intel(4x) intel(4x)
NAME
intel - Intel integrated graphics chipsets
SYNOPSIS
Section "Device"
Identifier "devname"
Driver "intel"
...
EndSection
DESCRIPTION
intel is an Xorg driver for Intel integrated graphics chipsets. The driver supports depths 8, 15, 16 and 24. All visual types are sup-
ported in depth 8. For the i810/i815 other depths support the TrueColor and DirectColor visuals. For the i830M and later, only the True-
Color visual is supported for depths greater than 8. The driver supports hardware accelerated 3D via the Direct Rendering Infrastructure
(DRI), but only in depth 16 for the i810/i815 and depths 16 and 24 for the 830M and later.
SUPPORTED HARDWARE
intel supports the i810, i810-DC100, i810e, i815, i830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G, 915G, 915GM, 945G, 945GM, 965G, 965Q, 946GZ, 965GM,
945GME, G33, Q33, Q35, G35, GM45, G45, Q45, G43 and G41 chipsets.
CONFIGURATION DETAILS
Please refer to xorg.conf(5) for general configuration details. This section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.
The Intel 8xx and 9xx families of integrated graphics chipsets have a unified memory architecture meaning that system memory is used as
video RAM. For the i810 and i815 family of chipsets, operating system support for allocating system memory is required in order to use
this driver. For the 830M and later, this is required in order for the driver to use more video RAM than has been pre-allocated at boot
time by the BIOS. This is usually achieved with an "agpgart" or "agp" kernel driver. Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris have
such kernel drivers available.
By default, the i810/i815 will use 8 MB of system memory for graphics if AGP allocable memory is < 128 MB, 16 MB if < 192 MB or 24 MB if
higher. Use the VideoRam option to change the default value.
For the 830M and later, the driver will automatically size its memory allocation according to the features it will support. Therefore, the
VideoRam option, which in the past had been necessary to allow more than some small amount of memory to be allocated, is now ignored.
The following driver Options are supported
Option "NoAccel" "boolean"
Disable or enable acceleration. Default: acceleration is enabled.
Option "SWCursor" "boolean"
Disable or enable software cursor. Default: software cursor is disable and a hardware cursor is used for configurations where the
hardware cursor is available.
Option "ColorKey" "integer"
This sets the default pixel value for the YUV video overlay key. Default: undefined.
Option "CacheLines" "integer"
This allows the user to change the amount of graphics memory used for 2D acceleration and video when XAA acceleration is enabled.
Decreasing this amount leaves more for 3D textures. Increasing it can improve 2D performance at the expense of 3D performance.
Default: depends on the resolution, depth, and available video memory. The driver attempts to allocate space for at 3 screenfuls of
pixmaps plus an HD-sized XV video. The default used for a specific configuration can be found by examining the Xorg log file.
Option "FramebufferCompression" "boolean"
This option controls whether the framebuffer compression feature is enabled. If possible, the front buffer will be allocated in a
tiled format and compressed periodically to save memory bandwidth and power. This option is only available on mobile chipsets.
Default: enabled on supported configurations.
Option "Tiling" "boolean"
This option controls whether memory buffers are allocated in tiled mode. In most cases (especially for complex rendering), tiling
dramatically improves performance. Default: enabled.
Option "DRI" "boolean"
Disable or enable DRI support. Default: DRI is enabled for configurations where it is supported.
The following driver Options are supported for the i810 and i815 chipsets:
Option "DDC" "boolean"
Disable or enable DDC support. Default: enabled.
Option "Dac6Bit" "boolean"
Enable or disable 6-bits per RGB for 8-bit modes. Default: 8-bits per RGB for 8-bit modes.
Option "XvMCSurfaces" "integer"
This option enables XvMC. The integer parameter specifies the number of surfaces to use. Valid values are 6 and 7. Default: XvMC
is disabled.
VideoRam integer
This option specifies the amount of system memory to use for graphics, in KB. The default is 8192 if AGP allocable memory is < 128
MB, 16384 if < 192 MB, 24576 if higher. DRI require at least a value of 16384. Higher values may give better 3D performance, at
expense of available system memory.
The following driver Options are supported for the 830M and later chipsets:
Option "VideoKey" "integer"
This is the same as the "ColorKey" option described above. It is provided for compatibility with most other drivers.
