vesafb-tng::troubleshooting

nVidia 5900* boards

The newer nVidia boards, such as nv59* seem to ignore the refresh rate provided by vesafb-tng. It's theoretically possible to circumvent the problem by editing the Video BIOS to change the default refresh rate. I have never personally attempted this, so please don't ask me for any advice about how to do it.

SMP systems

It has been reported that vesafb-tng doesn't work properly on SMP systems. I was never able to reproduce the problem, but it appears to be fixed in the 1.0 release candidates of vesafb-tng. Please file a bug if it isn't.

64-bit systems

vesafb-tng will not work on 64-bit systems (x86_64 and ia64), because the vm86 mode is not supported for OSes running in 64-bit mode (this is a limitation of the CPU, not of the OS). If you happen to own a 64-bit CPU, you're limited to plain vesafb. You may still use vesafb-tng's predecessor - the vesafb-rrc patch, though. (it should work with all 2.6.x kernels).

Large amounts of RAM and ioremap problems

vesafb-tng automatically limits VRAM usage to 16 MiB (which is enough for all currently used resolutions - it's twice the size required for 1600x1400 with 32-bit color depth). It is possible to override this setting with the vremap kernel video option. If you decide to use more than 16 MiB (which you probably shouldn't, as this will only eat the available address space, not giving anything in return) and you have a large amount of RAM installed in your box, be prepared for ioremap problems, like the one reported in bug #65340. The bug has some info about how to circumvent the problem.