PropGFX Lite - New Graphics Modes

Coley

Hello PropGFX Team here again....

The great and stupendous Baggers has worked his magic to include yet another mode to PropGFX Lite.

This time he has added the ability to upload new graphic modes on the fly.

Here is the latest incarnation, a mixed text and graphic mode NTSC 704x480 resoloution.



Enjoy

Coley

PS Youtube video www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-eUXY5366g

Post Edited (Coley) : 4/1/2008 5:57:55 PM GMT

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

Next thing you know Jim will have it playing videos in that upper corner. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Any chance of a compatibility layer for drop-in use of existing programs/drivers?

OBC

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Coley

Hi OBC.

OBC said...
Next thing you know Jim will have it playing videos in that upper corner. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Don't say things like that, it'll just set us back weeks while he tries to do it.....

OBC said...
Any chance of a compatibility layer for drop-in use of existing programs/drivers?

That exactly what we were trying to do when Jim expanded it to this demo lol

He has already incorporated tv.spin and graphics.spin and he is now working on his spectrum tv driver too....

Sometimes I wish he'd stop so I can get the datasheet done !!!

Coley

Post Edited (Coley) : 4/1/2008 5:58:18 PM GMT

Baggers

Hi OBC,

As Coley said, I've given the comms side the ability to be able to re-code the cogs, so it can have modified drivers, allowing all you're favourite drivers to work on it too [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Well except the HX512 hi-res driver, as it doesn't have a plugin lol.

And yes, I'm gonna put spectrum driver on, and see if I can port some other peoples games drivers on there too. although I'm not sure how it'll go with some games, as they were tight on memory.

Baggers.

Mike_GTN

@The Team,

Wow that is Picture in picture (pip) Will it be possible to move the Graphics area to all four corners of the screen or has this been hardcoded?

I think this is amazing stuff!

Regards

Mike.

Baggers

Hi Mike,
Thanks [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Yeah, I can move graphics area to any or all four corners and the middle if I wanted, and can be part or whole area too.
In fact, if you think that was a WOW, you should see the next demo, I just did for it, Coley is just doing a vid capture now, as I type [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Baggers.

Coley

Update:

To satisfy Mikes curiosity.....voilla!



Youtube Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdYU6J30k10

Coley

I will post the link to the youtube vid as soon as it uploads.... EDIT - Done

Post Edited (Coley) : 4/1/2008 5:58:36 PM GMT

JT Cook

Wow, that is just plain cool! Are both bitmaps stored on the PropGFX or are the bitmaps stored on Hybrid Prop and streamed to the PropGFX?

Baggers

Hi JT Cook,
Firstly thanks for the compliments [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Secondly, it's a very slightly modified graphics_demo.spin, that only uses one buffer, on the Hybrid, then sends that to one of the two buffers stored on the PropGFXLite [noparse];)[/noparse] and alternates, and given more time on it, I could have made a third display buffer for the middle display to have something different on that too [noparse]:)[/noparse] and by doing a single buffer on the hybrid, it's free'd up a lot more memory [noparse];)[/noparse] which is yet another bonus [noparse]:D[/noparse]

RinksCustoms

K, that's friggin cool. Does the GFX lite support tile or tile-like backgrounds with GFX.spin style drawing overlay of the background? For instance a digital dash.

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Baggers

Hi RinksCustoms, yeah, GFX is a propeller after all, and it's customisable too, that display in the vid, is a custom mode [noparse]:)[/noparse] which is basically tv.spin, with the ability to have ALL 32K of ram first 16 bytes, for the display info, ie, 17 longs for the TVparams, 256 bytes for 64 palettes, and 44*15 words for the screen tiles, and the rest of ram can be to make up you're tiles for the screen display. or you can make a completely new display, as you can send it instructions to start a cog with a new program etc. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

glad you like it [noparse]:)[/noparse] the best thing is, because it's on a second prop, you can just have the initial display buffer on you're main prop, or if it's just an initial static image, you could just have a small buffer, and load it in off SD in bits, and upload it to Lite, and save even more ram, although SD object takes around 8K at the moment, lol but I guess that's cos the femtofsrw has lots of other stuff in there too. you could strip it down yet again to just have SD code and not EEPROM stuff too, and remove any other not used stuff [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Baggers.

stevenmess2004

Is it possible to use the hydra sram card on the same bus as the propGFX if you have seperate lines for the chip enable or whatever? If you can, can you then let both the master propeller and the propGFX use the ram card for stuff?

Edit: I probably shouldn't have posted this. Now we will never get it

Baggers

Hi stevenmess, if you don't connect to hybrid/hydra, and use seperate coms pins, then yes, you could use both SRAM + PropGFX, but you wouldn't be able to have both props talk to ram card, unless you program it to talk seperately, as you can't have two cogs talk to HX512 at the same time, so like I said, if you code both props to take turns accessing, then you can get them both to use the SRAM. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

stevenmess2004

Hi Baggers

So would you need 10 pins for the HX512 and 10 pins for the propgfx or could you make the 8 data lines common for both? I understand that you couldn't have two things talking to the HX512 at the same time but just wondering if there would be any advantages.

Baggers

Hi again,

Yes, you could have the 8 data lines common for both.