Option "XVideo" "boolean"
Disable or enable XVideo support. Default: XVideo is enabled for configurations where it is supported.
Option "XvPreferOverlay" "boolean"
Make hardware overlay be the first XV adaptor. The overlay behaves incorrectly in the presence of compositing, but some prefer it
due to it syncing to vblank in the absence of compositing. While most XV-using applications have options to select which XV adaptor
to use, this option can be used to place the overlay first for applications which don't have options for selecting adaptors.
Default: Textured video adaptor is preferred.
Option "Legacy3D" "boolean"
Enable support for the non-GEM mode of the 3D driver on i830 and newer. This will allocate a large static area for older Mesa to
use for its texture pool. On systems with a working GEM environment, this can be disabled to increase the memory pool available to
other graphics tasks. Default for i830 and newer: Enabled. Default for i810: this option is not used. Option "PageFlip" "boolean"
Enable support for page flipping. This should improve 3D performance at the potential cost of worse performance with mixed 2D/3D.
Also note that this gives no benefit without corresponding support in the Mesa 3D driver and may not give the full benefit without
triple buffering (see Option "TripleBuffer" ). Default for i810: The option is not used. Default for i830 and above: Disabled
(This option is currently unstable).
Option "TripleBuffer" "boolean"
Enable support for triple buffering. This should improve 3D performance at the potential cost of worse performance with mixed 2D/3D.
Also note that this gives no benefit without corresponding support in the Mesa 3D driver and may not give any benefit without page
flipping either (see Option "PageFlip" ). Default for i810: The option is not used. Default for i830 and above: Disabled.
Option "AccelMethod" "string"
Choose acceleration architecture, either "XAA" or "EXA". XAA is the old XFree86 based acceleration architecture. EXA is a newer
and simpler acceleration architecture designed to better accelerate the X Render extension. Default: "EXA".
Option "ModeDebug" "boolean"
Enable printing of additional debugging information about modesetting to the server log. Default: Disabled
Option "FallbackDebug" "boolean"
Enable printing of debugging information on acceleration fallbacks to the server log. Default: Disabled
Option "ForceEnablePipeA" "boolean"
Force the driver to leave pipe A enabled. May be necessary in configurations where the BIOS accesses pipe registers during display
hotswitch or lid close, causing a crash. If you find that your platform needs this option, please file a bug (see REPORTING BUGS
below) including the output of 'lspci -v' and 'lspci -vn'.
Option "LVDS24Bit" "boolean"
Specify 24 bit pixel format (i.e. 8 bits per color) to be used for the LVDS output. Some newer LCD panels expect pixels to be for-
matted and sent as 8 bits per color channel instead of the more common 6 bits per color channel. Set this option to true to enable
the newer format. Note that this concept is entirely different and independent from the frame buffer color depth - which is still
controlled in the usual way within the X server. This option instead selects the physical format / sequencing of the digital bits
sent to the display. Setting the frame buffer color depth is really a matter of preference by the user, while setting the pixel
format here is a requirement of the connected hardware. Leaving this unset implies the default value of false, which is almost
always going to be right choice. If your LVDS-connected display on the other hand is extremely washed out (e.g. white on a lighter
white), trying this option might clear the problem.
Option "LVDSFixedMode" "boolean"
Use a fixed set of timings for the LVDS output, independent of normal xorg specified timings. The default value if left unspecified
is true, which is what you want for a normal LVDS-connected LCD type of panel. If you are not sure about this, leave it at its
default, which allows the driver to automatically figure out the correct fixed panel timings. See further in the section about LVDS
fixed timing for more information.
Option "XvMC" "boolean"
Enable XvMC driver. Current support MPEG2 MC on 915/945 and G33 series. User should provide absolute path to libIntelXvMC.so in
XvMCConfig file. Default: Disabled.
Option "ForceSDVODetect" "boolean"
Instead of depending on SDVO detect status bit to initialize SDVO outputs, this option trys to ignore that status bit and try to
probe on all SDVO ports anyway. Try this if some output is not detected on your ADD2 card. Use of this option will slow down your
startup time. Default: Disabled.
OUTPUT CONFIGURATION
On 830M and better chipsets, the driver supports runtime configuration of detected outputs. You can use the xrandr tool to control outputs
on the command line. Each output listed below may have one or more properties associated with it (like a binary EDID block if one is
found). Some outputs have unique properties which are described below. See the "MULTIHEAD CONFIGURATIONS" section below for additional
information.
