NAME

     vga — generic video card interface

SYNOPSIS

     options VESA
     options VESA_DEBUG=N
     options VGA_ALT_SEQACCESS
     options VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING
     options VGA_NO_MODE_CHANGE
     options VGA_SLOW_IOACCESS
     options VGA_WIDTH90
     device vga

     In /boot/device.hints:
     hint.vga.0.at="isa"

DESCRIPTION

     The vga driver is a generic video card driver which provides access to video cards.  This
     driver is required for the console driver syscons(4).  The console driver will call the vga
     driver to manipulate video hardware (changing video modes, loading font, etc).

     The vga driver supports the standard video cards: MDA, CGA, EGA and VGA.  In addition, the
     driver can utilize VESA BIOS extensions if the video card supports them.  VESA support can
     either be statically included in the kernel or can be loaded as a separate module.

     In order to statically link the VESA support to the kernel, the VESA option (see below) must
     be defined in the kernel configuration file.

     The vesa module can be dynamically loaded into the kernel using kldload(8).

DRIVER CONFIGURATION

   Kernel Configuration Options
     The following kernel configuration options (see config(8)) can be used to control the vga
     driver.  These options provide compatibility with certain VGA cards.

     VGA_ALT_SEQACCESS
            You may want to try this option if the mouse pointer is not drawn correctly or the
            font does not seem to be loaded properly on the VGA card.  However, it may cause
            flicker on some systems.

     VGA_SLOW_IOACCESS
            Older VGA cards may require this option for proper operation.  It makes the driver
            perform byte-wide I/O to VGA registers and slow down a little.

     VGA_WIDTH90
            This option enables 90 column modes: 90x25, 90x30, 90x43, 90x50, 90x60.  These modes
            are not always supported by the video card and the display.  It is highly likely that
            LCD display cannot work with these modes.

     The following options add optional features to the driver.

     VESA   Add VESA BIOS support to the driver.  If the VGA card has the VESA BIOS extension 1.2
            or later, this option will utilize the VESA BIOS service to switch to high resolution
            modes.

     VESA_DEBUG=N
            Set the VESA support debug level to N.  The default value is zero, which suppresses
            all debugging output.

     The following options will remove some features from the vga driver and save kernel memory.

     VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING
            The vga driver can load software font to EGA and VGA cards.  This option removes this
            feature.  Note that if you use this option and still wish to use the mouse on the
            console then you must also use the SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option.  See syscons(4).

     VGA_NO_MODE_CHANGE
            This option prevents the driver from changing video modes.

EXAMPLES

     Your kernel configuration should normally have:

           device vga

     And you need the following line in /boot/device.hints.

           hint.vga.0.at="isa"

     The following lines should be included in the kernel configuration file in order to enable
     the VESA BIOS Extension support.

           options VESA
           device vga

     If you do not want VESA support included in the kernel, but want to use occasionally, do not
     add the VESA option.  And load the vesa module as desired:

           kldload vesa

SEE ALSO

     vgl(3), syscons(4), config(8), kldload(8), kldunload(8)

STANDARDS

     Video Electronics Standards Association, VESA BIOS Extension (VBE).

HISTORY

     The vga driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.1.

AUTHORS

     The vga driver was written by Søren Schmidt <sos@FreeBSD.org> and Kazutaka Yokota
     <yokota@FreeBSD.org>.  This manual page was written by Kazutaka Yokota.