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Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Video Cards :: Video Memory Intercept and Redirect Post 302482780 by ciNG on Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 01:45:28 PM
Old 12-22-2010
Video Cards :: Video Memory Intercept and Redirect

I need a broad spectrum understanding on this subject, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

First of all, as I understand it...
The way the video hardware works is the CPU sends information about input and possible changes to the display, the video card receives these changes, makes the necessary changes to its memory cache, and then sends out the new information to the display.

Input -> CPU -> VideoCard -> Display

...now this is a very simple understanding, if you can blow my mind by proving my ignorance with more specific and technical semantics it would be greatly appreciated. I feel my personal research has plateaued beneath the necessary esoteric terminology.

Next I want to know how I can get at those arrows inbetween. Are there ways, software'hardware, to pipe the raw data, binary, traveling between these points into another destination for manipulation andor examination purposes?

Thirdly, if there is a built in video card in my motherboard and also a supported third party videocard, how can I tell my computer to use the third party card? Is this a kernel config thing? Modules? A HALd thing? I know the actual setting up of this is a simple process. I am not looking for a tutorial how to do this, I want to know how the computer learns to do it as a result of my telling it to do so.

Finally, I have been running around a number of repositories like an asshole with his head chopped off looking for clues to these answers. I've looked into HAL, VNC, X, udev, pciutils, but honestly I don't know where to begin, or what I'm looking for within their respective functions. They all just seemed to harness, in one way or another, this thing I am looking for...

If this question is too big or obtuse, and someone wants to just say: read this; also very much appreciated.
 

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ZAPPING(1)							  [FIXME: manual]							ZAPPING(1)

NAME
zapping - a Gnome TV and Teletext viewer SYNOPSIS
zapping [-b, --bpp NUMBER] [-c, --command STRING] [--console-errors] [--cpu-features FEATURES] [-d, --debug] [--device FILENAME] [--dword-align] [-n, --tunerless-norm STRING] [--no-overlay, --remote] [--no-plugins] [--no-vbi] [--no-xv-image] [--no-xv-video] [-v, --no-xv] [--xv-image-port NUMBER] [--xv-port NUMBER, --xv-video-port NUMBER] [-y, --yuv-format STRING] [-z, --no-zsfb] DESCRIPTION
Zapping is a program to watch TV on a computer, within the Gnome environment. You can take screenshots and record video and audio. Zapping has a Teletext viewer built in and supports Closed Caption and Teletext subtitles. For more information open the Gnome help and choose Applications -> Multimedia -> Zapping. This manual page refers to zapping version 0.10. OPTIONS
-b, --bpp NUMBER Color depth of the X display. In TrueColor mode (24 or 32 bits per pixel) you might get a very distorted image that spreads all around the desktop. This usually means Zapping could not correctly determine the color depth, which can be given here. -c, --command COMMAND Execute the given command and exit. This was intended to create a sort of batch mode, you may want to use zapping_remote(1) instead. Only one command is implemented. The set_channel command allows one to change the channel by giving the channel name or RF channel number, for example: zapping -c "set_channel BBC" --console-errors Redirect the error messages to the console, useful for bug reports. --cpu-features FEATURES Override the CPU detection for tests. Possible features are: none, mmx, 3dnow, sse, sse2, sse3, altivec. When your CPU does not support the given features Zapping may crash. -d, --debug Print debug messages on standard output. You should include this information when submitting a bug report, as it can help to trace the problem. --device FILENAME Kernel video device to use, usually /dev/video. You can specify emulator for tests. --dword-align Forces doubleword alignment of the video in overlay mode. Can help when the image is distorted at certain sizes but looks fine at others. -n, --tunerless-norm STRING This option has no function but is recognized for compatibility with earlier versions of Zapping. It determined the video standard to be used when your TV card has no tuner, one of NTSC, PAL or SECAM. --no-overlay, --remote Do not overlay video. The --remote option refers to the X display. Overlay is only possible if the graphics card and TV card are plugged into the same computer. Capture mode is possible on a remote display (on another computer or in a nested display) but requires a high network bandwidth. --no-plugins Do not use any plugins, usually for testing purposes. --no-vbi Do not capture and decode VBI data, i.e. Teletext, Subtitles, Closed Caption and station names. This option is intended for tests and applies only to the current session. To override it or disable VBI support permanently see the Devices -> VBI section in the Zapping preferences. --no-xv-video Do not use the XVideo extension for video overlay. --no-xv-image Do not use the XVideo extension for hardware image scaling. -v, --no-xv Do not use the XVideo extension for video overlay or hardware image scaling. --xv-image-port NUMBER Number of the XVideo port to use for hardware image scaling. Zapping lists the available ports with the -d option. --xv-port NUMBER, --xv-video-port NUMBER Number of the XVideo port (similar to a device) to use for video overlay. Zapping lists the available ports with the -d option. -y, --yuv-format STRING This option has no function but is recognized for compatibility with earlier versions of Zapping. It determined the pixel format in capture mode when XVideo hardware image scaling was available, either YUYV or YVU420. -z, --no-zsfb This option has no function but is recognized for compatibility with earlier versions of Zapping. It used to prevent the execution of zapping_setup_fb(1) on startup. Now Zapping calls the helper application only if necessary. SEE ALSO
zapping_remote(1), zapping_setup_fb(1) AUTHORS
Zapping was written by Inaki Garcia Etxebarria, Michael H. Schimek (mschimek@users.sourceforge.net) and many contributors. This manual page was written by Michael H. Schimek based on work by Christian Marillat. CONTACT
Zapping homepage: http://zapping.sourceforge.net Please report bugs with the Zapping bug tracker http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=2599 or mail us at zapping-misc@lists.sourceforge.net [FIXME: source] 04/16/2012 ZAPPING(1)
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