Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 22 May 2007 12:35:19 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: [RFC] enhancing the kernel's graphics subsystem |
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Jon Smirl wrote: > On 5/22/07, Jesse Barnes <jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org> wrote: >> On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, Jon Smirl wrote: >> > I've talked to an ATI engineer about VBIOS initialization. The chips >> > may have different steppings. They flash the right VBIOS that matches >> > the chip into the ROM on the card. Given all the various steppings >> > this is the only sane way to initialize the hardware. I don't believe >> > generic initialization code that can handle all of the various >> > steppings exists for any hardware. >> >> I think you must have misunderstood. Last time I worked on ATI, there >> was >> a single ROM image that supported several (maybe even all) of their addin >> cards. There's nothing magical about them... But that's beside the >> point. > > What about the poke the obscure value into this undocumented IO port > class of problem where they are using the chip test interface to work > around bugs in the silicon. > > He also mentioned that all of the OEMs change the standard ROM image > before loading it onto their cards to handle how they wired things up > and bugs in other chips. > > Of course I don't have the source for the ROM so I don't know the > accuracy of what I was told.
There is nothing magic about a ROM. It's just software, or, often, data tables.
Jeff
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