"Kris Adcock" <kris.TakeThisOut@danceswithferrets.ork> wrote in message
news:3efe13d2$0$7728$fa0fcedb@lovejoy.zen.co.uk...
> Hiya,
>
> For a project, I need to control one or more PCI graphics cards directly
> over the PCI bus. Now, I have all the low-level facilities to transfer
data
> about, but I could really do with a good primer on PCI communication, and
> then info on how to control graphics cards specifically. Just the ability
to
> initialise them in text mode, and send ASCII would be a marvellous
> achievement.
I recommend the Linux source code. It's fairly well commented and written in
straight C.
You should probably not look at gfx drivers though, as most gfx cards has a
VGA BIOS providing text mode and standard VGA / SVGA graphics modes. Look in
the startup files for i386 architectures instead.
> I've spent a long time searching on google, but the usual keywords just
> tends to pull up a lot of sites that want to sell GeForce 4's to me!
It sounds to me like you should search for VGA or VESA SVGA specifications
instead of the PCI spec, as the VGA BIOS does most of the job for you if you
just want to operate in text mode. I think it's really easy, like "set this
memory address to desired VGA mode" then "output ASCII chars to this memory
area".
Some gfx card companies even have full hardware documentation for their
cards. I think you can find documentation for old S3 cards somewhere.
/M<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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