Re: banked graphics modes not supported

[Nathan Hand]

On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 03:23:11PM -0500, Christopher Stone wrote:
> On Monday 27 November 2000 06:28 am, you wrote:
> > Christopher Stone wrote:
> > > Hi, I upgraded my machine and now for some reason when I try to run xmame
> > > in DGA mode I get the following error message:
> > >
> > > banked graphics modes not supported
> > >
> > > and it exits.
> > >
> > > xf86ctx.bank_size = 65536
> > > xf86ctx.ram_size = 2048
> > >
> > > If anyone has any idea how to fix this please let me know.
> >
> > This means that for some reason your graphics card isn't supported in
> > linear framebuffer mode.
> >
> > Are you running it with a vesa framebuffer and xfb by any chance?
> >
> 
> Well, im not sure, this is the same video card i have used in my old 
> computer, all that has changed is a faster motherboard and cpu.  However, I 
> also had to change my XF86Config file to have option "nolinear" in order for 
> X to run without crashing.  Im thinking my video card is just too old for 
> todays hardware (S3 generic), I will search around the internet and see if I 
> can find a solution.  

The S3 card is fine for modern XFree86. The problem (IIRC) is that
the S3 PCI handling is broken on the card such that it reports the
wrong memory addresses to the PCI bios. As a result the memory the
card maps into PCI address space overlaps with other PCI devices.

Ok... just checked and here's the relevant bit from README.S3

    One shortcoming worth noting is that this driver
    does not yet contain the work-around for some
    S3 PCI BIOSs that report their memory usage
    incorrectly.  This can result in conflicting
    address spaces.  If this is the case on your
    hardware you should run XF86_S3 once and write
    down the address that your card is relocated to
    (as printed out in the server output).  Then you
    can force the server to use this address with
    the MemBase field in the XF86Config (see the
    man page on XF86Config).

Alternatively you just switch on nolinear, like you've done, but I
seem to remember this is really slow.
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