Re: mxsfb: DATA_FORMAT_24_BIT flag outputs invalid colours

From: Hector Palacios
Date: Fri May 24 2013 - 06:50:46 EST


Hi Juergen,

On 05/24/2013 12:28 PM, Juergen Beisert wrote:
Hector Palacios wrote:
Hi Juergen,

On 05/23/2013 03:31 PM, Juergen Beisert wrote:
Hi Maxime,

maxime.ripard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 01:55:28PM +0200, Hector Palacios wrote:
I'm using an i.MX28 based board with lcd connected with 18bits data
bus. My platform uses 32 bits per pixel:

mxsfb_pdata.default_bpp = 32;
mxsfb_pdata.ld_intf_width = STMLCDIF_18BIT;

With these settings the mxsfb.c driver sets flag DATA_FORMAT_24_BIT
at HW_LCDIF_CTRL register in function mxsfb_set_par():

case 32:
dev_dbg(&host->pdev->dev, "Setting up RGB888/666 mode\n");
ctrl |= CTRL_SET_WORD_LENGTH(3);
switch (host->ld_intf_width) {
case STMLCDIF_8BIT:
dev_dbg(&host->pdev->dev,
"Unsupported LCD bus width mapping\n");
return -EINVAL;
case STMLCDIF_16BIT:
case STMLCDIF_18BIT:
/* 24 bit to 18 bit mapping */
ctrl |= CTRL_DF24; /* ignore the upper 2 bits in
* each colour component
*/
break;
case STMLCDIF_24BIT:
/* real 24 bit */
break;
}

According to the manual, this flag does:
0x0: ALL_24_BITS_VALID: Data input to the block is in 24 bpp
format, such that all RGB 888 data is contained in 24 bits.
0x1: DROP_UPPER_2_BITS_PER_BYTE â Data input to the block is
actually RGB 18 bpp, but there is 1 colour per byte, hence the upper
2 bits in each byte do not contain any useful data, and should be
dropped.

The setting of this flag is producing bad colours with true colour
images (i.e. the Linux penguin is displayed ok, but QT applications
or images displayed with fbv are not).
I believe the setting of this flag is not correct (after all, if my
bpp is 32, then all 24bit colours are useful and dropping the upper
2 bits is a bad idea).
If I don't set it, then true colour images are displayed correctly.
The only problem is that the Linux penguin is displayed much darker
than usual (correct colours, but darker). Perhaps the 224 colour
format of this image justifies it?

I noticed the cfa10049 platform also uses the same configuration (18
bits data bus and 32bpp) and was wondering if true colour images are
correctly displayed in this platform with this flag set (for example
with fbv application [1]).

I had the exact same problem, and suggested the exact same solution a
few weeks back.

https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/2470441/

The conclusion of that discussion what that the userspace applications
were not honouring the bitfield correctly set by the mxsfb driver, and
as such, it was not a bug in the driver.

While this is correct, I wonder, now that since we had that same problem
in a very short amount of time, if we couldn't set this behaviour
dependant of some (dt? kernel argument?) property so that one could
customise it anyway he want.

Maxime

i.MX2[3|8] LCD1 LCD2 LCD3
24bit 18bit 18bit
--------------------------------------------
LCD_D0 B0 B0 --
LCD_D1 B1 B1 --
LCD_D2 B2 B2 B0
LCD_D3 B3 B3 B1
LCD_D4 B4 B4 B2
LCD_D5 B5 B5 B3
LCD_D6 B6 G0 B4
LCD_D7 B7 G1 B5

LCD_D8 G0 G2 --
LCD_D9 G1 G3 --
LCD_D10 G2 G4 G0
LCD_D11 G3 G5 G1
LCD_D12 G4 R0 G2
LCD_D13 G5 R1 G3
LCD_D14 G6 R2 G4
LCD_D15 G7 R3 G5

LCD_D16 R0 R4 --
LCD_D17 R1 R5 --
LCD_D18 R2 R0
LCD_D19 R3 R1
LCD_D20 R4 R2
LCD_D21 R5 R3
LCD_D22 R6 R4
LCD_D23 R7 R5

Is your display connected like LCD2 or LCD3? LCD3 must still handled like
a 24 bit display shown in LCD1, while only the LCD2-case is the "24 bit
to 18 bit mapping" case.

At least my current tests with an i.MX23 and a connection like LCD2 are
working here with a Qt application. Qt honours the pixel bitfield
description. And I'm using the "bits-per-pixel = <32>" and "bus-width =
<18>" entries in the device tree.

