How to install SiS Mirage (661/771) drivers on Ubuntu to get native resolution

Last week I was working on an old ASUS X5DC laptop, which features the notorious SiS Mirage GPU. This is really a narrow niche topic, as these laptops are reaching their end-of-life, but let’s briefly document the process here anyway. This may be directly, or with slight modification, applicable to other SiS Mirage equipped laptops as well. There are lots of out of date guides and articles around the web regarding SiS Mirage installation and I had to go through several to find a working solution for me. Therefore I decided to publish this here, just in case someone else is unfortunate enough to own this dreadful laptop or GPU.

Install sisimedia drivers on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

First install Ubuntu, or perhaps the lighter Xubuntu variant, as usual and then proceed with the following steps:

  1. Add the Mateusz Lukasik PPA repository to your software sources and then refrest repository data.
  • sudo apt-get update
  1. Install the sisimedia driver
  • sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-sisimedia
  1. Create a file using a text editor to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, copy-paste the following settings to the file, save and reboot:

Section “Device”
Identifier “Configured Video Device”
Driver “sisimedia”
Option “UseTiming1366” “yes”
EndSection

Section “Files”
ModulePath “/usr/lib/xorg/modules”
ModulePath “/usr/lib64/xorg/modules”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Configured Monitor”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Monitor “Configured Monitor”
Device “Configured Video Device”
EndSection

Section “ServerFlags”
Option “IgnoreABI” “True”
EndSection

Note: This setting file is specifically for the ASUS X5DC, which has a 1366x768 resolution LCD panel (UseTiming1366). You may need to tweak the file according to your laptop specs.

As an end result you have the latest Ubuntu LTS version running with the native display resolution. The performance will be poor and video playback jerky.

If you are aware of any additional tweaks to improve the performance or a better method of getting this done, please let me know!

The Resolution is 1920 X 1080 is better for laptop and this is found under Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver at Advanced Settings display but other system shows 1280 x 1024 under a setting. So this may be improved disapply the resolution for better view photo and video and I have found this trick when I was searching a solution for my hp touchpad not working

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