FPGA Replay Board

[espskog]

should not be a problem if it comes to amiga68k rtg solutions, my main 4000er handles that alright even under p96. cant use the (expensive&shitty/4.2 dumb users) mac display i have standing here cause it doesnt accept analogue signals anymore.

If I recall correctly, the Replay board has DVI output which the Apple Display should like. Anyway, I think I will buy something else which does not cost a zillion extra for the apple logo

Espen

[freqmax]

wawrzon, There are Analogue -> to -> DVI/HDMI adapters. Not cheap but they exist.

Btw, I think mikej could build one
(A/D + FPGA + Transmitter)

[mikej]

If I recall correctly, the Replay board has DVI output which the Apple Display should like. Anyway, I think I will buy something else which does not cost a zillion extra for the apple logo

Espen

Yes it has DVI out (which can be used with a HDMI TV input), analogue out (on the DVI connector) and sVHS/composite.
/Mike

[freqmax]

Tip for identifying that Apple connector:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_connectors#Physical_connectors

[espskog]

Yes it has DVI out (which can be used with a HDMI TV input), analogue out (on the DVI connector) and sVHS/composite.
/Mike

That is very nice. Is there any need for a config setting to choose from DVI output vs sVHS/Composite output or are all they video outputs active at the same time (if so --> very nice!!!).
 
Espen

[mikej]

If the board is displaying standard ntsc/pal on the DVI out then the sVHS/Comp can be enabled as well. For HD modes these outputs are disabled.
/Mike

[espskog]

Is DVI behaving in the same manner as Analog VGA does so that even though it's 31kHz hor sync, it's still 50Hz vert sync ? Or does DVI simply just bash the pixels to the screen without the need of a 50Hz sync ?
 
The reason I ask is that many LCD monitors suck at displaying 50Hz analog VGA. Either they just won't operate, or they display a silly message on the screen which sometimes cannot be clicked away using the OSD on the LCD monitor.
 
Also, I was wondering if the Replay board uses more or less the same OSD layout as Minimig does, or is it more facelifted when it comes to the layout (e.g. mouse controlled etc?).
 
//Espen

[mikej]

DVI just bashes pixels to the screen (at 50Hz or 60Hz in this case).
Most computer screens will not accept the 50Hz vertical refresh rate.
However, if you plug the DVI into a HDMI input, the screen will work at 50Hz P or I (interlaced).

The Amiga core chucks out 50i or 60i which can be scan doubled to 50p or 60p.

The board is generic and my boot loader is a facelifted. The Amiga port is currently being worked on by Jakub as is based on the Minimig ARM code.

We will hopefully see some convergence of the code.
/Mike

[freqmax]

DVI/HDMI has a quirk.. it sends horizontal and vertical sync along with the digital pixels....

[espskog]

But if I skip over from using a computer LCD screen to instead a LCD Television, I presume that it will eat the 50Hz without any problems. Correct ? A 55" LED TV connected to the Replat using DVI will be very nifty
 
Are there horizontal and Vertical filters on the Replay aswell so that the pixels are blurred a little bit ? I dislike the chunky sharp pixels. It's too "perfect" :-)

[mikej]

Depends what the core does. The hardware has filters to limit the video bandwidth to an appropriate level for the interface.  I have the board connected to my 50" Plasma at the moment, running at both 625i and 625P

LCD TVs will look sharp at their native resolution and fuzzy at other resolutions, depending on the quality of their sizing engine. The Amiga core outputs at native resolution, so no filtering is possible. If it is scan doubling then some vertical filtering is required.

What may be possible is to run the output at 1280x720 say and scale the original picture into that window with decent filtering.

/MikeJ

[freqmax]

Another trick/hack is to dump the Amiga screen into a buffer and have your own scaler algorithm.

As I recall the PAL color modulation is responsible for some of the blurring. Some C64 emulator has this blur mode. And it certinly improves the picture beauty.

[espskog]

BTW: Is there a C64 core for the replay board which is working ?

[ChaosLord]

As I recall the PAL color modulation is responsible for some of the blurring. Some C64 emulator has this blur mode. And it certinly improves the picture beauty.

What is this "PAL color modulation" of which you speak?

[hceline]

75% of the Spartan-3E 1600



75% is taken by: Minimig AGA core (with 24-bit scandoubler) + SDRAM DDR memory controller + TG68.C (V0.40) + dual CPU caches + 16-bit DMA AHI sound card module + 128 channel embeded logic analyzer

How much space does each part in that list occupy?

[espskog]

Interesting to know if the 128 channel logic analyzer takes up much space. Does not sounds like it's really needed for general use ? Is it just there for development ?