On Mon, 24 Dec 2001, Trevor Boicey wrote:
> That would be my first choice, to just use normal
> X windows with NTSC timings fed via a Modeline.
>
> Does anyone know if this can be made to work on my hardware
> though, an ATI 3D Rage II with TV-out? I was only able
> to get X to work via the FB.
>
> Part of the trick seems to be the TV-out portion which
> I don't fully control. If you boot it up with the monitor
> unplugged, the card initializes the TV-out and sends the
> bootup screens there, and then the virtual consoles end up
> there, so the framebuffers will work there.
>
> Is there a way to boot it up this way and get normal X
> to output on the TV-out plugs?
>
> That would solve so many problems.
I'm pretty familiar with all this for the Voodoo3 card, which uses a bt869
chip to do the TV out.
The lm-sensors package includes a driver for this chip. The driver
supports 640x480 and 800x600 modes. I was able to extend the driver to
also do 720x576 without overscan compensation - which works nicely for
video applications.
Of course, its necessary to use "just the right" X modeline.
If your card uses this chip, then perhaps I can help directly.
If your card does its TV-out using a chip that doesn't have a Linux
driver, then your choices are more limited.
First, of course, you could write a driver.
Second choice if you can't get any control over the TV-out except what the
video bios does itself at boot up, would be to establish exactly what the
"modeline" parameters are for the character mode your system starts in -
720x400 character mode? And to create a clone in graphics mode for X.
This may or may not work - could be difficulties with the colour depth.
Do you know what chip is on your card?
> Alternatively, if the SIS card can do this with TV-out
> right now it might make more sense for me to just switch
> to that card instead... or whatever card will work.
Alan seems to have the sis working. I have the Voodoo working. G400
works (G450 doesn't though).
Another technique that I've had working is to output RGB directly to the
TV. For Europe a VGA to SCART connection with a teeny bit of electronics
to handle the syncs does the job.
For this to work you need a card that can do low enough clocks to make a
PAL/NTSC raster. If your card won't do interlacing (few modern ones
do) then you'll be limited to half the number of lines.
I made this work with a laptop (forget the video chip) but couldn't get it
working with a G450 - couldn't clock slow enough.
Regards,
Steve Davies
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