Table of Contents

Name

i810 - Intel 8xx integrated graphics chipsets

Synopsis


Section "Device"
  Identifier "devname"
  Driver "i810"
  ...
EndSection

Description

i810 is an XFree86 driver for Intel integrated graphics chipsets. The driver supports depths 8, 15, 16 and 24. All visual types are supported in depth 8. For the i810/i815 other depths support the TrueColor and DirectColor visuals. For the 830M and later, only the TrueColor visual is supported for depths greater than 8. The driver supports hardware accelerated 3D via the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI), but only in depth 16 for the i810/i815 and depths 16 and 24 for the 830M and later.

Supported Hardware

i810 supports the i810, i810-DC100, i810e, i815, 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G, 915G and 915GM chipsets.

Configuration Details

Please refer to XF86Config(5) for general configuration details. This section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.

The Intel 8xx family of integrated graphics chipsets has a unified memory architecture and uses system memory for video ram. For the i810 and i815 familiy of chipset, operating system support for allocating system memory for video use is required in order to use this driver. For the 830M and later, this is required in order for the driver to use more video ram than has been pre-allocated at boot time by the BIOS. This is usually achieved with an "agpgart" or "agp" kernel driver. Linux, and recent versions of FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD have such kernel drivers available.

By default 8 Megabytes of system memory are used for graphics. For the 830M and later, the default is 8 Megabytes when DRI is not enabled and 32 Megabytes with DRI is enabled. This amount may be changed with the VideoRam entry in the config file Device section. It may be set to any reasonable value up to 64MB for older chipsets or 128MB for newer chipets. It is advisable to check the XFree86 log file to check if any features have been disabled because of insufficient video memory. In particular, DRI support or tiling mode may be disabled with insufficient video memory. Either of these being disabled will reduce performance for 3D applications. Note however, that increasing this value too much will reduce the amount of system memory available for other applications.

The driver makes use of the video BIOS to program video modes for the 830M and later. This limits the video modes that can be used to those provided by the video BIOS, and to those that will fit into the amount of video memory that the video BIOS is aware of.

The following driver Options are supported:

Option "NoAccel" "boolean"
Disable or enable acceleration. Default: acceleration is enabled.
Option "SWCursor" "boolean"
Disable or enable software cursor. Default: software cursor is disable and a hardware cursor is used for configurations where the hardware cursor is available.
Option "ColorKey" "integer"
This sets the default pixel value for the YUV video overlay key. Default: undefined.
Option "CacheLines" "integer"
This allows the user to change the amount of graphics memory used for 2D acceleration and video. Decreasing this amount leaves more for 3D textures. Increasing it can improve 2D performance at the expense of 3D performance. Default: depends on the resolution, depth, and available video memory. The driver attempts to allocate at least enough to hold two DVD-sized YUV buffers by default. The default used for a specific configuration can be found by examining the XFree86 log file.
Option "DRI" "boolean"
Disable or enable DRI support. Default: DRI is enabled for configurations where it is supported.

The following driver Options are supported for the i810 and i815 chipsets:

Option "DDC" "boolean"
Disable or enable DDC support. Default: enabled.
Option "Dac6Bit" "boolean"
Enable or disable 6-bits per RGB for 8-bit modes. Default: 8-bits per RGB for 8-bit modes.
Option "XvMCSurfaces" "integer"
This option enables XvMC. The integer parameter specifies the number of surfaces to use. Valid values are 6 and 7. Default: XvMC is disabled.

The following driver Options are supported for the 830M and later chipsets:

Option "VBERestore" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of VBE save/restore for saving and restoring the initial text mode. This is disabled by default because it causes lockups on some platforms. However, there are some cases where it must enabled for the correct restoration of the initial video mode. If you are having a problem with that, try enabling this option. Default: Disabled.
Option "VideoKey" "integer"
This is the same as the "ColorKey" option described above. It is provided for compatibility with most other drivers.
Option "XVideo" "boolean"
Disable or enable XVideo support. Default: XVideo is enabled for configurations where it is supported.
Option "MonitorLayout" "anystr"
Allow different monitor configurations. e.g. "CRT,LFP" will configure a CRT on Pipe A and an LFP on Pipe B. Regardless of the primary heads' pipe it is always configured as "<PIPEA>,<PIPEB>". Additionally you can add different configurations such as "CRT+DFP,LFP" which would put a digital flat panel and a CRT on pipe A, and a local flat panel on pipe B. For single pipe configurations you can just specify the monitors types on Pipe A, such as "CRT+DFP" which will enable the CRT and DFP on Pipe A. Valid monitors are CRT, LFP, DFP, TV, CRT2, LFP2, DFP2, TV2 and NONE. NOTE: Some configurations of monitor types may fail, this depends on the Video BIOS and system configuration. Default: Not configured, and will use the current head's pipe and monitor.
Option "Clone" "boolean"
Enable Clone mode on pipe B. This will setup the second head as a complete mirror of the monitor attached to pipe A. NOTE: Video overlay functions will not work on the second head in this mode. If you require this, then use the MonitorLayout above and do (as an example) "CRT+DFP,NONE" to configure both a CRT and DFP on Pipe A to achieve local mirroring and disable the use of this option. Default: Clone mode on pipe B is disabled.
Option "CloneRefresh" "integer"
When the Clone option is specified we can drive the second monitor at a different refresh rate than the primary. Default: 60Hz.
Option "CheckLid" "boolean"
On mobile platforms it's desirable to monitor the lid status and switch the outputs accordingly when the lid is opened or closed. By default this option is on, but may incur a very minor performance penalty as we need to poll a register on the card to check for this activity. It can be turned off using this option. This only works with the 830M, 852GM and 855GM systems. Default: enabled.
Option "FlipPrimary" "boolean"
When using a dual pipe system, it may be preferable to switch the primary screen to the alternate pipe to display on the other monitor connection. NOTE: Using this option may cause text mode to be restored incorrectly, and thus should be used with caution. Default: disabled.
Option "DisplayInfo" "boolean"
It has been found that a certain BIOS call can lockup the Xserver because of a problem in the Video BIOS. The log file will identify if you are suffering from this problem and tell you to turn this option off. Default: enabled
Option "DevicePresence" "boolean"
Tell the driver to perform an active detect of the currently connected monitors. This option is useful if the monitor was not connected when the machine has booted, but unfortunately it doesn't always work and is extremely dependent upon the Video BIOS. Default: disabled

See Also

XFree86(1) , XF86Config(5) , xf86config(1) , Xserver(1) , X(7)

Authors

Authors include: Keith Whitwell, and also Jonathan Bian, Matthew J Sottek, Jeff Hartmann, Mark Vojkovich, Alan Hourihane, H. J. Lu. 830M and 845G support reworked for XFree86 4.3 by David Dawes and Keith Whitwell. 852GM, 855GM, and 865G support added by David Dawes and Keith Whitwell. 915G and 915GM support added by Alan Hourihane and Keith Whitwell. Dual Head, Clone and lid status support added by Alan Hourihane.

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