Windows finds more video memory than linux

jgombos · 11-01-2006, 10:05 PM

I'm running an HP Pavilion Xe78, which has an integrated intel 810 video card. It's currently dual booting Windows 2000 and Damn Small Linux (DSL).

Windows 2000 finds that the video card has 4MB, thus allowing me to run at 1280x1024x24. The DSL X server configuration tool (xserver.sh) allowed me to choose 1280x1024x24, but then shows flawed colors when I reboot to make the changes effective. The penguin backdrop is sprinked with cyan dots, which I believe is a typical artifact when a truecolor image is shown at 16 bit color depths. It's as if the X11 server is not complying with the configuration.

The highest resolution I can achieve in DSL with truecolor is 800x600. This is my first experience with DSL, and I'm not even sure how to look at the X11 configuration file because no config files exist in the /etc/X11 folder.

BTW, the specs for this computer indicate that there is 11 MB of shared video memory. Is it possible that the X11 server isn't able to correctly assess the amount of shared memory allocated to a video card?

jgombos · 11-02-2006, 10:07 AM

DSL is using an Xvesa server, which is a lightweight alternative to XFree86 and X.org. Xvesa falsely detects that I only have 1MB of video memory:

Code:

$ xvesa -listmodes

VBE version 3.0 (Intel(R) 8xx Chipset Video BIOS)
DAC is fixed, controller is VGA compatible, RAMDAC causes snow
Total memory: 1024 kilobytes
0x0006: 640x200x1 (monochrome) Planar (1 planes)
0x000D: 320x200x4 Planar (4 planes) (no linear framebuffer)
0x000E: 640x200x4 Planar (4 planes) (no linear framebuffer)
0x0010: 640x350x4 Planar (4 planes) (no linear framebuffer)
0x0011: 640x480x1 (monochrome) Planar (1 planes)
0x0012: 640x480x4 Planar (4 planes) (no linear framebuffer)
0x0013: 320x200x8 PseudoColor
0x011D: 320x200x8 PseudoColor (no linear framebuffer)
0x010E: 320x200x16 TrueColor [5:6:5:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0100: 640x400x8 PseudoColor (no linear framebuffer)
0x0127: 640x400x16 TrueColor [5:6:5:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0128: 640x400x24 TrueColor [8:8:8:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0101: 640x480x8 PseudoColor (no linear framebuffer)
0x0110: 640x480x15 TrueColor [5:5:5:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0111: 640x480x16 TrueColor [5:6:5:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0112: 640x480x24 TrueColor [8:8:8:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0102: 800x600x4 Planar (4 planes) (no linear framebuffer)
0x0103: 800x600x8 PseudoColor (no linear framebuffer)
0x0113: 800x600x15 TrueColor [5:5:5:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0114: 800x600x16 TrueColor [5:6:5:0] (no linear framebuffer)
0x0105: 1024x768x8 PseudoColor (no linear framebuffer)

Is there a way to correct this?

I have tried forcing the 1280x1024x24 mode using this .xserverrc file:

Code:

exec /usr/bin/X11/Xvesa -mouse /dev/psaux,5 -force -screen 1280x1024x24 -shadow -nolisten tcp -I

And still I end up with reduced color.