vchiq(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages

VCHIQ(4)                NetBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual               VCHIQ(4)


NAME

     vchiq -- Broadcom VideoCore Host Interface device driver


SYNOPSIS

     vchiq* at simplebus?
     vchiq* at acpi?


DESCRIPTION

     The vchiq driver provides support for the VideoCore 4 GPU messaging
     interface in Broadcom SoCs found in boards such as the Raspberry Pi.

     Libraries in pkgsrc provide OpenGL ES support and video decoding acceler-
     ation for the VideoCore 4 using the /dev/vchiq interface exposed to user-
     land.

     Audio output support is provided by the kernel through vcaudio(4), which
     uses this messaging interface to the GPU internally.

     Debugging information may be obtained reading the device with cat(1).
     eg:
           cat /dev/vchiq

     Information such as slots and usage by particular functions of the Video-
     Core 4 device are displayed.


SEE ALSO

     cat(1), acpi(4), bcmgpio(4), vcaudio(4),
     pkgsrc/misc/raspberrypi-userland, pkgsrc/multimedia/omxplayer


HISTORY

     The vchiq device driver appeared in NetBSD 7.0.


BUGS

     /dev/vchiq does not follow the standard model for graphical acceleration
     on Unix-like systems, so applications have to be specially built to take
     advantage of it.  The interface to userland also cannot be exposed by
     64-bit or big endian kernels due to problems in the upstream Broadcom
     code.

NetBSD 10.99                   December 11, 2021                  NetBSD 10.99