vga4x

Usage

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

Overview

vga is an XFree86 driver for generic VGA video cards. It can drive most VGA-compatible video cards, but only makes use of the basic standard VGA core that is common to these cards. The driver supports depths 1, 4 and 8. All relevant visual types are supported at each depth. Multi-head configurations are supported in combination with some other drivers, but only when the vga driver is driving the primary head.

Supported hardware

The vga driver supports most VGA-compatible video cards. There are some known exceptions, and those should be listed here.

Configuration details

Please refer to XF86Config-4(5x) for general configuration details. This section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.

The driver auto-detects the presence of VGA-compatible hardware. The ChipSet name may optionally be specified in the config file "Device" section, and will override the auto-detection:

The driver will only use 64k of video memory for depth 1 and depth 8 operation, and 256k of video memory for depth 4 (this is the standard VGA limit).

When operating at depth 8, only a single built-in 320x200 video mode is available. At other depths there is more flexibility regarding mode choice.

The following driver Options are supported:

Option "ShadowFB" "boolean"

Enable or disable use of the shadow framebuffer layer. Default: off.

This option is recommended for performance reasons when running at depths 1 and 4, especially when using modern PCI-based hardware. It is required when using those depths in a multi-head configuration where one or more of the other screens is operating at a different depth.