Beautiful landscapes are prettier than portraits

[mclien]

(hope I didn't overread something)

What I still don't understand is: Will all the resolution issues apply to the external Screen(s) over HDMI, too?

When using the Pyra as Desktop rplacement, I'd like to have a better resolution. 1280x1024 at least, better some higher and best with 2 Monitors. Will we have 2 HDMI out with the docking station?

 

[FaeMinx]

As far as I understood, I believe we can still go full HD with an external monitor... with a performance hit... but I don't think we'll be able to support 2 external monitors??

 

[Jey123456]

From what i understand, the chips would only be for the internal display (it happen transparently/can be controlled from software to enable/disable it and essentially "transform" the display the machine see for the main lcd from 720x1280 to 1280x720 transparently (and handle scaling lower resolution in a similar fashion computer lcd display do when you set it to a lower resolution than the display really is).

It shouldnt affect hdmi output whatsoever since its a different output (not passing by the chip as the hdmi monitor is already the right orientation). Altho i do not think we could have 2 hdmi output, offcourse i could be wrong. 

On the other hand, there are some pretty decent usb3 to hdmi which could be used for a second screen. 

 

[WizardStan]

Will all the resolution issues apply to the external Screen(s) over HDMI, too?

No, the HDMI output is different from the DSI output. There's no restriction there, go full 1080p if you want. There is only one HDMI port though. Any talk of docking stations has been about passthrough of that port, adding a hub to the USB, etc...There is one HDMI port and two DSI ports, hypothetically I guess the second DSI port could be exposed somewhere and a MIPI->HDMI adapter used to give you a second HDMI output but I don't know if ED wants to go through the trouble or if gta04 could even make it happen: that's an extra 11 data lines that need to go somewhere.

 

[pmprog]

If you connect a TV to the HDMI, does:

1. The internal display get disabled?

2. Internal display renders the same as the TV?

3. Internal display gets a seperate desktop to the TV?

Just wondering

 

[WizardStan]

Any and all of the above. It'd behave the same as on the Pandora.

 

[mclien]

Ah thanks for the clarification, Stan.

I also like to have the DSI port patched through somehow to the docking station.

 

[God Ginrai]

In some ways this situation reminds me of how it currently is on the Pandora: by default, you get only 16 bit color so if you don't explicitly use something like notaz' SDL, you have a limited color depth with possibly visible artifacts (e.g. on gradients). For the vast majority of games and apps it does not matter much.

Except Notaz's SDL doesn't require a piece of hardware (the GPU) with closed source drivers (ogles drivers) to get around said issue.

-God Ginrai

 

[EvilDragon]

Any and all of the above. It'd behave the same as on the Pandora.

It basically behaves like a second monitor on any PC.

You can use it, clone it, etc.

 

[_wb_]

In some ways this situation reminds me of how it currently is on the Pandora: by default, you get only 16 bit color so if you don't explicitly use something like notaz' SDL, you have a limited color depth with possibly visible artifacts (e.g. on gradients). For the vast majority of games and apps it does not matter much.

Except Notaz's SDL doesn't require a piece of hardware (the GPU) with closed source drivers (ogles drivers) to get around said issue.

Using the GPU to do the rotation manually is just one of the options to get an uncompressed framebuffer. You can just as well do the rotation on the CPU, or maybe on the 2D accelerator or on the DSP or on one of those M4 cores. Or you can render everything so that it is already rotated (but that could be quite a bit of work in many cases).

It should also in principle be possible to make a version of SDL that does the rotation transparently as long as you don't use the screen surface directly but only through calls to SDL's blit and draw functions. Lots of games and applications satisfy that requirement. There would probably be a bit of overhead (because rotated blits are less efficient than normal blits), but it could be good enough.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Wasn't it the same as this on the GP32, I seem to recall writing all my ASM blitting routines for vertical scanlines? Only this time around there are trivial fixes for rotation.

 

[Exophase]

Wasn't it the same as this on the GP32, I seem to recall writing all my ASM blitting routines for vertical scanlines? Only this time around there are trivial fixes for rotation.

Yes, GP32 and Wiz both had this problem. Although Wiz had a mode where the display was rotated it caused unavoidable diagonal tearing. GPH switched to having SDL do the rotation in software and there was a pretty big performance loss.

 

[God Ginrai]

GPH switched to having SDL do the rotation in software and there was a pretty big performance loss.

And that would be no different here if we did the same thing, right? We have much more power now, but it still would be costly for a much larger screen.

-God Ginrai

 

[Exophase]

And that would be no different here if we did the same thing, right? We have much more power now, but it still would be costly for a much larger screen.

It's not the same if there's a solution that works that doesn't use the CPU.

Even then I don't think GPH did a great job with their software routine.

 

[God Ginrai]

It's not the same if there's a solution that works that doesn't use the CPU.

Which would be...? We're talking about a method that does not use OpenGLES. You know how long it took for us to get the DSP working on the Pandora. As pointed out before, if we use the 2D chip, then it takes up time we could be using it for our own purposes. And I highly doubt the M4's would be useful for this purpose.

-God Ginrai

 

[mcobit]

What about this screen?


http://www.adafruit.com/product/1695


You could ask adafruit if they can supply it without the driverboard.


Has 1280x800 resolution and seems to be landscape.

 

[Exophase]

What about this screen?

http://www.adafruit.com/product/1695

You could ask adafruit if they can supply it without the driverboard.

Has 1280x800 resolution and seems to be landscape.

The power consumption is around 3.3W. Not sure how much of that is due to the driver board but unless it's the majority that looks really bad..

Here's the display they use (or equivalent): http://www.panelook.com/LTD056EV7F_TOSHIBA_5.6_LCM_overview_15331.html It says discontinued, not a great sign. Also don't like that it's 18bpp.

 

[EvilDragon]

It's not the same if there's a solution that works that doesn't use the CPU.

Which would be...?

Tearing free rotation which uses doublebuffering and a pin for the vsync, which is exactly what the chip does.

 

[EvilDragon]

Has 1280x800 resolution and seems to be landscape.

That screen has several issues at once:

* Not very bright

* LVDS (not MIPI)

* 6-bit colors (262K)

* Out of production

* Too big

 

[God Ginrai]

It's not the same if there's a solution that works that doesn't use the CPU.

Which would be...?

Tearing free rotation which uses doublebuffering and a pin for the vsync, which is exactly what the chip does.

We were talking about solutions that were alternative to the chip, so as to have a way around the compression.

-God Ginrai