Details for the next generation of Flickerfixers from Individual Computers

[desiv]

Originally Posted by AlicePPC

@Jens
News about the start of production ?

If you scroll up a few messages, he says it looks likely they will be out by Christmas...
(Target is October he says)

desiv

[RMK]

Waiting for one of these for my A1200 and also wanting one for my A4000D. If an official list or preorder starts for the A4000D model post in this thread so I don't miss it.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by slk486

Unfortunately yes. Unless you have a perfect 50 or multiply thereof, there will be jitter

How bad is this expected to be? "noticable, if you know about it." "bugging you, regardless of pre-knowledge" "useless for scrolling games"

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

100Hz is not supported by too many monitors, especially not TFTs. The next logical step would be to triple the pixel clock, resulting in 75Hz output for PAL. Indivision AGA MK2 will have enough memory performance to do that - and it has the exact same effect that you desire: Having the VBlanks synced.

You may not want to use that output on NTSC, as it would produce 90Hz output. The current Indivision turns an NTSC screen into 75Hz output if you're using the 1.25 mode, and we even get support requests because some monitors can't handle 75Hz. This is why the factory setting is now "60Hz for NTSC and 62.5Hz for PAL".

Will this be a setting you can play around with somewhere? Seeing as newer sets will support more features, possibly allowing better end results... (this looks promising, but i still anted to ask)

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

That's already possible on all internal Indivision models. Just change the number of padding-lines and padding pixels with the config tool in order to get to what the monitor likes best. Some monitors may not like the pixelclock or the resulting intermediate H/V frequencies.

Indivision AGA MK2 will have more choices of pixelclocks, which brings it much closer to standard PC gfx modes. This makes it compatible with more monitors.

Above all else, i haven't seen it mentioned so i assume it's been "by default" but... This will work from power on, nothing loaded, no drivers, no software running, nothing. Possibly the thing has to be configured, but after that it's all on the unit it self, so the miggy doesn't have to boot an OS to be able to display games on the Telly... Right?
B!

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Above all else, i haven't seen it mentioned so i assume it's been "by default" but... This will work from power on, nothing loaded, no drivers, no software running, nothing. Possibly the thing has to be configured, but after that it's all on the unit it self, so the miggy doesn't have to boot an OS to be able to display games on the Telly... Right?
B!

Just like with the old version, you can save your settings for each screenmode and they're stored in the flash of Indivision AGA. If some game that doesn't use the OS switches to that screenmode, Indivision is going to remember on it's own, without the need to start a config tool.

Jens

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Just like with the old version, you can save your settings for each screenmode and they're stored in the flash of Indivision AGA. If some game that doesn't use the OS switches to that screenmode, Indivision is going to remember on it's own, without the need to start a config tool.

Thank you for the fast reply. I have no experience with the old version, so i had to ask.

I figure it's simply to subjective, or to early to say anything about it, for the rest of my post.
B!

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

... Indivision is going to remember on it's own,

Ok, now you're just showing off...

Impressive..

desiv

[Schoenfeld]

Hi everyone,

I just pushed the DVI encoder to the limit, and it seems to violate it's own specifications. I previous postings, I have claimed that the DVI encoder can support up to 165MHz pixelclock, but if you read the application notes and technical bulletins "between the lines", it's only safe to go up to 135MHz pixelclock.

I have just verified that 128.7MHz pixelclock works (4.5 times the Amiga pixelclock), and the picture is rock-solid. However, anything higher makes the monitor lose sync, because the PLL inside the DVI encoder chip goes out of sync. The analogue output of the chip still shows a picture, so it's purely the DVI PLL that is over the limit.

The chip vendor actually recommends to supply the chip with 3.6V instead of 3.3V to get up to the 165MHz barrier, but I don't feel like doing that. There's plenty of screenmodes available with up to 135MHz, the biggest being 1400 x 1050 pixels at 60Hz. It's just the 1600x1200 pixels that we won't have. If you expected that, you might want to cancel your pre-order now :-)

Another change of plans is the connector and the cable inside the computer: I don't have room for the 2x10pin connector on Indivision, because there's an electrolytic cap in the way in the A4000T. I will probably go for an edge connector with standard 1.27mm cable and a 2x10 connector with 2.54mm raster at the other end. The beauty of differential signalling lets me make that cable much longer than the VGA cable of the old Indivision AGA (50cm enough? that's what I'm testing with here).

