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Author Topic: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!  (Read 19507 times)

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Offline graffias79

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #29 on: August 26, 2009, 12:33:23 PM »
I think I read somewhere that Paula is a 16 bit chip with 8 bit DACs so that it actually loads 2 8 bit samples at a time.  I am not sure if this is anything useful, though.  Perhaps a Paula 16 AHI driver could be written?  This might also lower the sampling rate of the chip since it achieves 28KHz 8-bit maybe the max would be 14KHz 16-bit (yuck)
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #30 on: August 26, 2009, 01:16:53 PM »
Quote from: bloodline;520961
yeah it's a nice idea, and the old longing for such a thing is strong... But honestly, a cheap Audio DSP chip off the shelf would be soooooooooo much better it is scary!


Sure, but such a DSP could be part of the output bus of said design. I'm just talking about a legacy paula interface.

I didn't say anything about not having dedicated RAM and a full blown DSP on the other side of it (for AHI drivers perhaps).
int p; // A
 

Offline VingtTrois

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #31 on: August 26, 2009, 07:40:35 PM »
Quote from: ChaosLord;520953
/me waiting for a 16-bit Paula :)

2 Paula's piggybacked = 8 channels!!!


Exolon of FAIRLIGHT (Startrekker) had said to me, a few years ago (!) , that it would be impossible: because "cycle or timing" between the 2 PAULA (I don't remember exactly).
My project was to build an expansion for AMIGA 500/2000/3000 with more than 2 PAULA inside to have 8, 12 or 16 channels...with a STARTREKKER (like FastTracker :-) )
-A3K(T)040@35MHz/78MB/KS3.1/OS3.9/Buster11/PICASSO II/GVP IO/A2088XT/DENEB/HDD18GB
-A3K(D)030@25MHz/134MB RAM/KS3.1/OS3.9/Buster11/RETINA Z2/OKTAGON 2008/VLAB YC/MIDI/DKB3128/HDD18GB
-A2K/ROM 1.3-3.1/2MBCHIP/8MB/A2091/OKTAGON 2008/A2058/TANDEM IDE/FlickerFixer-Scandoubler/Genlock
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Offline Schoenfeld

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #32 on: August 26, 2009, 08:16:52 PM »
not sure how this flickerfixer thread became a sound-thread, but it's even possible to re-configure the FPGA to be a sound output.

All data that is pumped into Paula through the DMA channels comes flying by Indivision ECS as well, so it can potentially make use of it. The three analog RGB outputs could be pulsed to carry more-than-16-bit audio (maybe a capacitor should be added to filter the high-frequency pulses), and the HSync/VSync signals could be used for SPDIF digital output fairly easily.

While the real Paula can only join two 8-bit channels to be one 14-bit channel, we could give it a true 16-bit channel. Data rate would be a problem, though: Maximum sample rate would remain the same if the standard DMA channels and existing software shall be used.

We do have some ram on the board, which could be used as sample data ram (which unfortunately is only 13 bits wide, making 6.5M of the 8M buffer usable). Hmmm... now who has the source code to some tracker software?

Jens
 

Offline TheGoose

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #33 on: August 26, 2009, 08:28:57 PM »
:eek:  Will some one please get this man some Octamed SS source code asap! Maybe you should come out with a "AudioVision" version? Wait, what about AGA?

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Offline NovaCoder

Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #34 on: August 27, 2009, 12:43:18 AM »
Quote from: graffias79;520962
Perhaps a Paula 16 AHI driver could be written?


That would be the only practical way of doing it.
Life begins at 100 MIPS!


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Offline FrenchShark

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #35 on: August 27, 2009, 04:40:47 AM »
Hello Jens,

By looking at the picture with the 3 screens, I can see that the dual screen trick is done this way :
The Amiga (I mean Agnus...) is set up to display a 640x512 interlaced screen but the workbench thinks it is a 1280x256 screen.
One FF shows the even frames, the other one shows the odd frames. Screen update is done at 25Hz in the FF's SDRAM and 75Hz on the screens.
Very smart trick indeed.
To get higher resolutions, you will have to lower the update rate. It reminds me the high resolution screen from commodore that was combining 4 screens and had an update rate of 15 Hz.

Back to the indivision, a good use of it would be to get HW acceleration for MAME.
If it is possible to reconfigure the FPGA on the fly without flashing the board, that might be possible (I do not want to reflash the board each time I play a different game).

Regards,

Frederic
 

Offline cpfuture

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #36 on: August 27, 2009, 06:53:30 AM »
Quote from: Schoenfeld;521004

We do have some ram on the board, which could be used as sample data ram (which unfortunately is only 13 bits wide, making 6.5M of the 8M buffer usable). Hmmm... now who has the source code to some tracker software?

