2015.11.28: the new 15bit stuff
New schematic and a PCB layout supporting 15bit graphics.
There is an optional header on the PCB for tate switch and coin button.
This is a significant redesign with different GPIOs used and different solution for the board startup.
New firmware for your BBB and BBG. Use along with the latest schematic 03b. I had to modify
the GPIO pin wiring, so it is not compatible with the old 12bit hardware.
As mentioned before there's more video modes added, plus support for tate switch & coin button.
New arvidmame, based on more recent mame0163, ported to several operating systems. Requires
the new hardware and firmware for 15bit graphics. Linux versions have extra headless build
that doesn't require xwindows server to be installed on your machine. The benefit of that
is there is more memory and cpu power for the emulator and also start-up is simplified if used in a cab.
Just start the emulator from /etc/rc.local (no user logging or other input needed).
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2015.11.15: another WIP update...
I've made a PCB for Arvid 0.3b, so it's no longer a bunch of wires on the breadboard.
As a result the videocard is less fragile and looks more like a proper Beaglebone cape.
The gerber files for the PCB will be free to download and use.
Arvid 0.3b on top of Beaglebone Green.
I no longer use transceiver as it caused power issues when Beaglebone was running off the USB power.
I could see parts of the screen changed brightness as the power intermittently dropped voltage. I tried to correct
it by using capacitors which helped to a degree, but still sometimes the picture flicked and spoiled
the experience. I replaced the transceiver by quad bilateral switch (74HC4066N) and the power
issues are gone - Hurray!
(update 2015.11.17) DRC issue on win64 port of Arvidmame 0163 fixed. It works perfectly now, I was missing
the X64_WINDOWS_ABI preprocessor symbol. I guess the release is coming soon then...
There is a slight issue with DRC on the Windows build of Arvidmame 0163. Basically using the DRC
crashes the emulator atm.. If DRC is turned off it works fine. Let's see what I can do about it...
I've been testing Arvid on more TVs just to know whether there are any compatibility issues. Here
are some pics (sorry for the quality, my phone is not great for that).
Daewoo TV - Korean game on a Korean TV... small issues with geometry in the bottom right corner. Otherwise
clear and colorful picture with well defined scanlines.
Hitachi - perfect geometry, colors too bright and greenish. Didn't have time to fiddle with colors
, also scan-lines not so visible (maybe because the black was too bright). Overall positive result.
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2015.08.31: just an update of the project progress...
I have the 15 bit graphics working now, just need to make few snapshots and draw a schematics
and connection schema for you. It's definitely worth switching to RGB555 as it improves the
graphics in many games (made since 1987 and up). The old 12 bit graphics (RGB444) will not be supported
in the new release any more.
I have made few more video modes. It's 240 (old Konami games), 392 (SNK) and 400 (Williams, Midway).
As usuall more than 40 refresh rates go with each of them as well.
I'm working on new Arvidmame which will be based on more recent mame version 0.163. It works quite
well on my linux Intel32 machine (drc enabled) and Arm32 (no drc unfortunately).
Other ports (Win & Mac) will take some more time to produce... stay tuned :)
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2015.07.03: new arvid client & server version 0.2c, arvidmame released!
crude fix of lost packet issue occurring on saturated networks
arvid-client: multi CPU core frame-buffer compression. If your machine has multiple CPU cores
then arvid-client uses all of them in parallel to compress the frame buffer. This allows quicker
compression of the frame-buffer.
arvid-client: added support for non-blocking blit of the frame-buffer. When enabled, then blit function
doesn't wait for frame-buffer compression and transfer, but returns ASAP. This allows the main
thread to quickly continue to produce new frame content. The drawback is increased latency
of 1 extra frame between the main app and the video result on the TV screen.
arvidmame: inital versions released for linux-arm32, linux-intel32, linux-amd64 (all linux version are headless
so there is no need for Xorg), osx-intel-64bit, win-intel-64bit (both use SDL for input and sound). The arvid-mame is
based on sdlmame0.136. Source code with compilation scripts are included. NOTE! Requires latest arvid server (0.2c)
installed on BBB.
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2015.05.06: circuit version 0.2b
fixed startup issue of BBB by using
SN74LS245N transceiver in between Blue and Green DAC signals
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2015.04.26: version 0.2
initial public release
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