VR241 and X.Org

[Tore Sinding Bekkedal]

On Wed, 2006-12-13 at 20:12 -0500, Adam Goldman wrote:
> >It's a normal TV rate (that is, 15.7kHz horizontal, 60Hz vertical) RGB
> >analogue monitor.
> >> Is it possible to hook this thing up to a PC? Is there anything I need
> >> to bear in mind when configuring X?
> >It will not sunc to nromal VGA frequencies. Period. I cna't think of a PC
> >video adapter that will easily drive it, either.
> 
> Matrox cards (including 220, G100, G200 and G400) have a fully
> programmable dot-clock, so they should be able to drive it. They'll drive
> a Commodore 1080, which is also a TV-rate monitor -- I just tried it.

Timing isn't the issue - most modern cards have a programmable dot-clock
- the problem is generating the sync signals. Some cards have the
ability to generate SOG or composite, it just seems that mine probably
don't (or the driver doesn't implement it)

> Of course, you won't get a valid display until the OS comes up and sets
> the video mode. I believe there's a tool to flash the video BIOS so it'll
> power up in the desired mode, but then you won't be able to use a
> VGA monitor with that card any more, unless you flash it back.

This isn't a problem - what I'd be using it for would be either a
secondary head for video playback, in which case the card wouldn't "wake
up" until I started X, or as a monitor on my MythTV box - which is alway
s running X anyway. 

-Tore :)