I have a 24bit LCD display but my connection to it is done at 18bits data
width. Represented below as LCD4.
NOTE: In my LCD4 column, notation Rx/Gx/Bx represent the color bit in
memory as well as the display data line.
Since we use 32bpp each channel has 8 bits (R7..R0, etc.).
I understand that you have an 18bit display and that your notation in LCD2
column represents the display data lines, not the color bit indexes in
memory.

i.MX2[3|8] LCD1 LCD2 LCD3 LCD4
24bit 18bit 18bit 24bit connected at 18bit
-------------------------------------------------------
LCD_D0 B0 B0 -- B2
LCD_D1 B1 B1 -- B3
LCD_D2 B2 B2 B0 B4
LCD_D3 B3 B3 B1 B5
LCD_D4 B4 B4 B2 B6
LCD_D5 B5 B5 B3 B7
LCD_D6 B6 G0 B4 G2
LCD_D7 B7 G1 B5 G3

LCD_D8 G0 G2 -- G4
LCD_D9 G1 G3 -- G5
LCD_D10 G2 G4 G0 G6
LCD_D11 G3 G5 G1 G7
LCD_D12 G4 R0 G2 R2
LCD_D13 G5 R1 G3 R3
LCD_D14 G6 R2 G4 R4
LCD_D15 G7 R3 G5 R5

LCD_D16 R0 R4 -- R6
LCD_D17 R1 R5 -- R7
LCD_D18 R2 R0
LCD_D19 R3 R1
LCD_D20 R4 R2
LCD_D21 R5 R3
LCD_D22 R6 R4
LCD_D23 R7 R5

For 32bpp (RGB888) and 18bit data bus I would expect the LCD controller to
take the six *most significant* bits [7..2] from each color byte out to the
LCD data bus (LCD_D17..D0) in the order depicted in my LCD4 column.

I'm not sure what the DATA_FORMAT_24_BIT flag is doing, but dropping the
two most significant bits of color in memory doesn't seem to be a good idea
unless (maybe) color is in 18bpp. Previous kernels did not even touch this
flag.

Does the following patch make sense?

diff --git a/drivers/video/mxsfb.c b/drivers/video/mxsfb.c
index b1c1a80..bb0a4e1 100644
--- a/drivers/video/mxsfb.c
+++ b/drivers/video/mxsfb.c
@@ -298,9 +298,6 @@ static int mxsfb_check_var(struct fb_var_screeninfo
*var, break;
case STMLCDIF_16BIT:
case STMLCDIF_18BIT:
- /* 24 bit to 18 bit mapping */
- rgb = def_rgb666;
- break;
case STMLCDIF_24BIT:
/* real 24 bit */
rgb = def_rgb888;
@@ -424,11 +421,6 @@ static int mxsfb_set_par(struct fb_info *fb_info)
return -EINVAL;
case STMLCDIF_16BIT:
case STMLCDIF_18BIT:
- /* 24 bit to 18 bit mapping */
- ctrl |= CTRL_DF24; /* ignore the upper 2 bits in
- * each colour component
- */
- break;
case STMLCDIF_24BIT:
/* real 24 bit */
break;

The setting of def_rgb666 for a 32bpp color depth does not make sense to me
because the color in memory is really rgb888.

With this patch, my true color images are displayed ok and so does the
penguin logo. I don't know however how other displays connections at 18bit
will do.

Your 24 bit display is connected like a regular 18 bit display. So they should
work in the same way with the same settings. You *must* always skip two data
bits from the memory RGB888 to form a RGB666 value.

I just did some measurement here with my i.MX23 based hardware.

I'm using 32 bits per pixel and the 18 bit display interface (LCD_D[0..17]).

And surprise, surprise: the i.MX23 *always* maps the 24 bit input data to the
18 bit interface. And what does the DATA_FORMAT_24_BIT aka. CTRL_DF24 do???
Just simple: it seems its meaning changes with the interface width. The
documentation says:

0 = all 24 bits are valid
1 = drop upper 2 bits per byte

This text seems valid for a real 24 bit display (but I cannot test it). From
my measurement its meaning changes when used with an 18 bit display to:

0 = drop lower 2 bits per byte
1 = drop upper 2 bits per byte

When this bit is 0:

red green blue
10000001|00001111|10001111 (memory layout)

100000..|000011..|100011.. (at the display)

When this bit is 1:

red green blue
10000001|00001111|10001111 (memory layout)

..000001|..001111|..001111 (at the display)

And how can the setting of this flag be useful?
In the example above, you had a red component of 0x81 (half way through the scale), which is converted to a 0x01 (almost black) at the display. Isn't this wrong?

This only looks right to me if you set a 18bpp but even in that case masking the upper bits isn't really needed at all.

Regards,
--
HÃctor Palacios
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