Resolution at boot

G

giocitta

I'm back to using FreeBSD (14.1-RELEASE) after a long stop on Gentoo. I would like to solve the following aesthetic problem. When I boot, a text at too low resolution appears and flows quite quickly on the screen (perhaps 640x480) and then the panel appears with the possible operational choices: Boot multiuser, Boot single user, Escape, Reboot, etc. From here on, the text is pleasantly in 1920x1080 resolution and remains so until the appearance of the graphic environment. How to also have the previous text at the same resolution or at a resolution greater than 640x480?
 
Alright. I have a couple of Asus PRIME mainboards and for some reason it doesn't have the ConOut/ConOutDev entries. That causes the bootloader to switch to a combined serial and video output. The video is low res and super slow (because it mirrors the serial console). For me I have to disable the serial ports for the video console to switch to graphics mode.

In your case I would expect the bootloader to default to a 1920x1080 resolution, I believe that's basically the 'standard' EFI framebuffer resolution.

Not sure if these settings help for loader.efi(8) but try this in /boot/loader.conf:
Code: 
hw.vga.textmode="0"
efi_max_resolution="1920x1080"
 
SirDice said:
Alright. I have a couple of Asus PRIME mainboards and for some reason it doesn't have the ConOut/ConOutDev entries. That causes the bootloader to switch to a combined serial and video output. The video is low res and super slow (because it mirrors the serial console). For me I have to disable the serial ports for the video console to switch to graphics mode.

In your case I would expect the bootloader to default to a 1920x1080 resolution, I believe that's basically the 'standard' EFI framebuffer resolution.

Not sure if these settings help for loader.efi(8) but try this in /boot/loader.conf:
Code: 
hw.vga.textmode="0"
efi_max_resolution="1920x1080"
Click to expand...
No, unfortunately nothing changes.
 
Any possibility that the font automatically chosen is too large?
What happenes if you set allscreens_flags="-f /usr/share/vt/fonts/vgarom-8x16.fnt" in your /etc/rc.conf[.local]?
 
There seems to be a misunderstanding on the replying forums users part.

SirDice said:
In your case I would expect the bootloader to default to a 1920x1080 resolution, I believe that's basically the 'standard' EFI framebuffer resolution.
Click to expand...
It does default to a 1920x1080 resolution.

If I'm not mistaken, what user giocitta is talking about is the text size of the UEFI console (see image below), the messages displayed before the FreeBSD boot menu, not after. After the FreeBSD boot menu the screen resolution is 1920x1080:
giocitta said:
When I boot, a text at too low resolution appears and flows quite quickly on the screen (perhaps 640x480) and then the panel appears with the possible operational choices: Boot multiuser, Boot single user, Escape, Reboot, etc. From here on, the text is pleasantly in 1920x1080 resolution and remains so until the appearance of the graphic environment.
Click to expand...

Example EFI console:

efi_console.png
 
T-Daemon said:
There seems to be a misunderstanding on the replying forums users part.


It does default to a 1920x1080 resolution.

If I'm not mistaken, what user giocitta is talking about is the text size of the UEFI console (see image below), the messages displayed before the FreeBSD boot menu, not after. After the FreeBSD boot menu the screen resolution is 1920x1080:


Example EFI console:

View attachment 20094
Click to expand...
Oh, T-Daemon, many many thanks: you understood exactly what my problem is, the unacceptable resolution of the EFI console. We are used to say in Italy: you really put your finger on the plague! For the rest I have no problem varying the screen resolution after the FreeBSD boot menu. So I'm trying to figure out where to get my hands to act on the EFI console or if the configuration of this is not editable as if it belonged to some sort of ROM.
 
I'm getting my hands to act here and there... Here is an interesting event I found using dmesg after many attempts made with gop:

VT(efifb): resolution 1920x1080
VT-x: PAT,HLT,MTF,PAUSE,EPT,UG,VPID,VID,PostIntr
VT: Replacing driver "efifb" with new "drmfb".
VT(efifb): resolution 1024x768
VT-x: PAT,HLT,MTF,PAUSE,EPT,UG,VPID,VID,PostIntr
VT: Replacing driver "efifb" with new "drmfb".

