VIA Open Source Software

VIA Enhanced Xine Player (VeXP)

Xine and VIA developers worked together to develop VeXP, the VIA-enhanced Xine Player. It uses hardware-specific acceleration in decoding and display to provide better MPEG2/MPEG-4 playback performance. VeXP 5.1 supports various media types including: AVI, ASF, H.264, CDDA, DVD, MP3, VCD, RM and WMV9. VeXP is able to reduce more than 50% of the normal CPU loading with specific hardware such as the VIA CX700(M/M2) chipsets, featured on various VIA EPIA mainboards.

Linux developers are encouraged to obtain the CX700 (M/M2) driver source code package and download the VeXP package to build on other distributions. The API module is provided with full sample code and documentation. This will allow users who are interested in multimedia file playback, VOD, PVR, and so on, to minimize their development time.

You can grab a copy at SourceForge.net.

VIA Enhanced MPlayer (VeMP)

Version 1.6 is based on MPlayer1.0-pre5. This patch makes MPlayer support MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration for CLE266/CN400 /CN700/K8M800/P4M800CE-Pro graphic chips. For the latest version and information, visit SourceForge.net.

Enabling PIDE DMA mode with VIA South Bridges

Some Linux distributions do not support all VIA South Bridge chips, including VT8237A (S)/VT8251/CX700 (M/M2)/VX700 (M/M2). Unsupported South Bridge chips might cause the system not to boot or to only run in PIO mode. This is because the kernel does not recognize the IDE controllers. This document describes how to manually patch the kernel source to enable DMA mode in VIA's South Bridge chips.

Legacy Linux Support Packages

Mandriva 2007.1 kernel

Mandriva Linux 2007.1 (x86/x86_64) has problems installing with VIA CX700 (M/M2), VT8237S and VX700 (M/M2) chips, so VIA prepared these pre-compiled kernels for both x86 and x86_64 Mandriva 2007.1.

Hardware Monitoring

These guides show how to install the LM_Sensors package to enable the hardware monitoring functions for the VT82C686B and VT8231 South Bridges, and Low-Pin-Count Super I/O chip VT1211, which include an integrated hardware monitor controller. The LM_Sensors package includes hardware monitoring and SMBus drivers for other utilities to acquire system-wide PC status information such as voltage, temperature, and fan speed. For systems using VIA South Bridges but with other vendors’ hardware monitor chips, we provide a sample program for reading data via the SMBus to facilitate testing and development.

CD-Writer(CD-R/RW) Installation and Use

The guides below describe the setup procedure for a Multimedia-Command compatible CD-Writer (CD-R/RW). The procedure used highly depends on your system configuration. Four possible scenarios are covered: (1) Use a CD-Writer to install OS, (2) Use a CD-Reader and a CD-Writer to install OS, (3) Add a CD-Writer after installing OS with a CD-Reader, and (4) Add a CD-Reader/CD-Writer after installing OS with a CD-Writer. The guides also demonstrate how to record pure data files, digital audio tracks, or mixed data and audio tracks.

Hardware Random Number Generator Linux Utility

The VIA C3 Nehemiah processor includes a high-performance hardware-based random number generator (RNG) on the processor die. The kernel starts to have a driver supporting the RNG from version 2.5.65. The documents below describe how to update the kernel and then make use of the RNG. We also offer a test utility with source code.