The state of accelerated graphics on NetBSD/sparc

Now that NetBSD/sparc switched to wscons in -current it can finally run the Xorg Xserver out of the box. This means we will support accelerated graphics in X and the kernel console on a lot more hardware than before with Xsun and friends, namely:

• Sun CG3 - has kernel support and works in X with the wsfb driver, the hardware doesn't support a hardware cursor or any kind of acceleration so we won't bother with a dedicated X driver. The hardware supports 8 bit colour only.
• Sun CG6 family, including GX, TGX, XGX and their plus variants - supported with acceleration in both the kernel and X with the suncg6 driver. Hardware cursor is supported, the hardware supports 8 bit colour only.
• Sun ZX/Leo - has accelerated kernel support but no X yet. The sunleo driver from Xorg should work without changes but doesn't support any kind of acceleration yet. The console runs in 8 bit, X will support 24 bit.
• Sun BW2 - has kernel support, should work with the wsfb driver in X. This is untested, the board doesn't support a hardware cursor or any kind of acceleration. Hardware is monochrome only.
• Weitek P9100 - found in Tadpole SPARCbook 3 series laptops, supported with acceleration in both the kernel and X with the pnozz driver. Hardware cursor is supported. The console runs in 8 bit, X can run in 8, 16 or 24 bit colour.
• Sun S24/TCX - supported with acceleration in both the kernel and X with the suntcx driver. A hardware cursor is supported, support for 8bit only boards is untested for lack of hardware. The console runs in 8 bit, X in 24 bit.
• Sun CG14 - supported without acceleration in both the kernel and X for total lack of documentation for the SX rendering engine. We do support a hardware cursor with the wsfb driver though. The console runs in 8 bit, X in 24 bit.
• Fujitsu AG-10e - supported with acceleration in both the kernel and X, a hardware cursor is supported. The console runs in 8 bit, X in 24 bit.
• IGS 1682 found in JavaStation 10 / Krups - supported, but the chip lacks any acceleration features. It does support a hardware cursor though which the wsfb driver can use. Currently X is limited to 8 bit colour alhough the hardware supports up to 24bit.

All boards with dedicated drivers will work as primary or secondary heads in X, boards which use wsfb will only work in X when they are the system console. For example, you can run an SS20 with a cg14 as console, an AG-10e and two CG6 with four heads.

There is also a generic kernel driver ( genfb at sbus ) which may or may not work with graphics hardware not listed here, depending on the board's firmware. If it provides standard properties for width, height, colour depth, stride and framebuffer address it should work but not all boards do this. For example, the ZX doesn't give a framebuffer address and there is no reason to assume it's the only one. Also, there is no standard way to program palette registers via firmware so even if genfb works colours are likely off. X should work with the wsfb driver, it will likely look a bit odd though.

Boards like the CG8 and CG12 have older, pre-wscons kernel support and weren't converted due to lack of hardware. They seem to be pretty rare though, in all the years I've been using NetBSD/sparc I have not seen a single user ask about them.

Finally, 3rd party boards not mentioned here are unsupported for lack of hardware in the right hands.
Graphics hardware supported by NetBSD/sparc64 which isn't listed here should work the same way when running a 32bit userland but this is mostly untested.