SuperProbe(1)
NAME
SuperProbe - probe for and identify installed video hard-
ware.
SYNOPSIS
SuperProbe [-verbose] [-no16] [-excl list] [-mask10]
[-order list] [-noprobe list] [-bios base]
[-no_bios] [-no_dac] [-no_mem] [-info]
DESCRIPTION
SuperProbe is a a program that will attempt to determine
the type of video hardware installed in an EISA/ISA/VLB-
bus system by checking for known registers in various com-
binations at various locations (MicroChannel and PCI
machines may not be fully supported; many work with the
use of the -no_bios option). This is an error-prone pro-
cess, especially on Unix (which usually has a lot more
esoteric hardware installed than MS-DOS system do), so
SuperProbe may likely need help from the user.
SuperProbe runs on SVR3, SVR4, Linux,
386BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD, Minix-386, and Mach. It should be
trivial to extend it to work on any other Unix-like oper-
ating system, and even non-Unix operating systems. All of
the OS dependencies are isolated to a single file for each
OS.
At this time, SuperProbe can identify MDA, Hercules, CGA,
MCGA, EGA, VGA, and an entire horde of SVGA chipsets (see
the -info option, below). It can also identify several
HiColor/True-color RAMDACs in use on SVGA boards, and the
amount of video memory installed (for many chipsets). It
can identify 8514/A and some derivatives, but not XGA, or
PGC (although the author intends to add those capabili-
ties). Nor can it identify other esoteric video hardware
(like Targa, TIGA, or Microfield boards).
OPTIONS
-verbose
SuperProbe will be verbose and provide lots of
information as it does its work.
-no16 SuperProbe will not attempt to use any ports that
require 16-bit I/O address decoding. The original
ISA bus only specified that I/O ports be decoded
to 10 bits. Therefore some old cards (including
many 8-bit cards) will mis-decode references to
ports that use the upper 6 bits, and may get into
funny states because they think that they are
being addressed when they are not. It is recom-
mended that this option be used initially if any
8-bit cards are present in the system.
-excl list
SuperProbe will not attempt to access any I/O
ports on the specified exclusion list. Some video
cards use rather non-standard I/O ports that may
conflict with other cards installed in your sys-
tem. By specifying to SuperProbe a list of ports
already in use, it will know that there cannot be
any video cards that use those ports, and hence
will not probe them (which could otherwise confuse
your hardware). The exclusion list is specified
as a comma-separated list of I/O ports or port
ranges. A range is specified as "low-high", and
is inclusive. The ports can be specified in deci-
mal, in octal (numbers begin with '0'), or hex-
adecimal (numbers begin with '0x').
-mask10 This option is used in combination with -excl. It
tells SuperProbe that when comparing an I/O port
under test against the exclusion list, the port
address should be masked to 10 bits. This is
important with older 8-bit cards that only do 10
bit decoding, and for some cheap 16-bit cards as
well. This option is simply a less-drastic form
of the -no16 option.
-order list
This option specifies which chipsets SuperProbe
should test, and in which order. The list parame-
ter is a comma-separated list of chipset names.
This list overrides the built-in default testing
order. To find the list of acceptable names, use
the -info option described below. Note that items
displayed as "Standard video hardware" are not
usable with the -order option.
-noprobe list
This options specifies which chipsets SuperProbe
should not test. The order of testing will either
be the default order, or that specified with the
-order option described above. The list parameter
is a comma-separated list of chipset names. To
find the list of acceptable names, use the -info
option described below. Note that items displayed
as "Standard video hardware" are not usable with
the -noprobe option.
-bios base
This option specifies the base address for the
graphics-hardware BIOS. By default, SuperProbe
will attempt to locate the BIOS base on its own
(the normal address is 0xC0000). If it fails to
correctly locate the BIOS (an error message will
be printed if this occurs), the -bios option can
be used to specify the base.
-no_bios
Disallow reading of the video BIOS and assume that
an EGA or later (VGA, SVGA) board is present as
the primary video hardware.
-no_dac Skip probing for the RAMDAC type when an (S)VGA is
identified.
-no_mem Skip probing for the amount of installed video
memory.
-info SuperProbe will print out a listing of all the
video hardware that it knows how to identify.
EXAMPLES
To run SuperProbe in its most basic and automated form,
simply enter:
SuperProbe
Note - you may want to redirect stdout to a file when you
run SuperProbe (especially if your OS does not support
Virtual Terminals on the console).
However, if you have any 8-bit cards installed, you should
initially run SuperProbe as:
SuperProbe -verbose -no16
(the -verbose option is included so you can see what
SuperProbe is skipping).
Finer granularity can be obtained with an exclusion list,
for example:
SuperProbe -verbose -excl 0x200,0x220-0x230,0x250
which will not test for any device that use port 0x200,
ports 0x220 through 0x230, inclusive, or port 0x250. If
you have any 8-bit cards installed, you should add -mask10
to the list of options.
To restrict the search to Western Digital, Tseng, and Cir-
rus chipset, run SuperProbe as follows:
SuperProbe -order WD,Tseng,Cirrus
BUGS
Probably a lot at this point. Please report any bugs or
incorrect identifications to the author.
It is possible that SuperProbe can lock up your machine.
Be sure to narrow the search by using the -no16, -excl,
and -mask10 options provided to keep SuperProbe from
conflicting with other installed hardware.
SEE ALSO
The vgadoc3.zip documentation package by Finn Thoegersen,
available in the MS-DOS archives of many FTP repositories.
Programmer's Guide to the EGA and VGA Cards, 2nd Ed, by
Richard Ferraro.
AUTHOR
David E. Wexelblat lt;dwex@xfree86.org
with help from David Dawes lt;dawes@xfree86.org and the
XFree86 development team.