RE: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
Sottek, Matthew J writes: The Windows driver does full mode programming including all the external digital components from many 3rd party companies. The open source XFree This is pretty much what the SiS driver does after Thomas got his hands on it. It programms the SiS and it knows about several video bridges attached to it. driver sets modes by using the video bios. That way it does not have to have full programming capabilities for 3rd party components. The XFree driver is therefore limited to what the vbios can do while the Windows driver is not. It is nice to know that - yet it doesn't solve our problem. The users want to use their systems at resolutions and depths that are common these days and they care very little about it what the capablilities of the BIOS are. I know that the BIOS offers a rather easy way to get over the very difficult task of getting the video modes right. In fact I was the one who started the int10 and VESA BIOS stuff - mainly to get the secondary graphics boards posted. However we realize over and over again that the implementation of the VESA BIOS functions is done sloppy and that we are seeing more problems (which we cannot fix) as if we had gone the hard route. Anyway, the solution in this case however should be much simpler: the BIOS knows about the other modes as they get listed. It just refuses to set them them it doesn't see more than 892 kB of video memory. The BIOS just needs to be convinced of that. We had two ways of doing that. One was by setting some BIOS flags, the other was using a VESA BIOS interface. For whatever reason there is at least one more way. Now it is the BIOS vendors' term to provide us with the necessary information. Egbert. ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
Egbert Eich wrote: Sottek, Matthew J writes: The Windows driver does full mode programming including all the external digital components from many 3rd party companies. The open source XFree This is pretty much what the SiS driver does after Thomas got his hands on it. It programms the SiS and it knows about several video bridges attached to it. OT, but for the record: With SiS, it is actuall the other way round. SiS' Windows drivers do mode changes _exclusively_ by calling the BIOS. That's why they never need to update their Windows driver... and produce zillions of different BIOSes instead :( Thomas -- Thomas Winischhofer Vienna/Austria thomas AT winischhofer DOT net http://www.winischhofer.net/ twini AT xfree86 DOT org ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 09:01:31AM -0700, Hope Merritt wrote: All, The patches will not work do to a limitation in the Dell system BIOS and Intel VBIOS. Dell locks their pre-allocated (once called stolen) memory at 1MB and therefore you will be limited in modes on Linux since the VBIOS limits its modes to the amount of pre-allocated memory. Intel has implemented a workaround, but it would require Dell to implement one of Intels latest VBIOS drops in there systems BIOS and then update the system BIOS. I would expect any 855 release of system BIOS from Dell in the next 2 months to have the VBIOS that allows the Xserver to report memory it allocated to the VBIOS and the modes could be adjusted. Another problem I get a lot of reports about is that the VBIOS doesn't support video modes like 1400x1050, the panel resolution used by a number of laptops. David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
Thanks a bunch for the update Hope! In the mean time, I've resorted to using debian as the guest OS in VMWare, works out pretty nicely in fact. (I get to use the 802.11g card, and XP's suspend/hibernate/power management! =) -Oliver Hope Merritt wrote: All, The patches will not work do to a limitation in the Dell system BIOS and Intel VBIOS. Dell locks their pre-allocated (once called stolen) memory at 1MB and therefore you will be limited in modes on Linux since the VBIOS limits its modes to the amount of pre-allocated memory. Intel has implemented a workaround, but it would require Dell to implement one of Intel's latest VBIOS drops in there systems BIOS and then update the system BIOS. I would expect any 855 release of system BIOS from Dell in the next 2 months to have the VBIOS that allows the Xserver to report memory it allocated to the VBIOS and the modes could be adjusted. Best regards, Hope Merritt, III Intel Corporation Software Applications Engineer Desk: 916-356-0936 Text: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
why aren't the windows drivers affected? they must be a way around it without needing a new bios... The same thing was claimed the last time around with the 830s and dell never fixed the bios, but someone came up with a work around. Alex --- Hope Merritt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All, The patches will not work do to a limitation in the Dell system BIOS and Intel VBIOS. Dell locks their pre-allocated (once called stolen) memory at 1MB and therefore you will be limited in modes on Linux since the VBIOS limits its modes to the amount of pre-allocated memory. Intel has implemented a workaround, but it would require Dell to implement one of Intel#8217;s latest VBIOS drops in there systems BIOS and then update the system BIOS. I would expect any 855 release of system BIOS from Dell in the next 2 months to have the VBIOS that allows the Xserver to report memory it allocated to the VBIOS and the modes could be adjusted. Best regards, Hope Merritt, III Intel Corporation Software Applications Engineer Desk: 916-356-0936 Text: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
well, yeah. My point was that intel should just release a patch to fix the driver (or specs to let us fix it) rather than fixing the bios and making us wait for dell to (possibly) update the bios. Alex --- Mike A. