Hi Timothy,
there are sure boards with PCIe, memory and DVI (using an external
transmitter) - the Xilinx SP605 ($495). It is accessible for about 2
years now, I wonder nobody thought of it as base hardware for OG
development.
To create a HDMI or DVI port, up to 1080/60i, it would be possible to
use the integrated serdes on differential i/o pins, there is a project
for that:
http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/Pipistrello
But it won't do 1080/60p, for that an external transmitter is really
required. Usually fed by 24bit RGB or 12b DDR of the same (similar to OGD1).
To create a compact graphics card, all you need is an FPGA / memory
chip / transmitter. When dealing with really small form factor (mini
pcie x1), you can get the price of the board and assembly really lower
than for a complex design like OGD1.
As for the analog - I'd rather use a dvi+analog transmitter than a
R2R DAC :)
For the modularity: I would imagine a FPGA board going into the mini
PCIe slot and bearing one add-on board with various display options
(LVDS, HDMI, DP) x (with plug / without plug). On the opposite side or
as another layer, an USB programmer could be attached for the developers.
Daniel
On 10/31/2012 02:48 PM, Timothy Normand Miller wrote:
OGD1 is open source, and the mods to add a PCIe to PCI bridge for it
wouldn't be too tough (for someone who is good at PCB design). If you
can do the board, the FPGA logic is there. OGD1 already works and can
be plugged into a PC (with a PCI slot) and booted as console.
The biggest challenge is the expense of having it produced. 25 OGD1
boards cost somewhere around $13000 to make.
Or we could start from scratch. Andre Pouliot and I had some
(slightly divergent) ideas for an OGD2, which would be based on a
newer FPGA and be highly modular.
Another idea would be to see if there is _already_ an FPGA board out
there with a PCIe on it. Actually, I'm sure there is. Xilinx and
others make project boards for their FPGAs. I don't know if you'll
find one with video on it, but if you did, we could do a graphics core
pretty easily. If not, we might be able to design a DVI daughter
board.
Another weird idea (particularly because of the signal integrity
challenges) would be to see if one of these project boards brings
SERDES outputs to some pins with reasonably good quality; we could
then design our own TMDS/DVI circuit to go in the FPGA. :) If we
could pull that off, it would be by far the least expensive OGD2
option, because it would require almost zero hardware design on our
part. We'd need to do FPGA logic, drivers, and adapt I/Os to a DVI
connector. Analog video might be out of the question.
So, here are the features we need in an off-the-shelf FPGA project board:
- PCIe connector
- Memory
- DVI and/or VGA/DAC is bonus
Can you find something like that?
Actually, if we have lots of I/Os to spare, we might be able to do
analog video using a resistor network and a low-pass filter. Someone
with a better EE background could answer that.
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 5:24 AM, "Ing. Daniel Rozsnyó"
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hello all,
currently I am having quite a trouble to get my system working - the board
is Intel DN2800MT, with an n2800 dualcore Atom (Cedar View) - which got that
crappy PowerVR SGX 545 graphics.
Currently, there is no driver for it for 64bit windows and the driver for
Linux is a binary only thing which links to an old xorg and old kernel (3.0
or 3.1).
There is same problem with the older generation of Atoms (Poulsbo) as they
have also this 3rd party graphics core and comes with no support.
I was thinking - would it be possible to put together a simple graphics
card based on Opengraphics, with the following parameters:
- PCIe 1x
- single DP/HDMI/LVDS output
- form factor to match a full mini pcie card (50mm)
If I picked up correctly, there is a drive for embedded targets.. so this
could be interesting.
From the hardware point, it should be enough to use a single FPGA with a
single (or dual) ddr3 memories (that makes 12.8 or 25.6 gbit/s) which is
quite enough for filling it over pcie (2.5Gb) and reading to DP.
For the start, a simple 2D framebuffer with region copy acceleration would
be sufficient..
What does the masses say to that?
I can manage to make the hardware, is there somebody who can make the fpga
core and somebody to write drivers for it?
Daniel
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