ati xclaim ga (mach64) with IBM-RAMDAC not supported by XFree-4.2 ??

[Markus Deistler]

Hi,

I have installed YDL 2.3 on an ancient PPC 7500 (100 MHz, 112 MB RAM)
with an old ATI XCLAIM GA (2+ additional VRAM-module 2 = 4 MB VRAM).
There are postings saying this card isn't supported by XF4's atidriver,
if they use IBM RAMDAC, but XF4's Docs are claiming, that the atidriver
supports *all* Mach64-chipsets.

Anyway, I had to switch to the X4's *slow* framebuffer-driver (fbdev),
because the atidriver refused any sensible depth settings beyond "Depth
8", and refused working with the error-messsages listed below if I set
default depth to "8". BTW I don't think the PPC 7500 has a 16bit-ISA-Bus
(see XF4-log below), strange strange strange ...

I have to admit that all PCI-slots are used in my box
(Firewire/USB-combo,  a old 3D-only-addon Voodo-2-board which sits idle
in its slot because I don't play any Glide-based 3d-Games), maybe that's
too much?

The fbdev-driver is also weird: I just get 16-bit-color@1024x768, my
TFT's physical resolution, with the fbdev-driver, but with strange
colors, if I set default depth to 15 (???) I get a usable X runnning at
thousands of colors!! Depth 24 aka true color is not working, though
there are 4 MB VRAM available.

The posting concerning IBM-RAMDAC on ATI-cards I was referring to is here:
http://lists.linuxppc.org/linuxppc-user/200210/msg00023.html

I searched several lists, but all I found was a very similar request:
http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/yellowdog-general/March02/0988.html

And here is the XF4-log:

(==) ATI(0): Chipset:  "ati".
(**) ATI(0): Depth 8, (--) framebuffer bpp 8
(--) ATI(0): ATI 88800GX-F graphics controller detected.
(--) ATI(0): Chip type 4758 "GX", class 0, revision 0x03.
(--) ATI(0): 16-Bit ISA bus interface detected;  sparse I/O base is 0x0000.
(--) ATI(0): ATI Mach64 adapter detected.
(WW) ATI(0): Unknown RAMDAC type 0x97 detected.
(==) ATI(0): RGB weight 666
(==) ATI(0): Default visual is PseudoColor
(==) ATI(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.(==) ATI(0): Chipset:
"ati".
(**) ATI(0): Depth 8, (--) framebuffer bpp 8
(--) ATI(0): ATI 88800GX-F graphics controller detected.
(--) ATI(0): Chip type 4758 "GX", class 0, revision 0x03.
(--) ATI(0): 16-Bit ISA bus interface detected;  sparse I/O base is 0x0000.
(--) ATI(0): ATI Mach64 adapter detected.
(WW) ATI(0): Unknown RAMDAC type 0x97 detected.
(==) ATI(0): RGB weight 666
(==) ATI(0): Default visual is PseudoColor
(==) ATI(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(II) ATI(0): Using Mach64 accelerator CRTC.
(EE) ATI(0): Linear aperture not available.
(II) UnloadModule: "ati"
(II) UnloadModule: "atimisc"
(II) Unloading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/atimisc_drv.o
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.


If anyone can shed any light in that issue I would be very grateful,

Markus