Hi everyone,
I'm in the position of needing to write a Radeon driver for a new system
board being built here at our university. I figured my first steps would
be to try and reproduce the radeonfb driver to change the resolution,
and go from there.
Up until now I've been only developing graphics applications, so alot of
these things are new to me - pixel clocks, horizontal timings, PLL, MTRR
etc.etc.... it's all quite overwhelming. I've been reading as much as I
can, but there are still big gaps in my understanding - how did everyone
else get up to speed in this area?
My main problem is that although it's fairly easy to follow the radeonfb
source and the fb in general, when it comes to what register does what
I'm completely lost. Did the people who wrote the driver have technical
specs from ATI telling them which did what? Are the specs openly
available, only under NDA, or not at all?!
I'd really appreciate any tips anyone could give me on where I should be
looking.
Thanks,
Keith
--
_____________
Keith O'Conor
Image Synthesis Group
Computer Science Department
University of Dublin, Trinity College
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/keith
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On Wed, 2005-08-17 at 17:00 +0100, Keith O'Conor wrote:
Up until now I've been only developing graphics applications, so alot of
these things are new to me - pixel clocks, horizontal timings, PLL, MTRR
etc.etc.... it's all quite overwhelming. I've been reading as much as I
can, but there are still big gaps in my understanding - how did everyone
else get up to speed in this area?
I did it basically the way you're doing it, by reading and tweaking
code. :)
My main problem is that although it's fairly easy to follow the radeonfb
source and the fb in general, when it comes to what register does what
I'm completely lost. Did the people who wrote the driver have technical
specs from ATI telling them which did what?
Some of us do, yes.
Are the specs openly available, only under NDA, or not at all?!
Only under NDA, and I'm afraid it's hard to get them even under that
ATM. Your best way forward might be to ask specific questions about
existing code.
--
Earthling Michel Dänzer | Debian (powerpc), X and DRI developer
Libre software enthusiast | http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=daenzer
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SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO
September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices
Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA
Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf
Thanks for the reply. I've applied to the ATI Developer Relations
program under the project I'm working on, maybe they'll see fit to give
me some manuals - I'm only looking for details on chips circa 9200,
nothing too recent.
Until then, I've dug up Voodoo3 and Matrox G400 datasheets - I'll go
through the relevant code armed with these and see if I can figure
things out that way. I'm sure I'll have a question or two to ask you on
the way!
Thanks,
Keith
Michel Dänzer wrote:
On Wed, 2005-08-17 at 17:00 +0100, Keith O'Conor wrote:
quoted
Up until now I've been only developing graphics applications, so alot of
these things are new to me - pixel clocks, horizontal timings, PLL, MTRR
etc.etc.... it's all quite overwhelming. I've been reading as much as I
can, but there are still big gaps in my understanding - how did everyone
else get up to speed in this area?
I did it basically the way you're doing it, by reading and tweaking
code. :)
quoted
My main problem is that although it's fairly easy to follow the radeonfb
source and the fb in general, when it comes to what register does what
I'm completely lost. Did the people who wrote the driver have technical
specs from ATI telling them which did what?
Some of us do, yes.
quoted
Are the specs openly available, only under NDA, or not at all?!
Only under NDA, and I'm afraid it's hard to get them even under that
ATM. Your best way forward might be to ask specific questions about
existing code.
_____________
Keith O'Conor
Image Synthesis Group
Computer Science Department
University of Dublin, Trinity College
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/keith
-------------------------------------------------------
SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO
September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices
Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA
Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf