vga(4) - Linux man page

Name

vga - Generic VGA video driver

Synopsis

Section Device  Identifier devname  Driver vga  ...
EndSection

Description

vga is an Xorg 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 xorg.conf(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:

"generic"

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.

See Also

Xorg(1x), xorg.conf(5x), xorgconfig(1x), Xserver(1x), x(7)

Authors

Authors include: Marc La France, David Dawes, and Dirk Hohndel.

Referenced By

xorg(1), xorg.conf(5)