Video and Games on Propeller QuickStart

jmseight

Hi,

I have downloaded several video and game demos on my Propeller QuickStart. I have no other board other than a solderless breadboard that I wire up the RCA video port with resistors.

Some of the demos work immediately, while others don't. I would like to ask why this is so.

For example, I downloaded the "Graphics_Palette_-_Archive__Date_2008.02.27__Time_16.01" and I got a display. But "Animation_Instructable_Source" produced a blank screen. I went in and used the same "TV.spin" from the first program and made some modification, and got "Animation_Instructable_Source" to work.

Also, games like "Battlez0wned", "FantasyFighter" and "Boulderdash" had displays, but ""GridRunner", "loadrunner" and "NEC_Pacman_emulator" had blank display. They all compiled and loaded but some had blank display.

Would someone be able to tell me why this is so? Are there several version of incompatible TV drivers? Are there memory issues?

Thanks,
James

potatohead

There are a *lot* of TV drivers, and they are very different in how they get the display done.

First thing that comes to mind is the pin definitions. You will need to set these for each driver you use. Copying files over won't work in the majority of cases. Also clock frequency. Most things assume an 80Mhz propeller, but some want 96, 100, etc... Or they can be changed.

TV.spin is standard. Where you see it, you've got a shot at just using one, but that one was modified for a lot of projects. Again, depending on how the display is done.

I looked at Loderunner, and that's a driver I actually contributed to. You can find the configuration options in the file: loderunner.spin

'' I/O SETTINGS

_clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x
_xinfreq = 6_000_000

'' Adjust for video and sound.

video = 12 '' Hydra = 24
sound = 10 '' Hydra = 7

'' Adjust for location of the SD card.

spiDO = 16
spiClk = 17
spiDI = 18
spiCS = 19

'' Joypad serial shifter settings.

joy_Clk = 3
joy_Lch = 4
joy_DATAOUT0 = 5
joy_DATAOUT1 = 6

This game takes some prep as it's level data is on an SD card. It may not just work. Some modification may be needed depending on how you implement a joypad, etc...

For each of these, read through and understand what hardware is really needed. Then you need to either modify the source to match up with your setup, and or add hardware to your setup.

This one is coded for a 6Mhz clock, which equals a 96Mhz Propeller. I think you can change that and the driver will still work. I've not run that one in a long time.

You can probably ignore the sound.

Great excuse to setup a DIP-40 Prop on a breadboard, and or some other stuff, like the SD card, etc...