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<title> Information for Oak Technologies Inc. Chipset Users
<author> Jorge F. Delgado Mendoza (<it>ernar@dit.upm.es</it>)
<date> 18 January 1995

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<sect> Supported chipsets <p>

The driver is used in the 8-bit / 256-color SVGA server and the mono
server. The following chipsets for Oak Tech. Inc. are supported:
<descrip>
<tag>OTI067</tag>
	ISA SVGA chipset, up to 512Kbytes of DRAM (usually 70/80 ns).
<tag>OTI077</tag>
	Enhanced version of the 067, with support for 1Mbyte and
	up to 65 Mhz dot-clock, this chipset supports up to
	1024x768x256 colors in Non-Interlaced mode, and up to
	1280x1024x16 colors Interlaced.
<tag>OTI087</tag>
	One of the first VLB chipsets available, it has a 16-bit
	external data path, and a 32-bit internal
	memory-controller data path, it also has register-based
	color expansion, hardware cursor, a primitive BitBlt
	engine, a 64 bit graphic latch and some other new (in its
	time) features. Maximum BIOS resolutions are 1024x768x256
	Non-Interlaced and 1280x1024x256 interlaced.  Maximum
	Dot-Clock is 80Mhz, but usually is coupled with OTI068
	clock generator whose highest frequency is 78Mhz.
	Supports up to 2MBytes of 70ns DRAM.
</descrip>

All the chipsets are "Backwards compatible", in fact some early
drivers for the OTI087 based chipsets were for the 077!!!!

Accelerated support is included only for OTI087 chipsets, also Mono
server is only included for 067/077 chipsets.

<sect> XF86Config options <p>

The following options are of particular interest to the Oak driver. Each
of them must be specified in the 'svga' driver section of the
<tt>XF86Config</tt> file, within the Screen subsections to which they are
applicable (you can enable options for all depths by specifying them in the
Device section).

<descrip>
<tag>
Option &dquot;linear&dquot; (OTI087)
</tag>
	This option enables a linear framebuffer at 0xE00000 (14Mb) for
	cards recognized as ISA by the probe.  Cards that are VLB will
	map the framebuffer at 0x4E00000.  The aperture depends
	on the VideoRam parameter in the <tt>XF86Config</tt> file or on
	the probed value for the board. It will speed up performance by
	about 15&percnt; on a VLB-based boards for a DX2-66 486.
<tag>
Option &dquot;fifo_aggressive&dquot; (OTI087)
</tag>
	This option will cause the command FIFO threshold of the
	chipset to be set at 2 instructions, which should be optimal
	for 16-bit data transfers, as empirical use of different
	thresholds with xbench show. Expect a 5-10&percnt; of performance
	boost on a DX2-66 486.
<tag>
Option &dquot;fifo_conservative&dquot; (OTI087)
</tag>
	This option will set the FIFO to a safe value of 14, slowing
	the board by a 50&percnt;, use this only if you experience streaks or
	anomalies on the screen.
<tag>
Option &dquot;favour_bitblt&dquot; (OTI087)
</tag>
	This option will enable an internal cache on the board that
	will be used as a rudimentary bitblt engine. Performance boost
	is more or less 100&percnt;, (double BlitStones on xbench). Most
	OTI087 boards seem to have this feature broken, corrupting text
	from xterms and leaving mouse droppings throughout the
	screen. As a rule of thumb, enable it, if it works badly,
	disable it ;).
</descrip>


<sect> Mode issues <p>

    The use of very high dot-clocks has a REAL negative effect on the
    performance of the boards, due to its limited 80Mbit/sec, higher
    dot clocks limit its ability to draw data into the
    framebuffer. Thus expect better performance of a 72Mhz based mode
    than on a 78Mhz based one (for example) where more bandwidth is
    required for screen refresh.
  
    It does not make much sense to use the highest clock (78 MHz) for
    1024x768 at 76 Hz on a OTI087; the card will almost come to a
    standstill. A 75 MHz dot clock results in 70 Hz which should be
    acceptable. If you have a monitor that supports 1024x768 at 76 Hz
    with a 78 MHz dot clock, a standard OTI087 based card is a poor
    match anyway.

<sect> Linear addressing<p>

    Linear addressing is hardwired to 14 Mbytes for ISA boards and 78 Mbytes
    for VLB boards, thus if you have more
    than that on your board you shouldn't enable it.
    The aperture is selected from the VideoRam
    parameter of the XF86Config or from the amount of memory that is
    detected if VideoRam is not found.

    I hope (because I have not tested it very thoroughly) that linear
    addressing will work on ISA boards, VLB ones are fine (I am
    writing this stuff on mine).


    GOOD LUCK!!!!

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$XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/Oak.sgml,v 3.5 1995/12/28 03:49:31 dawes Exp $





$XConsortium: Oak.sgml /main/4 1995/12/29 15:59:12 kaleb $
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