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List:       freebsd-ppc
Subject:    Re: The default driver/mode used for PowerMac G5 Radeon 9800PRO's messes up all normal text display 
From:       Mark Millard <markmi () dsl-only ! net>
Date:       2014-07-21 2:26:02
Message-ID: 653F809A-C7E1-4326-88F5-104F7FA76EB1 () dsl-only ! net
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Hmm. I see that I managed to not mention that this context is/has xfce4's desktop and \
standard/included programs involved, along with just xscreensaver having been added. \
(It is from a preliminary stage of installing things before more might be added.)

===
Mark Millard
markmi@dsl-only.net

On Jul 20, 2014, at 7:07 PM, Mark Millard <markmi@dsl-only.net> wrote:

[Context: Xorg -configure generated xorg.conf file for a G5 (7,2), except for \
explicit alternatives noted for noAccel and SubPixelOrder. Also this is the same SSD \
used for booting NVidia based PowerMac G5's (7,11's) that have no such problems for \
the distinct Xorg -configure file generated for them. uname -a reports for this SSD:

FreeBSD FBSDG5S0 10.0-STABLE FreeBSD 10.0-STABLE #0 r268571: Sun Jul 13 06:28:19 UTC \
2014     root@grind.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/powerpc.powerpc64/usr/src/sys/GENERIC64  \
powerpc

(just freshly installed a day or so ago) and the "portsnap fetch extract" was \
executed earlier today. ]

The "user experience" report for what I've observed:

The PowerPC64 "ATI Radeon 9800PRO NH (AGP)" driver used in a PowerMac G5 (7,2) messes \
up *all* normal text display unless Option "NoAccel" is enabled: menu text, window \
titles, input fields, label text, all such text. (Basic desktop display, simple \
dialogs and windows from programs, nothing fancy involved.) When the problem exists \
in my context the xorg.conf is strictly as generated by Xorg -configure when in this \
type of PowerMac.

The other normal graphics seem fine: only text is messed up for these basic displays. \
But the compositing results are messed up if they are turned one to try to provide a \
visual difference around/near windows.

With "NoAccel" disabled (acceleration on) so the text problem happens NONE and BGR \
for SubPixelOrder are messed up the same way and RGB SubPixelOrder changes how it \
looks but the result is still just messed up text. This is on an Apple ADC FlatPanel. \
(An Apple ADC CRT also gets the issue.) Some internal interface to accelerated text \
handling does not map things in memory as required as far as I can tell. (But I've \
only explored SubpixelOrder and NoAccel changes so far. I've not tried to make \
compositing work: I just turned it back off.)

I did find one part of one example display that is simple to describe, possibly due \
to font size details for my context and my text size settings: The "Logout Charlie \
Root" text in the logout dialog had vertical strips missing (i.e., just the \
background color showing) from the middle or sides of letters but enough of each \
letter was present to be able to tell what each letter was. The strips might also \
have had some small amount of extra space compared to pure what "white-out" would be \
(?unsure!). Also with the logout dialog up the whole display got a significant red \
tint.

All of this may suggest byte/bit order handling issues for the text when acceleration \
is enabled. Or possibly the 24 bits of color information in a 32 bit representation \
being mishandled relative to acceleration interfaces for handling such.

Unfortunately I'm only around the PowerMac's for a couple of days again before being \
far from them for a considerable time. So for now there are limits to what I can do \
to help isolate things --nor will I be able to provide the test case of that G5 until \
I'm back round them again. But I figured an explicit note was better then saying \
nothing.


===
Mark Millard
markmi at dsl-only.net


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