Baggers

Hi OBC, and all others [noparse]:)[/noparse]
This one's for you OBC as you seem to like high res·8bit modes, here's a 256x120 x 8bit mode [noparse];)[/noparse]

JT Cook

One feature that I think would be pretty useful is to have the PropGFX take a digital snapshot, and return it through the serial port (or data port, however the user has it hooked to their micro). That way people can have a 1:1 screen capture of whatever they are trying to do(kind of like how i have my prop screen capture setup).

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

OH COME ON!!! TEASE!!

That beautiful!! Target date for official release????



OBC

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New to the Propeller?

Getting started with the Protoboard? - Propeller Cookbook 1.4
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Got an SD card? - PropDOS
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(Got the Knowledge? Got a Moment? Add something today!)

Baggers

Thanks, JT, there's soooo many·different modes etc. would have to make different tv·grabbers for all modes, but then it'd be a proximitied·image, RGB wise anyway, as it comes out·different on all tv's/lcds etc.

and Thanks OBC, too, we're aiming for 28th of April. here's another pix to keep you while you wait [noparse]:)[/noparse]

JT Cook

It would actually be easier than you think. First, shut off the TV driver,·Second just get the X/Y resolution and send it out serial,·Third you just send a color for each pixel and send out the serial. Really in the end, you have all the data you need to send just raw pixel color values back from the render.

It doesn't matter how many modes you have because you just need to send X res, Y res, then pixel colors, just write a "fake" TV driver that sends pixels out serial instead of TV.

Even though the color values are not RGB, you can still have a lookup table to convert Prop TV colors to RGB colors and get an image that close enough. But either way you would let the micro connected to the PropGFX handle the color conversion and just feed it the Prop color values (ie for white you would feed it back value $07 to the micro that is hooked up to the PropGFX instead of an RGB value).

Post Edited (JT Cook) : 3/27/2008 2:44:06 PM GMT

Baggers

True, But I've had a thought [noparse]:)[/noparse] to make a MEGA TINY TX app to go inside the tv display drivers, shouldn't be that much memory for a TX only [noparse]:)[/noparse]

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JT Cook

Yeah, I feel pretty strongly that this is something that should be inlcuded, even if it is undocumented without conversion software when it is released at first.

You should make a test·setup that streams a full frame of data from PropGFX to the Hybrid, then dump the values to a file on SD card and have a PC app convert it to BMP.

Baggers

true, but could also make a the Hybrid convert it into a bmp anyway [noparse];)[/noparse]

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JT Cook

It would be a little bit of a head ache since you would still have to save the output someplace, then convert the output to a bitmap since you have to draw a bitmap upside down. But all in all, should be doable.

Baggers

Yeah, very true, probably best to do a small and easy PC app to save as BMP [noparse]:)[/noparse]

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RinksCustoms

Those images are awesome. Me personally, i know there's no room to buffer a screens worth of background, so i'd be very happy with a way to use a tiled background that i could draw gauge needles on every other frame or so, and alternatively use GFX lite as a tilemaped GUI when not in dashboard mode. I'd be interested in ordering one of these for this fuel injection (prop based) i'm prototyping.

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E³ = Thought

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

Coley

@Rinks

Thanks, the board aren't available just yet but we are aiming for end of April though so not long to go.
The biggest lead time is on the connectors as soon as they come in Production can begin.

I'm not sure what other goodies Baggers will squeeze into it by then but a Tile/Character map is already done.

Character Map mode - 16 Colours per Character, 16 Palettes per Screen & 768 Characters per Screen

Coley

Post Edited (Coley) : 4/1/2008 5:59:02 PM GMT

Fabian Nunez

Now that you're much closer to release, I was wondering if you have implemented any:

* high resolution, low colour modes (eg 320x200 2 or 4 color)
* high capacity text modes (eg 40x25, 80x25)

Also, are text modes just tiled modes, or do they have "hardware accelerated" text support? (eg a blinking cursor, automatic scrolling when you "run off the bottom")

Awesome work, guys. I'm really looking forward to playing with this.

Baggers

Thanks Rinks, yeah you can use tiled [noparse];)[/noparse] there's 4 colour or 16 colour tiled modes, each has sprites you can put over the top too [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Fabian, yes, there is already a 320x240 2 colour bitmap mode, or 320x240 4 colour bitmap mode, each has 70 16x16 4 or 16 colour sprites on [noparse]:)[/noparse]
there are also text modes up 40 x 32 ( 30 for NTSC ) 8x8 text modes, again with 70 sprites overlaid, although the higher text resolution modes will have to be custom drivers, as it's hard to fit all those modes into just 496 instructions [noparse]:)[/noparse]

as for your blinking cursor, that can be a sprite, [noparse]:)[/noparse]

glad you're looking forward to it as much as we've enjoyed making it.

Baggers.

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Fabian Nunez

Niiice [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Are the 8x8 fonts user-settable? what sort of color options are there in text mode?

hinv

Wow, I am really impressed. That is way better graphics than any 8bit I've ever seen.

Let me ask though. Is there any graphics mode or any graphics feature that the Commodore64 had that you don't?

Thanks,
Doug