C H A P T E R 1 - Sun XVR-200 Graphics Accelerator Overview

C H A P T E R 1

Sun XVR-200 Graphics Accelerator Overview

The Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator (FIGURE 1-1) is a low-profile single-slot 24-bit PCI-Express graphics frame buffer. The Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator runs on the Sun Fire T2000 system. This chapter includes the following topics:

Installation Kit

Features

Installation Kit

The Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator installation kit includes:

Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator

Sun XVR-200 software CD-ROM

LFH-60 - 2xDVI-I adapter splitter cable

Two DVI - HD15 adapters

Antistatic wrist strap

Sun XVR-200 Graphics Accelerator Installation Guide, this document

Features

The Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator (FIGURE 1-1) offers the following advanced features:

32-Mbyte PCI-Express (PCI-E) x1 bus interface

8+24-bit simultaneous visuals

Off-screen pixmap caching

Sun OpenGL^® for Solaris^TM support through Sun Direct Pixel Access (DPA) extension

See the following sections for details.

FIGURE 1-1 Sun XVR-200 Graphics Accelerator

Figure showing the Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator.

FIGURE 1-2 shows the Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator back panel LFH-60 I/O port.

FIGURE 1-2 Sun XVR-200 Graphics Accelerator Back Panel LFH-60 Port

Figure showing the Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator back panel LFH60 I/O connector.

PCI-Express Bus Interface

The Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator is a low-profile single-slot 32-Mbyte frame buffer keyed for an x1 PCI-Express bus interface. The output connector is an LFH-60 video port that requires the monitor cable adapters provided in the installation kit for DVI and HD15 (VGA) type monitor cabling.

8+24 Simultaneous Visuals

The 8+24 mode simultaneously supports 8- and 24-bit visuals. This mode addresses the classic colormap flashing issue with a 24-bit visual while providing the 8-bit visual that is required by some legacy 8-bit color only applications.

Cached Pixmaps

All Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerators support off-screen pixmap caching. Cached pixmaps are those that are stored in the off-screen memory. These off-screen pixmaps allow faster transfer rates to and from on-screen windows.

The available off-screen memory depends on the amount of video memory, the current resolution, and depth settings. For example, the Sun XVR-200 graphics accelerator has 32 Mbytes of video memory.

If the board is running at 1024 × 768 resolution with a depth of 8-bits, 768K is used for on-screen memory. That leaves 31.2 Mbytes available for pixmaps. In 24-bit and 8+24-bit modes, the on-screen memory that is used is four times larger than what is used in the 8-bit mode.

The largest pixmaps are stored in off-screen memory. If a larger pixmap replaces a smaller pixmap in the off-screen memory, the smaller pixmap moves to system memory and remains there even after the larger pixmap is destroyed.

OpenGL Support

Sun OpenGL for Solaris support is provided through the Direct Pixel Access (DPA) Extension. The Sun OpenGL 1.5 for Solaris software support is provided in the Solaris 10 1/06 Operating System.