Re: [XFree86] 8+24 overlay

[Malcolm Stevens]

I've tried a few different things to make this work specifically for 
Cadence tools.  I've never gotten Xnest to do what I wanted but I have 
to admit I didn't try too hard.  Vnc can sort of do some of what you 
need but it's slow and cumbersome.  I've done the multiple X server 
thing too and that works well and is really only a little annoying once 
you get used to it.  Right now I'm using a matrox G550 and it's a near 
perfect solution.  The only exceptions are that for some reason the dri 
and glx extensions won't work with the overlay turned on and I'm trying 
to get to the bottom of a problem with simvision that crashes the 
Xserver (bug 406).  I don't care about the 3D so the dri and glx stuff 
doesn't bother me.

On the same topic of 8+24 overlay, my ibook, when running Apple's X11, 
provides 24 bit truecolor visuals and an 8 bit pseudocolor visual.  
Does anyone know how this is done?  If I remember correctly, the video 
chip inside is an ATI Rage Mobility 128 and as far as I can tell ATI 
chips don't have hardware overlay features.  Does this mean Apple is 
doing something in software?  Their X11 is based on XFree86 4.2.1 but I 
think it's been modified quite a bit.

Malcolm

On Friday, June 27, 2003, at 12:24 AM, Andy Goth wrote:

On Thursday, June 26, 2003 12:39 pm, Mark Vojkovich wrote:
  8+24 requires hardware 8 bit overlay support.  NVIDIA GeForce
products do not have hardware 8 bit overlay nor do they support the
8+24 mode.  The 8+24 option is only supported by some Matrox and
3Dlabs hardware.
I'm curious... can Xnest be used to run at a different color depth 
than the
host X server?  I imagine it is technically possible for it to provide 
an
8bpp X server for Cadence, handle all palette issues and such to 
convert to
24bpp, and send the modified X protocol to the real server.

I've never used Xnest, so I'm just groping in the dark here, but the 
above
seems like a possibility.

Lodovico, why would setting your X server to run in 8bpp impact your 
display
resolution?  Having a lower color depth should allow you to have more 
pixels
onscreen and off rather than less.  Or maybe by resolution you simply 
mean
color resolution...

Another solution you may not have considered is running multiple X 
servers.
Run one at 24bpp for your normal work and another at 8bpp for Cadence 
and its
support tools.  If you're using Red Hat, you would flip between the 
two with
Ctrl+Alt+F7 and Ctrl+Alt+F8.  I know this would be a pain, but running
Cadence inside Xnest might not be much better.

The only "real" solution would be to support color depth emulation as 
a basic
feature common to all servers, but of course this would bloat XFree86 
beyond
measure.  Also, unless I'm mistaken, there's virtually no demand for 
this.

--
Andy Goth  |  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  http://ioioio.net/
End communication.
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