Going to share some intel: Pericom bridges ``do'' work with bare fpga's
(3.3 v) at least the 32-bit (66MHz)
PI7C9X111SL, in which the StarTech card is based on.
The newest linux kernel, mmap, DMA transactions _DO_ transparently
work. No new drivers
are required for the pci card to work with the bridge (pci license terms
should soften on users?).
When readed about PCIe to PCI-X applications like in
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3788/oczs-revodrive-pcie-ssd-preview-an-affordable-pcie-ssd
http://www.pericom.com/products/pcie-pci-bridges/?part=PI7C9X130
immediately thought about OGD, and how it could benefit from it, and
(other projects as well) .
There are new PCIe bridges, a bare Open Hardware bridge (2-layer pcb)
would be a great project by its own. I can do 2-layer pcb with PCB
(sourceforge), have done my little working PCI project, with
my own reflow oven.
http://www.versamedium.com/pci/serrano.html
pci is very much alive! and can't work for free,
have to pay the rent and no government is sponsoring me.
Joel
On 12/10/2012 08:48 AM, Timothy Normand Miller wrote:
How about this:
Small Actel flash-based FPGA (the flash is in the CLBs, so the
programming is instant). This one FPGA contains PCIe or an interface
to an external PCIe, memory controller (got one), and video controller
(got one). We could even support VGA text console (got that too).
Steps:
1. Figure out our PCIe solution
2. Cobble together OGD1 logic components into simplified solution
3. Synthesize to see how much logic are we need
4. Choose FPGA
5. Design board
6. ???
7. Profit
What's on the board?
- Small FPGA
- Maybe external PCIe chip
- Video encoder (DAC, DVI)
- Memory (if we can get cheap DDR1, we already have a controller)
We need someone to take charge of this, and I can advise. From the
perspective of the university and funding agencies, I'm chasing energy
efficiency in CPUs, GPUs, and memory systems, and I'm asserting that
the lack of research (simulation, etc.) infrastructure is an
impediment, so they should fund that too. I'm trying to solve
multiple problems at once, but that does constrain what I personally
can spend time on.
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 12:35 AM, Troy Benjegerdes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Mind you, someone probably thought the whole Steam idea was a
distraction,
> while I think it's a good idea, so I'm not saying to stop
brain-storming.
> I'm just saying that we should divert more of our energy towards
> developing an energy-efficient GPU. The more we get distracted by
> pie-in-the-sky ambitions, the longer it'll take us to make
something even
> mediocre. First, we do the things we can do now, with the
resources we
> have, and then we use those to achieve something else.
Brainstorming is good. As for mediocre, what's the fastest path to
getting
some sort of very basic framebuffer and a dumb resistor VGA output
DAC,
and a simple single shader in VHDL that I can put on an XESS Xula2, or
Actel FPGA, or DE0-Nano board?
Or maybe drive a 32x16 LED matrix? There's lots of interesting
applications
with high potential margins that don't look like a PCI-E video card.
--
Timothy Normand Miller, PhD
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Binghamton University
http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/
<http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/%7Emillerti>
Open Graphics Project
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