Section "Device" Identifier "devname" Driver "sis" ... EndSection
SiS5597/5598 SiS530/620 SiS6326/AGP/DVD SiS300/305 SiS540 SiS630/730 SiS315/E/H/PRO SiS550/551/552 SiS650/651/661/741 SiS330 (Xabre) SiS760/761 XGI Volari V3/V5/V8 XGI Volari Z7
In the following text, the following terms are used:
old series for SiS5597/5598, 530/620 and 6326/AGP/DVD
300 series for SiS300/305, 540 and 630/730
315/330/340 series for SiS315, 55x, 330, 661/741/76x (plus M, FX, MX, GX variants thereof), 340 and all XGI chips.
Detailed information on all supported options can be obtained at http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml
This manpage only covers a subset of the supported options.
1. For all supported chipsets
The following driver options are supported on all chipsets:
2. Old series specific information
The driver will auto-detect the amount of video memory present for all these chips, but in the case of the 6326, it will limit the memory size to 4MB. This is because the 6326's 2D engine can only address 4MB. The remaining memory seems to be intended for 3D texture data, since only the 3D engine can address RAM above 4MB. However, you can override this limitation using the "VideoRAM" option in the Device section if your board has more than 4MB and you need to use it. However, 2D acceleration, XVideo and the HWCursor will be disabled in this case.
For the 6326, the driver has two built-in modes for high resolutions which you should use instead of the default ones. These are named "SIS1280x1024-75" and "SIS1600x1200-60" and they will be added to the list of default modes. To use these modes, just place them in your Screen section. Example:
Modes "SIS1600x1200-60" "SIS1280x1024x75" "1024x768" ...
Of these modes, 1280x1024 is only available at 8, 15 and 16bpp. 1600x1200 is available at 8bpp only.
TV support for the 6326
TV output is supported for the 6326. The driver will auto detect a connected TV and in this case add the following display modes to the list of available display modes: "PAL800x600", "PAL800x600U", "PAL720x540", "PAL640x480", "NTSC640x480", "NTSC640x480U" and "NTSC640x400". Use these modes like the hi-res modes described above.
The following driver Options are supported on the old series:
2. 300 and 315/330/340 series specific information
The 300 and 315/330/340 series, except the XGI Z7, feature two CRT controllers and very often come with a video bridge for controlling LCD and TV output. Hereinafter, the term CRT1 refers to the VGA output of the chip, and CRT2 refers to either LCD, TV or secondary VGA. Due to timing reasons, only one CRT2 output can be active at the same time. But this limitation does not apply to using CRT1 and CRT2 at the same time which makes it possible to run the driver in dual head mode.
The driver supports the following video bridges:
SiS301 SiS301B(-DH) SiS301C SiS301LV SiS302(E)LV
Instead of a video bridge, some machines have a third party LVDS transmitter to control LCD panels, and/or a Chrontel 7005 or 7019 for TV output. All these are supported as well.
About TV output
The driver fully supports standard (PAL, NTSC, PAL-N, PAL-M) S-video or composite output as well as high definition TV (HDTV) output via YPbPr plugs. For more information on HDTV, please consult the author's website.
As regards S-video and CVBS output, the SiS301 and the Chrontel 7005 only support resolutions up to 800x600. All others support resolutions up to 1024x768. However, due to a hardware bug, Xvideo might be distorted on SiS video bridges if running NTSC or PAL-M at 1024x768.
About XVideo support
XVideo is supported on all chipsets of both families (except the XGI Volari Z7 which lacks hardware support for video overlays). However, there are some differences in hardware features which cause limitations. The 300 series as well as the SiS55x, M650, 651, 661FX, M661FX, M661MX, 741, 741GX, M741, 76x, M76x support two video overlays. The SiS315/H/PRO, 650/740, 330, 340 and the XGI Volari V3, V5 and V8 chips support only one such overlay. On chips with two overlays, one overlay is used for CRT1, the other for CRT2. On the other chipsets, the option "XvOnCRT2" can be used to select the desired output device (CRT1 or CRT2).
About Merged Framebuffer support
Merged framebuffer mode is similar to dual head/Xinerama mode (for using two output devices of one card at the same time), but has a few advantages which make me recommend it strongly over Xinerama. Please see http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml for detailed information.
About dual-head support
Dual head mode with or without Xinerama is fully supported, be it with one card driving two outputs, be it two cards. Note that colordepth 8 is not supported in dual head mode if run on one card with two outputs.
The following driver Options are supported on the 300 and 315/330/340 series:
The driver supports many more options. Please see http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml for more information.
3. 300 series specific information
DRI is supported on the 300 series only. On Linux, prior to kernel 2.6.3, DRI requires the kernel's SiS framebuffer driver ( sisfb ). The SiS DRM kernel driver as well as the SiS DRI client driver are required in any case.
Sisfb, if installed and running, takes care of memory management for texture data. In order to prevent the X Server and sisfb from overwriting each other's data, sisfb reserves an amount of video memory for the X driver. This amount can either be selected using sisfb's mem parameter, or auto-selected depending on the amount of total video RAM available.
Sisfb can be used for memory management only, or as a complete framebuffer driver. If you start sisfb with a valid mode (ie you gain a graphical console), the X driver can communicate with sisfb and doesn't require any manual configuration for finding out about the video memory it is allowed to use.
However, if you are running a 2.4 series Linux kernel and use sisfb for video memory management only, ie you started sisfb with mode=none and still have a text mode console, there is no communication between sisfb and the X driver. For this purpose, the
exists. This option must be set to the same value as given to sisfb through its "mem" parameter, ie the amount of memory to use for X in kilobytes.
If you started sisfb without the mem argument, sisfb will reserve
If you intend to use DRI on an integrated chipset (540, 630, 730), I recommend setting the total video memory in the BIOS setup utility to 64MB.
PLEASE NOTE: As of Linux 2.6.3 and under *BSD, sisfb is not required for memory management. Hence, this option is mandatory on such systems not running sisfb to decide how much memory X should reserve for DRI. If the option is omitted, DRI will have no memory assigned, and all DRI applications will quit with errors like "failed to allocate Z-buffer" or the like.
Xorg(1) , xorg.conf(5) , Xserver(1) , X(7)
http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml for more information and updates