YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

ok so there's no documentation for the source...can i get a copy of your mentalware instead ?

What you've built is great! How big is the physical system? Also, what were the time and money costs?

nxadmon 2 months ago

Yes, it's a very good idea to separate it into parts like CPU --> [ Command decoder --> Drawing modules --> Video buffer --> VGA frame generator ]. Recently, I have been looking at the Video Buffer part, and the timing is very difficult. I don't know if I need to use SDRAM, or SRAM for the speed. Even with the double buffering, I still have to access the RAM very many times. For the RAM interface, do you make a 'memory controller' and have a FIFO there as well?

makorihi 2 months ago

This is so awesome. I'm a college student and I wanted to start my own project over this break for building a very simple GPU in VHDL. I've looked online for material, but I still can't figure out how to start at all. I don't want a complex GPU to start with. Only something that can draw lines and pixels. Then I will expand to triangles and shading. Could you help set me in the right direction?

makorihi 2 months ago

@makorihi - Response part 1/3

Hello makorihi! Here's a possible solution : first, you need to do a VGA frame generator able to display a simple video buffer stored in RAM. So, you will be able to draw graphics (pixel by pixel) with a processor.

Then, for drawing accelerated pictures (without stretching and rotation), lines, rectangles, etc., working by layer is needed.

...

MrLambdaUser 2 months ago

@makorihi - Response part 2/3

A solution consists to make a mini-GPU that can draw these in a specific order into the VGA buffer (at this point, you need to modify the VGA frame generator for manage double-buffering). A typical structure for this GPU is a command interpreter (e.g: "draw pict. at pos X,Y") that sequence the drawning into the video buffer using dedicated blocks (line drawner, pict. drawner,...).

...

MrLambdaUser 2 months ago

@makorihi - Response part 3/3

Other interessant things : Using a FIFO for the GPU commands and 'pipeline' all drawing operations.

In summary : CPU --> [ Command decoder --> Drawing modules --> Video buffer --> VGA frame generator ]

...it's a good start and this can give very good results ;)

MrLambdaUser 2 months ago

WoW Really impressiv and tricky, you are slowing down rendering instead of skipping frames for an constant game speed ;)

suchiman123 3 months ago

hey MrLambda, et all, this is pretty awesome, especially learning. props for documenting so well, its just too bad some people cant appreciate. awesome job! do you have a site? code repo? etc?

brianfreardon 3 months ago

@brianfreardon

We have quickly implemented and programed this system. So, the VHDL/C++ sources are largely too less commented, and still less documented..... That's mainly why we haven't shared the project.

MrLambdaUser 3 months ago

How did you do the video graphics (the rendering, zooming, panning) of the FPGA and CPU chips in the first 7-15 seconds? What software package(s) was/were used? Impressive project as well,

Thanks

thomas49th 3 months ago

@thomas49th

The first 55 seconds are one (of 3) unique 3D scene made and rendered with 'Blender V2.49b'. 'GIMP' was used for some textures, like the text on the FPGA/CPU ICs. The camera orientation/position, arrows movements, lamps intensity and some shaders/textures parameters are controlled with IPO curves.

MrLambdaUser 3 months ago