Difference between revisions of "Matrox G450"

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This overview will cover how to get the TVOut working on a Matrox G450 using FC4 and MythTV .19.  This covers my experience with this setup and how I got it to work.
 
This overview will cover how to get the TVOut working on a Matrox G450 using FC4 and MythTV .19.  This covers my experience with this setup and how I got it to work.
  
For the most part, I followed Jarod's Guide on getting MythTV set up on Fedora Core.  The initial setup was a little difficult in the GUI because whil the installer correctly identified my Matrox G450, the Matrox drivers that ship for x.org are for v. <= 6.8.1 while the installer uses 6.8.2.  No biggie, I've set up FC before and was able to get by.
+
For the most part, I followed [http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php Jarod's Guide] on getting MythTV set up on Fedora Core.  The initial setup was a little difficult in the GUI because while the installer correctly identified my Matrox G450, the Matrox drivers that ship for x.org are for v. <= 6.8.1 while the installer uses 6.8.2.  No biggie, I've set up FC before and was able to get by.
  
After the installation completed, I grabbed the updated Matrox drivers from [http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/files/lnx_43.cfm].  Setting them up is easy - download, extract run install.sh to have the files copied to the correct place.  A quick restart of X (ctrl+alt+backspace) gets everything nice and pretty.
+
After the installation completed, I grabbed the updated Matrox drivers from [http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/files/lnx_43.cfm Matrox].  Setting them up is easy - download, extract run install.sh to have the files copied to the correct place.  A quick restart of X (ctrl+alt+backspace) gets everything nice and pretty.
  
 
After doing some reading in various places, I discovered that in order to get the framebuffer devices created so we can use them, we have to load the matrox modules at boot.  We need to create /etc/sysconfig/modules/matrox.modules with the following code:
 
After doing some reading in various places, I discovered that in order to get the framebuffer devices created so we can use them, we have to load the matrox modules at boot.  We need to create /etc/sysconfig/modules/matrox.modules with the following code:
Line 15: Line 15:
 
  /sbin/modprobe matroxfb_maven
 
  /sbin/modprobe matroxfb_maven
 
  </code>
 
  </code>
 +
Remember to make it executable (chmod +x /etc/sysconfig/modules/matrox.modules) and then reboot.  After the system comes back up, you should have 2 framebuffer devices listed in /dev
 +
<code>
 +
# ls -l /dev/fb?
 +
crw-------  1 mythtv root 29, 0 Apr  6 14:46 /dev/fb0
 +
crw-------  1 mythtv root 29, 1 Apr  6 14:46 /dev/fb1
 +
</code>
 +
 +
Now, to get the TVOut working we need to download [http://knihovny.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/linux/matrox-latest/ matroxset] - a tool for manipulating the Matrox fb devices.  It's a simple install also, download, extract, make, copy to /usr/bin and you're ready to use it.  The matroxset tool doesn't have to be run as root as long as the user has read/write access to the fb devices.  Run the following commands to get the framebuffers in a usable state for TVOut:
 +
<code>
 +
matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 5
 +
matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -m 2
 +
matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -o 1 2
 +
</code>
 +
The first line turns off the secondary output, the second line connects the secondary output to /dev/fb1 and the third line sets the secondary output to NTSC (use -o 1 1 for PAL).  You should now be able to test the output with mplayer.
 +
<code>
 +
mplayer -vo fbdev -fb /dev/fb1 /path/to/testvideo.mpg
 +
</code>
 +
You can also scale the mplayer output using the "-vop scale" option like so:
 +
<code>
 +
mplayer -vo fbdev -fb /dev/fb1 -vop expand=640:480,scale=640:-2 /path/to/testvideo.mpg
 +
</code>
 +
That should play your video on your TV if everything is working correctly.

Revision as of 15:35, 11 April 2006

HowTo Enable TVOut with a Matrox G450

This overview will cover how to get the TVOut working on a Matrox G450 using FC4 and MythTV .19. This covers my experience with this setup and how I got it to work.

For the most part, I followed Jarod's Guide on getting MythTV set up on Fedora Core. The initial setup was a little difficult in the GUI because while the installer correctly identified my Matrox G450, the Matrox drivers that ship for x.org are for v. <= 6.8.1 while the installer uses 6.8.2. No biggie, I've set up FC before and was able to get by.

After the installation completed, I grabbed the updated Matrox drivers from Matrox. Setting them up is easy - download, extract run install.sh to have the files copied to the correct place. A quick restart of X (ctrl+alt+backspace) gets everything nice and pretty.

After doing some reading in various places, I discovered that in order to get the framebuffer devices created so we can use them, we have to load the matrox modules at boot. We need to create /etc/sysconfig/modules/matrox.modules with the following code:


#!/bin/sh
/sbin/modprobe i2c-matroxfb
/sbin/modprobe matroxfb_Ti3026
/sbin/modprobe matroxfb_crtc2
/sbin/modprobe matroxfb_maven

Remember to make it executable (chmod +x /etc/sysconfig/modules/matrox.modules) and then reboot. After the system comes back up, you should have 2 framebuffer devices listed in /dev


# ls -l /dev/fb?
crw-------  1 mythtv root 29, 0 Apr  6 14:46 /dev/fb0
crw-------  1 mythtv root 29, 1 Apr  6 14:46 /dev/fb1

Now, to get the TVOut working we need to download matroxset - a tool for manipulating the Matrox fb devices. It's a simple install also, download, extract, make, copy to /usr/bin and you're ready to use it. The matroxset tool doesn't have to be run as root as long as the user has read/write access to the fb devices. Run the following commands to get the framebuffers in a usable state for TVOut:


matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 5
matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -m 2
matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -o 1 2

The first line turns off the secondary output, the second line connects the secondary output to /dev/fb1 and the third line sets the secondary output to NTSC (use -o 1 1 for PAL). You should now be able to test the output with mplayer.


mplayer -vo fbdev -fb /dev/fb1 /path/to/testvideo.mpg

You can also scale the mplayer output using the "-vop scale" option like so:


mplayer -vo fbdev -fb /dev/fb1 -vop expand=640:480,scale=640:-2 /path/to/testvideo.mpg

That should play your video on your TV if everything is working correctly.