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Simple. Because the Windows drivers have workarounds built into them which manually program the chipset to do what the BIOS should, but is not doing. Why do they just work in Windows? Because 95% of the desktop market is Windows, and the various companies involved have a lot of money tied up in making sure things just work the first time they hit the public eye the majority of time. As such problems like this are fixed in Windows-land long before end users ever realize there was a problem that needed to be fixed. In the land of OSS however, we do not have that same status. We get specifications for hardware long after the fact if ever from the majority of video hardware companies, and when someone releases hardware with a broken BIOS that needs software driver workarounds, someone needs to know what the exact problem is, and then also have access to the specifications to know how to code those workarounds, and also have the hardware in question in order to test it. So it is no surprise that what works in Windows is not any form of indicator of what works in XFree86. They are 2 different environments, not privy to the same amount of technical information as each other, and with very different number of manpower working on each, and with IHV pressure also being quite different for each. -- Mike A. Harris __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, Alex Deucher wrote: Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 09:55:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Alex Deucher [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM? why aren't the windows drivers affected? they must be a way around it without needing a new bios... The same thing was claimed the last time around with the 830s and dell never fixed the bios, but someone came up with a work around. Simple. Because the Windows drivers have workarounds built into them which manually program the chipset to do what the BIOS should, but is not doing. Why do they just work in Windows? Because 95% of the desktop market is Windows, and the various companies involved have a lot of money tied up in making sure things just work the first time they hit the public eye the majority of time. As such problems like this are fixed in Windows-land long before end users ever realize there was a problem that needed to be fixed. In the land of OSS however, we do not have that same status. We get specifications for hardware long after the fact if ever from the majority of video hardware companies, and when someone releases hardware with a broken BIOS that needs software driver workarounds, someone needs to know what the exact problem is, and then also have access to the specifications to know how to code those workarounds, and also have the hardware in question in order to test it. So it is no surprise that what works in Windows is not any form of indicator of what works in XFree86. They are 2 different environments, not privy to the same amount of technical information as each other, and with very different number of manpower working on each, and with IHV pressure also being quite different for each. -- Mike A. Harris ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
Newer BIOSes are supposed to provide a BIOS call which can be used to change the size of video RAM the BIOS knows about. Can you look at the vendor string if the BIOS in you lock file? How do I do this? where is the lock file? Is this a DELL provided one or one from Intel? I believe that the BIOS is a custom Dell one... CPUID in windows says: BIOS Brand: Dell Computer Corporation Version: A00 Date: 04/28/2003 I'm not sure if this is what you meant? I've talked to Intel about this and they say this should be fixed with an BIOS update. Hmm... do you think this will lead to Dell updating theirs? Thanks! Oliver ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
The fix was unsuccessful coming from one person on the Dell forums who tried it (I think some others are going to try it though - I posted it on the Gentoo forums). Thanks for your efforts... if another possible workaround surfaces, I'd be glad to give it a try (or find someone who will =). Another idea... if no software/driver workaround is possible and Dell refuses to update/fix their BIOS, is there any feasible way of modifying the BIOS independant of Dell? ie. grabbing the image file and finding where it specifies 832KB (or whatever it sets it to... 896 or something?) and changing that to around 8MB? I'm not sure if the BIOS could be interpretted or not though (seen in assembly - or just a bunch of bits). Is this possible?... legal? Definately risky, I know. -Oliver David Dawes wrote: On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 09:35:52AM -0500, Oliver Wong wrote: Hello all, I recently purchased a Dell D400, which suffers from a BIOS only allocating 1MB of legacy video memory (stolen memory) to the integrated graphics... I believe the Dell 500m and other 855GM laptops suffer from this as well. The BIOS also does not provide the appropriate mechanisms for the current drivers to change that. Researching, I found that the Dell C400 and other similar laptops had this problem too (with an older chipset), but a work around was written (by Abraham vd Merwe?). Does anyone know if a similar work around could be applied to the 855GM's? Or is the chipset radically different so that that fix will not work? That method didn't work on the test hardware I had access to when adding the 855GM support. The driver does implement a new method for informing the video BIOS about additional memory allocations, but I haven't seen any evidence of production hardware implementing it yet. You could try the attached patch, which should enable the old 830M method for all platforms, and let me know if it works. It's possible that Dell has the old method implemented in their video BIOS. If it doesn't work, you'll need to follow it up with Dell. David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes biosmem.diffName: biosmem.diff Type: Plain Text (text/plain) ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM?
David Dawes wrote: On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 09:35:52AM -0500, Oliver Wong wrote: Hello all, I recently purchased a Dell D400, which suffers from a BIOS only allocating 1MB of legacy video memory (stolen memory) to the integrated graphics... I believe the Dell 500m and other 855GM laptops suffer from this as well. The BIOS also does not provide the appropriate mechanisms for the current drivers to change that. Researching, I found that the Dell C400 and other similar laptops had this problem too (with an older chipset), but a work around was written (by Abraham vd Merwe?). Does anyone know if a similar work around could be applied to the 855GM's? Or is the chipset radically different so that that fix will not work? That method didn't work on the test hardware I had access to when adding the 855GM support. The driver does implement a new method for informing the video BIOS about additional memory allocations, but I haven't seen any evidence of production hardware implementing it yet. You could try the attached patch, which should enable the old 830M method for all platforms, and let me know if it works. It's possible that Dell has the old method implemented in their video BIOS. If it doesn't work, you'll need to follow it up with Dell. Alright, thanks David. I haven't gotten my D400 in yet, but it should be arriving soon (expected delivery is tomorrow). Does anyone else have a D400 out there that could give this a try? Since I won't even have a linux distro on mine for a little while. -Oliver David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes biosmem.diffName: biosmem.diff Type: Plain Text (text/plain) ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
