/* Note: Previously this program did not unlock the extended registers, so it only worked if the registers happened to be unlocked. This program sets the 'memory clock' of Cirrus 5424/26/28 cards. The first three values could be set by utility programs that came with my card (AVGA3), but somewhat higher values seem to work (on my card at least). It may be that better and more recent Cirrus cards use a higher value as boot-up default. It should depend on DRAM speed, but it seems to be more dependant on the card logic. I have the impression that many Cirrus 542x cards suffer from horrible BIOS version/DRAM timing misconfigurations. Perhaps even some versions of MS-Windows drivers change the MCLK register. In any case, the boot-up BIOS default (0x1c) may be inappropriately low for the type of DRAM timing most cards use. Using a higher memory clock gives a very significant performance improvement; with high dot clock modes (like 640x480x16M or 1150x900x256) performance can be more than twice that of the standard 50 MHz clock. This goes for both (VLB) framebuffer access and accelerated features (bitblt). This also helps XFree86 server performance, but only if the XFree86 Cirrus driver doesn't set the memory clock register (it should work for XFree86 1.3 and 2.0). Use at your own risk! Note that the 'dot clock' is something entirely different. There does not seem to be much correlation between the two (i.e. if a high dot clock gives screen problems, using a high memory clock is not likely to fix it, other than improving speed). */ #define NEW_MCLK 0x1C /* Default value */ /* #define NEW_MCLK 0x26 *//* High value to test XFree86 */ #include #include #include #include #include /* For port I/O macros. */ #define OUTB(a,d) outb(d,a) int main (void) { vga_init (); if (vga_getcurrentchipset () != CIRRUS) { printf ("Not a Cirrus.\n"); printf ("Continue anyway (y/n)?\n"); if (getchar () != 'y') return -1; } /* Unlock extended registers. */ OUTB (0x3c4, 0x06); OUTB (0x3c5, 0x12); /* Tested on VLB AVGA3 CL-GD5426 on 40MHz VLB 0x1c 50 MHz (boot-up default) 0x21 59 0x22 62 0x23 OK 0x24 OK 0x25 OK 0x26 OK [This corresponds to the highest value mentioned in the databook (which does not mean that it is supposed to work on all cards); the book also says the parts are not specified for more than 50 MHz]. 0x27 occasional loose pixels 0x28 occasional problems 0x29 some problems 0x2A 16M/textmode problems 0x2c 256/32k color problems */ OUTB (0x3c4, 0x1f); printf ("Old MCLK value: %02x\n", inb (0x3c5)); OUTB (0x3c4, 0x1f); OUTB (0x3c5, NEW_MCLK); printf ("New MCLK value: %02x\n", NEW_MCLK); return 0; }