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.