"vidcontrol -i mode" shows no output except header (in search of smaller console font)

Hi all,

I'm trying to get a smaller font in my text-consoles (using vt) on my Ryzen
4700 and Vega10 Renoir - based laptop with a fresh install of FreeBSD
CURRENT from last week.

My research led me to believe that using vidcontrol would help me here, but
however I do try, "vidcontrol -i mode" prints nothing except the header
line, and other "vidcontrol" subcommands give me "Inappropriate ioctl for
device".

I tried a few things
- switched to sc via setting "kern.vty=sc" in /boot/loader.conf, this
caused a hang on reboot
- setting "hw.vga.textmode" to 1
- "kldload vesa"
... and probably a few other things I now forget, all to no effect - I
still get nothing.

I then performed an update from a freshly 'git pulled' source today
(kernel, world, drm-devel-kmod), a simple "vidcontrol" test still shows the
same.

I know it can work because I had a smaller font before I re-installed over
the previous installation (which originally came from ghostbsd in Aug
2020), so - I assume - it can't be rocket science :-)
I'd appreciate further hints/pointers/RTFMs (though I've tried quite a few
of those).

TIA
Michael
-- 
Michael Schuster
http://recursiveramblings.wordpress.com/
recursion, n: see 'recursion'