VGA
VGA output port (typically exposed via an HD15 connector).
LVDS
Low Voltage Differential Signalling output (typically a laptop LCD panel). Available properties:
BACKLIGHT - current backlight level (adjustable)
By adjusting the BACKLIGHT property, the brightness on the LVDS output can be adjusted. In some cases, this property may be unavailable
(for example if your platform uses an external microcontroller to control the backlight).
BACKLIGHT_CONTROL - method used to control backlight
The driver will attempt to automatically detect the backlight control method for your platform. If this fails however, you can select
another method which may allow you to control your backlight. Available methods include:
native
Intel chipsets include backlight control registers, which on some platforms may be wired to control the backlight directly. This method
uses those registers.
legacy
The legacy backlight control registers exist in PCI configuration space, and have fewer available backlight levels than the native regis-
ters. However, some platforms are wired this way and so need to use this method.
combo
This method attempts to use the native registers where possible, resorting to the legacy, configuration space registers only to enable the
backlight if needed. On platforms that have both wired this can be a good choice as it allows the fine grained backlight control of the
native interface.
kernel
On some system, the kernel may provide a backlight control driver. In that case, using the kernel interfaces is preferable, as the same
driver may respond to hotkey events or external APIs.
PANEL_FITTING - control LCD panel fitting
By default, the driver will attempt to upscale resolutions smaller than the LCD's native size while preserving the aspect ratio. Other
modes are available however:
center
Simply center the image on-screen, without scaling.
full_aspect
The default mode. Try to upscale the image to the screen size, while preserving aspect ratio. May result in letterboxing or pillar-boxing
with some resolutions.
full
Upscale the image to the native screen size without regard to aspect ratio. In this mode, the full screen image may appear distorted in
some resolutions.
TV
Integrated TV output. Available properties include:
BOTTOM, RIGHT, TOP, LEFT - margins
Adjusting these properties allows you to control the placement of your TV output buffer on the screen. The options with the same name can
also be set in xorg.conf with integer value.
TV_FORMAT - output standard
This property allows you to control the output standard used on your TV output port. You can select between NTSC-M, NTSC-443, NTSC-J, PAL-
M, PAL-N, and PAL.
TMDS-1
First DVI SDVO output
TMDS-2
Second DVI SDVO output
SDVO and DVO TV outputs are not supported by the driver at this time.
See xorg.conf(5) for information on associating Monitor sections with these outputs for configuration. Associating Monitor sections with
each output can be helpful if you need to ignore a specific output, for example, or statically configure an extended desktop monitor lay-
out.
HARDWARE LVDS FIXED TIMINGS AND SCALING
Following here is a discussion that should shed some light on the nature and reasoning behind the LVDSFixedMode option.
Unlike a CRT display, an LCD has a "native" resolution corresponding to the actual pixel geometry. A graphics controller under all normal
circumstances should always output that resolution (and timings) to the display. Anything else and the image might not fill the display,
it might not be centered, or it might have information missing - any manner of strange effects can happen if an LCD panel is not fed with
the expected resolution and timings.
However there are cases where one might want to run an LCD panel at an effective resolution other than the native one. And for this rea-
son, GPUs which drive LCD panels typically include a hardware scaler to match the user-configured frame buffer size to the actual size of
the panel. Thus when one "sets" his/her 1280x1024 panel to only 1024x768, the GPU happily configures a 1024x768 frame buffer, but it scans
the buffer out in such a way that the image is scaled to 1280x1024 and in fact sends 1280x1024 to the panel. This is normally invisible to
the user; when a "fuzzy" LCD image is seen, scaling like this is why this happens.
In order to make this magic work, this driver logically has to be configured with two sets of monitor timings - the set specified (or oth-
erwise determined) as the normal xorg "mode", and the "fixed" timings that are actually sent to the monitor. But with xorg, it's only pos-
sible to specify the first user-driven set, and not the second fixed set. So how does the driver figure out the correct fixed panel tim-
ings? Normally it will attempt to detect the fixed timings, and it uses a number of strategies to figure this out. First it attempts to
read EDID data from whatever is connected to the LVDS port. Failing that, it will check if the LVDS output is already configured (perhaps
previously by the video BIOS) and will adopt those settings if found. Failing that, it will scan the video BIOS ROM, looking for an embed-
ded mode table from which it can infer the proper timings. If even that fails, then the driver gives up, prints the message "Couldn't
detect panel mode. Disabling panel" to the X server log, and shuts down the LVDS output.
