path: root/man/s3.man

.\" shorthand for double quote that works everywhere.
.ds q \N'34'
.TH s3 __drivermansuffix__ __vendorversion__
.SH NAME
s3 \- S3 video driver
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B Section \*qDevice\*q
.RS 2
.B Identifier \*q\fIdevname\fP\*q
.br
.B Driver \*qs3\*q
.br
.B ...
.br
[\fBOption\fP "optionname" ["optionvalue"]]
.RE
.B EndSection

.SH SUPPORTED HARDWARE
The
.B s3
driver supports PCI video cards based on the following S3 chips:
.TP 12
.B Trio32
86C732
.TP 12
.B Trio64
86C764
.TP 12
.B Trio64V+
86C765
.TP 12
.B Aurora64V+
86CM65
.TP 12
.B Trio64UV+
86C767
.TP 12
.B Trio64V2/DX
86C775
.TP 12
.B Trio64V2/GX
86C785
.TP 12
.B Vision964
86C964
.TP 12
.B Vision968
86C968

.PP
Also driver supports the following RAMDACs:
.TP 12
.B IBM 524, IBM 524A, IBM 526, IBM 526DB
.TP 12
.B TI ViewPoint 3025 

.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBs3\fP is an __xservername__ driver for S3 based video cards. The
driver provides full accelerated support for the following colour
depths: 8, 15, 16 and 24. The overlay video (Xv) is supported in
depths 16 and 24 for the Trio64V+, Trio64UV+, Trio64V2/DX and
Trio64V2/GX chips.

.SH CONFIGURATION DETAILS
Please refer to __xconfigfile__(__filemansuffix__) for general
configuration details.  This section only covers configuration details
specific to this driver. All options names are case and white space
insensitive when parsed by the server, for example, "trio 32/64" and
"Trio32/64" are equivalent.

.SS
Chip overriding
.PP
The driver auto-detects the chipset and RAMDAC, but the following
\fBChipset\fP names may optionally be specified in the configuration
file \fB\*qDevice\*q\fP section, and will override the auto-detection:

.PP
.RS 4
.TP 18
"964-0", "964-1"
86C964 (rev.0 and rev.1)
.TP 18
"968"
86C968
.TP 18
"Trio32/64"
86C732/86C764
.TP 18 
"Aurora64V+"
86CM65
.TP 18
"Trio64UV+"
86C767 
.TP 18
"Trio64V2/DX/GX"
86C775/86C785
.RE

.PP
The 86C765 (Trio64V+) is \fBChipset\fP "Trio32/64" with \fBChipRev\fP
greater or equal 0x40.

An overriding of RAMDAC auto-detection currently is not implemented.

.SS
Colour depth
.PP
For every supported colour depth the X server automatically selects an
appropriate number of bits per pixel (bpp) for framebuffer. The depth
8 is represented by 8 bpp framebuffer (1 byte/pixel), the depths 15
and 16 (respectively 5.5.5 and 5.6.5 pixel formats) are represented by
the 16 bpp framebuffer (2 bytes/pixel). Whenever the depth 24 is
configured, the X server by default uses the 32 bpp framebuffer (4
bytes/pixel), and the hardware is adjusted accordingly to the X.8.8.8
pixel format, where X is the ignored upper byte.

.PP
As the second option for the depth 24, the X server can be configured
to use 24 bpp framebuffer with the 8.8.8 pixel format (3 bytes/pixel),
which is supported by Trio64V+, Trio64UV+, Trio64V2/DX and
Trio64V2/GX. If the video board has limited video RAM the 24 bpp
framebuffer has an advantage over 32 bpp framebuffer as it requires
less memory to store screen, and, therefore, more space will be
available for a video frame (see "Overlay video" section).  The 24 bpp
framebuffer can be selected by X server's option \fB-fbbpp 24\fP or by
specifying \fBDefaultFbBpp\fP option in
__xconfigfile__(__filemansuffix__):

.RS 4
.B Section \*qScreen\*q
.RS 2
.B DefaultFbBpp 24
.br
.B DefaultDepth 24
.br
.B ...
.RE
.B EndSection
.RE

.PP
However, the 24 bpp framebuffer mode has the hardware limitations: (i)
the 2D acceleration doesn't work with this mode (use the
\fB\*qshadowFB\*q\fP option to speed up drawing routines in this
case); (ii) 24 bpp framebuffer cannot be used with either interlaced
or doublescan graphics modes.

