Re: OpenVMS Integrity Graphics card questions

The Radeon 7500 is the only add-in card that will work (it "might" work on a
ZX2000 or a ZX6000 that had different firmware and without the management
option). The first card (VGA console) on an Alpha will work with the DVI
port provided it is connected when the system is powered up.

The Radeon 7000 card will, in general, not work on Itanium - despite the
fact that the management option has a R7000 built-in that will work. The
problem is initialization - which I have not quite figured out yet. It is
not compatable 100% with the R7500 initialization - which we do by hand.
The card/chip that the firmware initializes works fine. Which is also why
the DVI port doesn't work on the R7500 on Itanium - because we don't know
the magic handshake to initialize it by hand.

We are working on a BIOS emulator to initialize secondary cards for a future
release that will "fix" that problem. In the meantime, the best bet is to
order the AB551A (I think that is the order number for the Radeon 7500) -
since it is nearly impossible to find the PCI card on the secondary market -
although perhaps Island might have some ;-)

Fred


<johnhreinhardt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1156950813.681613.231440@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Robert Deininger wrote:
In article <1156897939.666811.157390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"johnhreinhardt@xxxxxxxxx" <johnhreinhardt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Fred may chime in with more details if he sees the thread.

I can't seem to find the discussions at the moment but it seems to me
that it's been said that OpenVMS Integrity will not support the DVI
port on an ATI Radeon 7000 graphics card. I also think it was said
that it won't support a second head on the same card ( Mine has one VGA
and one DVI). Can anyone verify this?

VMS supports the Radeon 7500 PCI plug-in card on the entry-level
Integrity
servers. I don't recall the product number for the card, but it's in
the
configuration guides and QuickSpecs for the systems. It is the same
hardware supported on various recent Alpha systems, but the order
number,
packaging and accompanying documentation are different.


Since this is a hobbyist endeavor I'm planning on using a retail ATI
Radeon 7500 I picked up on Ebay (I picked up 3 new, sealed, in a retail
box for $35 each plus shipping - they also work great in the XP1000).
The ZX6000 workstation I aquired has an NVidia Quadro2 Pro AGP card and
no MP so I was looking into OpenVMS compatible devices.

VMS only supports 1 head per Radeon 7500 card. You can use the VGA
output. I think, but I'm not positive, that you can use the DVI output.
You CAN'T use both.

Unfortunately the 7500's I have only have the VGA (plus S-Video and a
TV-tuner). All of the 7500's I've found with DVI are AGP rather than
PCI.


HP-UX supports the same card, on roughly the same set of Integrity
servers.

If the available configuration documents don't answer these questions to
your satisfaction, the documents are due for a round of repairs. There
are feedback mechanisms provided on the web, and they are even supposed
to
be working.


I've read the Install guide for the AGP Radeon 7500 (which is available
on the HP website) and gotten the PCI version to work in my XP1000.
Since this wandering to the Integrity side is all on non-supported
hardware and hobbyist related, the range of knowledge required is
somewhat outside that available from the HP documentation.

Radeon 7000 seems to be one of the names used for the built-in graphics
chip used in the Management Processor. The chip implements a subset of
the Radeon 7500. VMS supports graphics on the MP of the Integity
servers,
but only a "2D" subset of the Radeon 7500 functionality. I don't know
the
details well enough to describe the subset.


I have a (two, actually) OEM PC Radeon 7000 with the dual output (1
VGA, 1 DVI). Since I want to use this system as a master controller
for my other VMS sytems and anticipate using DECwindows extensively I'd
like to be able to use it with my 20" LCD and the DVI input. Since I
can't find any PCI bus 7500's with DVI I may try the 7000 to see if the
DVI output will work. I'd rather use a 7500, but since I won't really
be doing much 3D work it may not perform too badly (assuming it works
at all).

You can use the Radon 7500 with or without the MP graphics on systems
where MP is optional.

If you get an Integrity system without the Management Processor, I
assume you can put a Radeon in one of the PCI slots. Will OpenVMS
Integrity support anything besides the 7000? Doesn't the 7500 also
work?

VMS doesn't support a "Radeon 7000" plug-in card, if such a thing
exists.
If you find one, VMS might recongnize it and it might "work", but it
isn't
supported.


Okay. I was making the assumption (perhaps a false one) that since the
MP card has a Radeon 7000 equivalent built-in that a separate PCI card
would work also. Time for experimentation!

I've read that the AGP slot (on the otherwise unsupported ZX6000) will
not work and I'm pretty sure it has been said that it won't be. Is
there any work planned for any kind of graphics solutions for the
Integrity systems in VMS (Other than the Radeon 7000/7500)?

I don't think the AGP graphics card was even tried with VMS on this
system. VMS doesn't support the system (which has been out of
production
for a while), and the industry is moving away from AGP as far as I know.
I don't expect any additional VMS work on AGP graphics support.

Radeon 7500 is likely to be the only add-on graphics solution until
PCI-express ships and matures somewhat on Integrity servers. There's
currently no timetable for possible support of a future PCI-express
card,
but I believe folks are looking into it.

Thanks for all your help and information Robert.

John H. Reinhardt



.

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