Under most circumstances, the detection scheme works. However there are cases when it can go awry. For example, if you have a panel with-
out EDID support and it isn't integral to the motherboard (i.e. not a laptop), then odds are the driver is either not going to find some-
thing suitable to use or it is going to find something flat-out wrong, leaving a messed up display. Remember that this is about the fixed
timings being discussed here and not the user-specified timings which can always be set in xorg.conf in the worst case. So when this
process goes awry there seems to be little recourse. This sort of scenario can happen in some embedded applications.
The LVDSFixedMode option is present to deal with this. This option normally enables the above-described detection strategy. And since it
defaults to true, this is in fact what normally happens. However if the detection fails to do the right thing, the LVDSFixedMode option
can instead be set to false, which disables all the magic. With LVDSFixedMode set to false, the detection steps are skipped and the driver
proceeds without a specified fixed mode timing. This then causes the hardware scaler to be disabled, and the actual timings then used fall
back to those normally configured via the usual xorg mechanisms.
Having LVDSFixedMode set to false means that whatever is used for the monitor's mode (e.g. a modeline setting) is precisely what is sent to
the device connected to the LVDS port. This also means that the user now has to determine the correct mode to use - but it's really no
different than the work for correctly configuring an old-school CRT anyway, and the alternative if detection fails will be a useless dis-
play.
In short, leave LVDSFixedMode alone (thus set to true) and normal fixed mode detection will take place, which in most cases is exactly what
is needed. Set LVDSFixedMode to false and then the user has full control over the resolution and timings sent to the LVDS-connected
device, through the usual means in xorg.
MULTIHEAD CONFIGURATIONS
The number of independent outputs is dictated by the number of CRTCs (in X parlance) a given chip supports. Most recent Intel chips have
two CRTCs, meaning that two separate framebuffers can be displayed simultaneously, in an extended desktop configuration. If a chip sup-
ports more outputs than it has CRTCs (say local flat panel, VGA and TV in the case of many outputs), two of the outputs will have to be
"cloned", meaning that they display the same framebuffer contents (or one displays a subset of another's framebuffer if the modes aren't
equal).
You can use the "xrandr" tool, or various desktop utilities, to change your output configuration at runtime. To statically configure your
outputs, you can use the "Monitor-<type>" options along with additional monitor sections in your xorg.conf to create your screen topology.
The example below puts the VGA output to the right of the builtin laptop screen, both running at 1024x768.
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Laptop FooBar Internal Display"
Option "Position" "0 0"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Some Random CRT"
Option "Position" "1024 0"
Option "RightOf" "Laptop FoodBar Internal Display"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Driver "intel"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "Laptop FooBar Internal Display"
Option "monitor-VGA" "Some Random CRT"
EndSection
REPORTING BUGS
The xf86-video-intel driver is part of the X.Org and Freedesktop.org umbrella projects. Details on bug reporting can be found at
http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html. Mailing lists are also commonly used to report experiences and ask questions
about configuration and other topics. See lists.freedesktop.org for more information (the xorg@lists.freedesktop.org mailing list is the
most appropriate place to ask X.Org and driver related questions).
SEE ALSO
Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5), Xserver(1), X(7)
AUTHORS
Authors include: Keith Whitwell, and also Jonathan Bian, Matthew J Sottek, Jeff Hartmann, Mark Vojkovich, Alan Hourihane, H. J. Lu. 830M
and 845G support reworked for XFree86 4.3 by David Dawes and Keith Whitwell. 852GM, 855GM, and 865G support added by David Dawes and Keith
Whitwell. 915G, 915GM, 945G, 945GM, 965G, 965Q and 946GZ support added by Alan Hourihane and Keith Whitwell. Lid status support added by
Alan Hourihane. Textured video support for 915G and later chips, RandR 1.2 and hardware modesetting added by Eric Anholt and Keith Packard.
EXA and Render acceleration added by Wang Zhenyu. TV out support added by Zou Nan Hai and Keith Packard. 965GM, G33, Q33, and Q35 support
added by Wang Zhenyu.
X Version 11 xf86-video-intel 2.6.3 intel(4x)