-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello, On Feb 12, 2009, at 9:11 PM, raymond.meyer%rambler.ru@localhost wrote:
On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:50:58 +0000 (UTC) Eduardo Horvath <eeh%NetBSD.org@localhost> wrote:On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, raymond.meyer%rambler.ru@localhost wrote:Are there any new developments in regard to running 3rd party PCI graphics cards on Sun hardware? Last time I asked, I was told it didn't really work: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-sparc64/2008/04/07/msg000306.htmlI have an old ATI rage128 PCI card that I would like to use for running X11 on Sun Ultra 10. What needs to be done to achieve this? Maybe it's possible to write a small fcode "driver" that gets loaded by OpenBootfirmware and sets the PCI card to be the system console?The problem with graphics cards is that they require custom code in the boot firmware to do some initial configuration to make them usable that is usually considered propriatary information by the card vendor. Unless you can get real FCode from ATI or you can get bootstrapping information fromthem you are unlikely to have much success writing a driver snippet,except maybe by reverse engineering it from the BIOS machine code on thecard. Now OTOH ISTR some machines have some sort of on-board ATI chip, so Isuppose it's always possible to get lucky and discover that the on- boardFCode can properly initialize your board. EduardoSo why do they have this initialisation code requirement? Other PCI cards just work, i.e. network and storage, what's so special about graphics cards?
There are plenty network and storage controllers that need just that kind of proprietary setup, usually it means uploading some sort of firmware image into the chip. Newer, more complex graphics cards are no different.
Do all graphics cards depend on this code, or some do and some don't?
Some do ( pretty much all newer ones IIRC ), others don't ( older, simpler ones. For instance Matrox Millennium I and II don't need anything like that, XFree86's driver can cold boot them )
Is there a good way to find out which ones do?
Not really. The R128 might be in either group - it's fairly complex but not /that/ complex. Most Mach64 likely don't need any funny special setup.
have fun Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin) iQEVAwUBSZT+JMpnzkX8Yg2nAQLRgwf9GmYSuvx88V2/TCmnKLZB6tsm3xX4NR1d Lp1hsiYTfwRBlErPGlS/IzEkHfywYUoqG6zY4QPpeSlPedBf6YyTpExu369XK3QX zvj7dMqvCelwmNFoG/5xxP/PIiwNCvTYA4p+iX4bxKVSy6xj+XRzHgiLEjLp+Uec KCfE9M6n6Kxp05H0UAP/S9VbKamc9vs8284FhCKycHy36XL2RWMA0Tq/JlZrPdKa w1HOMk0FCx67pW8zWiovkUAxtGc7WviOe3PLYWWkV6B7ZyaFjhaWtDjHR9J2rkin r2JCmaCtBEVwCkG8GrMwbX6njxELXUlnG8IVPgo88Zcw3a3tFms2Ew== =oyze -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----