.SS
Overlay video
.PP
If your video board has limited RAM it would be useful to estimate how
large video frame might be placed in offscreen video memory. Suppose
that the video board has 2 MB of RAM, and X server is configured to
display 800x600 with the depth 24. By default the 32 bpp framebuffer
will be chosen for this depth, so 800 x 600 x 4 = 1875 kB will be
reserved for screen, and 2 MB - 1875 kB = 173 kB will remain for the
offscreen area. This is sufficient space, for example, for the VCD
NTSC 352x240 frame. If you need to upscale video with a bigger frame,
but it doesn't fit the offscreen area, the only way to do this is to
lower either the resolution or framebuffer's depth or both before the
viewing, otherwise, you will get the allocation error and will not see
the video. For example, with 24 bpp framebuffer and the same
resolution 800x600 the offscreen area will be about 640 kB - it's
enough for the 640x480 frame. 800x600 with the 16 bpp framebuffer
gives about 1110 kB of offscreen area - this allows to upscale up to
768x576 movies. Note, that all movie resolutions in examples above are
provided as a reference; the movies can have the different aspect
ratios and non-standard dimensions. A total pixel amount is the main
consideration not the certain width and height.
.PP
Due to hardware limitation the overlay video will not work with the
interlaced/doublescan modes. Downscaling is not implemented in
hardware.

.SS
Configuration options
.PP
The following display
.B Options
are supported:
.TP
.BI "Option \*qHWCursor\*q \*q" boolean \*q
Enable or disable the hardware cursor. Currently, hardware cursor is
not implemented, so the option will be ignored. Default: off (software
cursor).
.TP
.BI "Option \*qNoAccel\*q \*q" boolean \*q
Disable acceleration. Very useful for determining if the driver has
problems with drawing and acceleration routines. This is the first
option to try if your server runs but you see graphic corruption on
the screen. Using it decreases performance, as it uses software
emulation for drawing operations the video driver can accelerate with
hardware. Default: off (acceleration is enabled).
.TP
.BI "Option \*qShadowFB\*q \*q" boolean \*q
Use shadow framebuffer. Disables hardware acceleration. Use this
option when the hardware acceleration is not available or
undesirable. Default: off.
.TP
.BI "Option \*qXVideo\*q \*q" boolean \*q
Enable or disable Xv support. Default: on.

.PP
The following video memory \fBOptions\fP are supported:
.TP
.BI "Option \*qslow_dram_refresh\*q \*q" boolean \*q
Enable three refresh cycles per scanline. Default: off (one refresh
cycle).
.TP
.BI "Option \*qslow_edodram\*q \*q" boolean \*q
Switch to 2-cycle EDO mode. Try this if you encounter pixel
corruption. Using this option will cause a decrease in
performance. Default: off (BIOS defaults).
.TP
.BI "Option \*qslow_dram\*q \*q" boolean \*q
For Trio and Aurora64V+ chips: increase -RAS Precharge Timing to 3.5
MCLK. Try this option if you encounter pixel errors. Default: off
(BIOS defaults).
.TP
.BI "Option \*qslow_vram\*q \*q" boolean \*q
For Vision964, Vision968 chips: increase -RAS Low Timing to 4.5
MCLK. Default: off (BIOS defaults).

.SH SEE ALSO
__xservername__(1), __xconfigfile__(__filemansuffix__), Xserver(1),
X(__miscmansuffix__)

.SH AUTHORS
Thomas Roell, Mark Vojkovich, Kevin E. Martin, Amancio Hasty, Jon
N. Tombs and others were the original authors of driver for XFree86
3.x. Ani Joshi reworked driver for XFree86 4.x. The further
modifications were made by the following contributors: Adam Jackson,
Alan Coopersmith, Dave Airlie, Andrew Radrianasulu, Paulo Cesar
Pereira de Andrade, Eric Anholt, Søren Sandmann Pedersen, Alex
Deucher, Evgeny M. Zubok, Daniel Stone and others.

.PP
The manual was written by Evgeny M. Zubok <evgeny.zubok@tochka.ru>