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Hello,

> It's a shame to rule-out so many VGA adapters.  ISTR that on i386, 
> there
> is a 64K window at 0xA0000 that you can slide over the video memory by
> either calling the VESA BIOS, or by writing registers on the VGA chip.
> Can't we use the existing VM machinery to trap accesses to video 
> regions
> that aren't under the window, move the window, and then restart 
> whichever
> process made the access?  In this way you win support for a large 
> category
> of framebuffers.

Hmm, I seem to remember that there was some sort of standard for PCI 
VGA devices which also included some hints about BAR assignment and 
therefore linear framebuffer memory - I'm pretty sure it's the only BAR 
labeled prefetchable on almost(?) all VGAs and almost(?) always the 
first one. With this all we need is a way to switch to whatever 
resolution at 8 bit, map the framebuffer and that's it.
Is there any PCI VGA without a BAR for linear framebuffer memory? The 
vast majority should have one.

have fun
Michael
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