Re: XVR-1000 (Re: pkgin missing on repo sparc64)

[Michael <macallan%netbsd.org@localhost>]

Hello,

On Tue, 14 Jul 2020 21:54:30 +0200
Julian Coleman <jdc%coris.org.uk@localhost> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> > Sorry to Hijack, thanks for that John, I've been wondering that same thing
> > myself, NetBSD is amazing on Sparc64, it's actually a daily for me, I run
> > it on a U10, a U60 and a Blade1000, though, it'd be amazing if someone
> > could pick up the driver support for the XVR-1000 card, I have one for my
> > Blade 1000 that I can't use with NetBSD but just seriously lack the skills
> > to do anything about it, though I am learning C at present, but, rushing in
> > to making a driver as a first big project might be a little ambitious!  
> 
> Glad to hear that you like NetBSD on sparc64!

Indeed!

> We do have a console driver for the XVR-1000 (gfb) but the problem is lack
> of documentation.  That means we don't know how any of the acceleration
> works, nor how to drive the card apart from as a dumb framebuffer.  This
> means that you are better off with an FFB or an XVR-100 in your SB1000.

In my experience an unaccelerated gfb still beats pre-radeon PCI
graphics chips commonly found in sparc64 hardware, simply because
framebuffer access is quite fast and the card should be able to drive
most halfway modern monitors at native resolution. It's got 72MB
framebuffer memory after all. Got a DVI port too.

> Unfortunately, it's the same for the 3DLabs cards as well (XVR-500,
> -600 and -1200).  If documentation ever appears then we could write
> drivers for them, but that seems unlikely.

We can do some acceleration on xvr-1200 cards, the problem is that we
don't know how to switch to a 24bit visual. By the look of it OF hands
us the card in a weird state - double buffered 8bit with some colours
acting as transparent, showing a (presumably) 24bit framebuffer I
couldn't figure out how to access, and pixels randomly selecting one of
the two 8bit pages. Hence the shadow fb voodoo in xf86-video-wsfb. The
kernel driver uses the blitter for scrolling and avoids using the
transparent colours.
If you have one of those - find an xvr-100. It works well and produces a
lot less heat. Bog standard radeon rv100, probably a mac radeon ( with
a bigger flash ROM ) with Sun firmware.

have fun
Michael