Could this replacement of the driver efifb with drmfb be the guilty of my bad resolution of the messages displayed before the FreeBSD boot menu?
Thanks to those who helped and still want to help me. What could I do to inhibit this replacement? My English language is intolerable, isn't it?...
 
Here is an error I get:

[root@carciofino /home/giocitta]# grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[ 21.141] (EE) Failed to load module "intel" (module does not exist, 0)
[ 21.637] (II) Initializing extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER

Attached below is myPC's graphic card:

vgapci0@pci0:0:2:0: class=0x030000 rev=0x04 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0xa7a0 subvendor=0x0000 subdevice=0x0000
vendor = 'Intel Corporation'
device = 'Raptor Lake-P [Iris Xe Graphics]'
class = display
subclass = VGA
 
giocitta said:
Could this replacement of the driver efifb with drmfb be the guilty of my bad resolution of the messages displayed before the FreeBSD boot menu?
Click to expand...
Unlikely. The resolution you are trying to influence is part of and controlled by UEFI. That means you are limited by the capabilities of your UEFI firmware. Perhaps you can inluence the intended resolution with some BIOS/UEFI firmware setting of your motherboard; otherwise you could try to boot into your UEFI shell and try to look for (search the internet too) for some option/command that influences the resolution. Sorry to say, there does not seem much information about this. It is all UEFI specific stuff and it also depends on the particular UEFI firmware implementation on your motherboard. Perhaps there is some forum for your brand/motherboard type where you can try to get more information.

As for that Xorg log error, it seems that it is trying to look for an (probably old) intel specific Xorg driver; please attach your full Xorg log.

Try setting the Xorg driver explicitly as described in 5.4.3. Video Cards, but then to modesetting:
Code: 
Section "Device"
	Identifier "Card0"
	Driver     "modesetting"
EndSection
Of course in combination with an appropriate drm-kmod (for DRM/KMS) driver for your intel GPU; see 5.3. Graphic card drivers.
It looks like you have a rather recent intel CPU, which one exactly?
 
Erichans said:
Unlikely. The resolution you are trying to influence is part of and controlled by UEFI. That means you are limited by the capabilities of your UEFI firmware. Perhaps you can inluence the intended resolution with some BIOS/UEFI firmware setting of your motherboard; otherwise you could try to boot into your UEFI shell and try to look for (search the internet too) for some option/command that influences the resolution. Sorry to say, there does not seem much information about this. It is all UEFI specific stuff and it also depends on the particular UEFI firmware implementation on your motherboard. Perhaps there is some forum for your brand/motherboard type where you can try to get more information.

As for that Xorg log error, it seems that it is trying to look for an (probably old) intel specific Xorg driver; please attach your full Xorg log.

Try setting the Xorg driver explicitly as described in 5.4.3. Video Cards, but then to modesetting:
Code: 
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver     "modesetting"
EndSection
Of course in combination with an appropriate drm-kmod (for DRM/KMS) driver for your intel GPU; see 5.3. Graphic card drivers.
It looks like you have a rather recent intel CPU, which one exactly?
Click to expand...
Thanks for your effective and easily understandable clarifications I've much appreciated.

... You say: "The resolution you are trying to influence is part of and controlled by UEFI". ... Yes, I know, that's the question: I'm limited by the capabilities of my UEFI firmware.
... I found no useful setting in my BIOS/UEFI firmware of my motherboard.
... Question: How to boot into my UEFI shell where I hope to find some option/command that influences the resolution?

P.S. CPU: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900H (2995.20-MHz K8-class CPU).
 
And if you want to confirm what resolutions UEFI firmware allows, you can escape to loader prompt on loader menu, then execute gop list there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top