-bit color as 4, wrong dot clock frequencies, etc.). Sort of makes me wonder ... Christopher M. Wiles ()
12 September 1994

spic

    Picture viewer; JPG/PPM/GIF; truecolor; scrolling.

zgv

    Full-featured viewer with nice file selector.

see-jpeg

    Shows picture as it is being built up.

mpeg-linux

    svgalib port of the Berkeley MPEG decoder (mpeg_play); it also includes an X binary.

flip

    FLI/FLC player (supports SVGA-resolution).

bdash

    B*lderdash clone with sound.

sasteroids

    Very smooth arcade asteroids game.

yatzy

    Neat mouse controlled dice game.

vga_cardgames

    Collection of graphical card games.

vga_gamespack

    Connect4, othello and mines.

wt

    Free state-of-the-art Doom-like engine.

Maelstrom

    A very nice asteroids style game port from Mac.

Koules

    A game. (I've no idea what it looks like)

In the vga directory of the

SIMTEL MSDOS collection, there is a package called vgadoc3which is a collection of VGA/SVGA register information. The XFree86 driver sources distributed with the link-kit may be helpful.

There's an alternative RAW-mode keyboard library by Russell Marks for use with

svgalib on sunsite.unc.edu .

R LIBGRX , the extensive framebuffer library by Csaba Biegl distributed with

R DJGPP , has been ported to Linux. Contact Hartmut Schirmer (, subject prefix "HARTMUT:"). A more up-to-date port by Daniel Jackson () is on sunsite.unc.edu . The vgalib ghostscript device driver sources can be found on sunsite.unc.edu ", " /pub/Linux/apps/graphics . Ghostscript patches from Slackware: ftp.cdrom.com ", " /pub/linux/misc .

gnuplot patches are on sunsite.unc.edu . Mitch D'Souza has written font functions that work in 16 color modes and can use VGA textmode (codepage format) fonts; these can be found in his

g3fax package in sunsite.unc.edu . These functions may go into a later version of

R svgalib .