Jens


Damn, I marvel at your knowledge, ideas and ability to produce real life working products out of them. Upgraded Amiga audio would be so cool. :)

Offline bloodline

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #37 on: August 27, 2009, 08:17:06 AM »
Quote from: FrenchShark;521046
Hello Jens,

By looking at the picture with the 3 screens, I can see that the dual screen trick is done this way :
The Amiga (I mean Agnus...) is set up to display a 640x512 interlaced screen but the workbench thinks it is a 1280x256 screen.
One FF shows the even frames, the other one shows the odd frames. Screen update is done at 25Hz in the FF's SDRAM and 75Hz on the screens.
Very smart trick indeed.
To get higher resolutions, you will have to lower the update rate. It reminds me the high resolution screen from commodore that was combining 4 screens and had an update rate of 15 Hz.

Back to the indivision, a good use of it would be to get HW acceleration for MAME.
If it is possible to reconfigure the FPGA on the fly without flashing the board, that might be possible (I do not want to reflash the board each time I play a different game).

Regards,

Frederic


I don't think so... it looks like the Amiga thinks it displays a 640*512 (or 640*256 it doesn't matter) with 4 bitplanes, i.e. 16 colours... but the first two bitplanes display on one monitor and the other two display on the other monitor... giving two 8 colour screens... it is a bit like the old DualPlayfield effect that I used to love using to get faster blitting back in the day... but with each playfield on a different monitor. One of the few advantages of using blitplane graphics over chunky ones...

Offline Schoenfeld

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #38 on: August 27, 2009, 09:51:35 AM »
Quote from: FrenchShark;521046
Hello Jens,

By looking at the picture with the 3 screens, I can see that the dual screen trick is done this way :
The Amiga (I mean Agnus...) is set up to display a 640x512 interlaced screen but the workbench thinks it is a 1280x256 screen.
One FF shows the even frames, the other one shows the odd frames. Screen update is done at 25Hz in the FF's SDRAM and 75Hz on the screens.
Very smart trick indeed.

Thanks :-) That was only the fastest possible way of testing the thing, and there are multiple other ways to transfer different pictures.
Quote from: FrenchShark;521046
To get higher resolutions, you will have to lower the update rate. It reminds me the high resolution screen from commodore that was combining 4 screens and had an update rate of 15 Hz.

You're talking about the A2024 monitor - nice thing, I have been using that over many years until the CRT stopped working. It did have some nice additions like transferring the field where the mouse pointer is more often than the other fields, so it appeared to the user as if the update rate was higher. A serious drawback was that it could only display five or six different shades of grey. I do like retro, but black&white is not the right thing for the Amiga (even for people like me, who do everything in the shell).

Quote from: FrenchShark;521046
Back to the indivision, a good use of it would be to get HW acceleration for MAME.
If it is possible to reconfigure the FPGA on the fly without flashing the board, that might be possible (I do not want to reflash the board each time I play a different game).

Re-configuring from software-only without going through the flash may be possible, but will have to stand back behind a fast re-config from flash. We may have to switch between FPGA cores on every change of screenmodes, so speed is cruicial here. Currently a change of cores takes about a tenth of a second if flash is the source, but we'd like to reduce this to "one VGA frame", so monitors don't get confused too much.

Re-configuring from software-only will take a lot longer (several seconds), as there's only a bit-banging data path to the FPGA. I will probably NOT release the schematics to this thing, as it's meant to be a product, not a development platform, so don't count on anyone to make specialized cores for non-standard software. Imagine somebody causing bus contention between the 3.3V FPGA and the 5V-tolerant drivers! A faulty core could potentially damage a chip, and if this happens within the warranty period, it would be very expensive for me. The risk is just too high.

Jens
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #39 on: August 27, 2009, 11:08:42 AM »
Quote from: bloodline;521059
I don't think so... it looks like the Amiga thinks it displays a 640*512 (or 640*256 it doesn't matter) with 4 bitplanes, i.e. 16 colours... but the first two bitplanes display on one monitor and the other two display on the other monitor... giving two 8 colour screens... it is a bit like the old DualPlayfield effect that I used to love using to get faster blitting back in the day... but with each playfield on a different monitor. One of the few advantages of using blitplane graphics over chunky ones...


You sure that isn't a pair of 4-colour screens?  ;)
int p; // A
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #40 on: August 27, 2009, 11:26:11 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;521068
You sure that isn't a pair of 4-colour screens?  ;)


Yeah... Note to self: don't post before I've had my first coffee of the day :p

Offline trip6

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #41 on: August 27, 2009, 04:34:30 PM »
Oh man... I so badly want like two or three of these... Red are you taking advance orders? Amigakit? I'll then be able to attach all my amigas to my KVM... gota get some speaker hookups for the amigas though now that I won't be using 1084s monitors anymore....
 

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #42 on: August 27, 2009, 05:24:17 PM »
@Schoenfeld

Any rough ETA on the release of CloneA? Just trying to get an idea, no one will hold you to any date mentioned.
 

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Offline quarkx

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Re: IndivisionECS will have dual video output!
« Reply #44 from previous page: August 27, 2009, 11:01:32 PM »
Ouch! $140 each, I guess I will just have to get one, not the 6 I was planning on.
I have Amiga stuff for sale at http://amigalounge.com. You can follow my builds there also.