VGA output

johnfl68

Hello all - I am about to order a Propeller Starter Kit (for a couple of different projects).

Can someone shed some light on the following:

Is Propeller able to output 1024 x 768 VGA (static image - possibly text overlay)?

Any limitations to outputting a static image?

Is there already any mechanism in place to convert static jpeg image into Propeller code/chip?

Thanks!

John

Mike Green

This doesn't have a yes or no answer ... it depends.

The Propeller can output a 1024 x 768 pixel VGA display. There's not enough memory though to hold a 1024 x 768 image.
There are several text display drivers at this resolution that work well and one of them can include small windows of graphics
in the display. It uses tiles of 16 x 32 pixels with one tile for each character cell (taken from the ROM font table). A tile can
point to an area of RAM used as a bitmap and you can have blocks of tiles forming a small graphics region, but memory is at
a premium.

Here's a link: [url=http://www.rayslogic.com/propeller/Users/VGA_Tile_Driver_Demo_-_Archive__[Date_2006.11.12__Time_03.56].zip]www.rayslogic.com/propeller/Users/VGA_Tile_Driver_Demo_-_Archive__[noparse][[/noparse]Date_2006.11.12__Time_03.56].zip[/url]

There's no mechanism in place for converting a jpeg image to a bitmap. You could use a 3rd party graphics conversion program
to change a JPEG file to a bitmap file which could be used. I use a MacBook and there's a program called GraphicConverter
which is kind of the Swiss Army Knife of graphics for the Mac. I'm sure there are all kinds of equivalent programs for Windows.

RinksCustoms

Paint that comes with windows is easy enough to convert a jpg to bmp, open the jpg with paint and then "save as" a bmp, but to get the bmp into a format the prop can use is the BMP2SPIN.EXE tool. But that program only comes with the Game Programming for the HYDRA book + CDROM. (You do not absolutely need a HYDRA dev. board to explore the tutorials/demos included with the book). Some of the demos on the HYDRA CDROM use multiple cogs for overlaying graphics on scanlines and are all sync'd, but this is no easy task as Mike said that there just isn't enough memory.

The majority of the demo's / youtube stuff for video·the prop you see is more or less vector based 2/4 color·bitmapping·or on a·2/4 color tile engine with a few special exeptions involving external SRAM or an SD card. At least that's·my understanding from following the prop forum from almost the begining.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
E³ = Thought

http://folding.stanford.edu/·- Donating some CPU/GPU downtime just might lead to a cure for cancer! My team stats.

Post Edited (RinksCustoms) : 3/16/2008 11:17:10 PM GMT

Rayman

The ability to display images with the Prop is mainly limited by the 32kB of hub ram that the video drivers use...

However, if you use 1, 2 (or 6) bit images, you can cover a decent amount of the screen with bitmaps.

I have several examples on my website along with Windows apps to convert to usable formats:

http://www.rayslogic.com/propeller/Programming/Programming.htm

I also have a Blackjack game using bitmaps here:

http://www.rayslogic.com/propeller/Programming/RaysStuff/RaysStuff.htm

And, I just posted an LCARS test in the forum...

johnfl68

Thanks all - that helps.

The image has some commonalities, so I can use that to my benefit.

John