Jens

[mfilos]

Thanks for informing us Jens! Everything sounds awesome

[Retrofan]

Yes, I'm waiting nervous...

[Mr B]

Darn. No 1080p...
Yes i know, i'm joking, sort of. Not much use of anything but 4:3 resolutions from the hardware. However, i'm not sure about all of you, but i sure will run in full-screen on my telly, meaning that if the hardware delivers 4:3 i'm going to have the image scaled, twize. First by the Indivision, and then by the TV. In the interest of picture quality, if you can still speak of such after stretching it from 4:3 to 16:9, wouldn't it be "best" if the scaling could be done in one step? Either way "i'm screwed" as the TV (and most modern TV's are) 1920x1080, i believe. This leaves me thinking i'll be getting "something else" when ever this something else gets available, and that i'll "only will be getting the Indivision MK II as a temporary fix."
Sort of sad i guess, but with the current hardware limitations it seams there isn't much else to do?

Also, i think a lot of people will have to try and use the Indivision to first scale up the picture as much as possible, and as close as your preferred screen aspect ratio as possible, and then jump straight to the smallest scaling possible while still working for the TV sets, to see what scales the image most to their liking, the Indivision, or the TV's internal scaling features. My TV scales really nice, but it seams impossible to turn of post processing, making the darn thing have a tendency to lag behind when playing on the consoles. (scart) Not as bad on HDMI, so i hope that will not be an issue...
B!

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Hi everyone,

I just pushed the DVI encoder to the limit, and it seems to violate it's own specifications. I previous postings, I have claimed that the DVI encoder can support up to 165MHz pixelclock, but if you read the application notes and technical bulletins "between the lines", it's only safe to go up to 135MHz pixelclock.

I have just verified that 128.7MHz pixelclock works (4.5 times the Amiga pixelclock), and the picture is rock-solid. However, anything higher makes the monitor lose sync, because the PLL inside the DVI encoder chip goes out of sync. The analogue output of the chip still shows a picture, so it's purely the DVI PLL that is over the limit.

The chip vendor actually recommends to supply the chip with 3.6V instead of 3.3V to get up to the 165MHz barrier, but I don't feel like doing that. There's plenty of screenmodes available with up to 135MHz, the biggest being 1400 x 1050 pixels at 60Hz. It's just the 1600x1200 pixels that we won't have. If you expected that, you might want to cancel your pre-order now :-)

Another change of plans is the connector and the cable inside the computer: I don't have room for the 2x10pin connector on Indivision, because there's an electrolytic cap in the way in the A4000T. I will probably go for an edge connector with standard 1.27mm cable and a 2x10 connector with 2.54mm raster at the other end. The beauty of differential signalling lets me make that cable much longer than the VGA cable of the old Indivision AGA (50cm enough? that's what I'm testing with here).

Jens

Cool, so something like HighGFX HD720 (1280x720) which currently runs @ 47 Hz go to a higher refresh rate with the Mrk2 automatically or will Ratte have to tweak the driver to boost the rate?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Mr B

i'm going to have the image scaled, twize. First by the Indivision, and then by the TV.

Indivision does not do any scaling. It only processes single pixels. Always has and always will.

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Cool, so something like HighGFX HD720 (1280x720) which currently runs @ 47 Hz go to a higher refresh rate with the Mrk2 automatically or will Ratte have to tweak the driver to boost the rate?

Yep, I can do that without Ratte making a new driver. However, I'm pretty sure that he will come up with something that goes beyond the limit of the hardware at some point ;-)

Jens

[Mr B]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but what it does, is takes the data "used" to create the image, and blows it up in size? might not be the most flattering way to describe it, but isn't that exactly what scaling means? With a little luck your way is a neater way, producing a cleaner image over the sometimes blocky results cheap TV's get.

Sure, i've been misunderstanding things before, but thats my understanding?
B!

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Correct me if i'm wrong, but what it does, is takes the data "used" to create the image, and blows it up in size?

Nope, a flickerfixer does not "blow up in size", but "speed up in data rate" without changing the size.

The very first flickerfixers just took the picture and doubled pixelclock, so for every frame that the Amiga generates, two frames for the VGA monitor were generated.

Indivision AGA first introduced a full framebuffer, allowing odd multiplication factors (pixelclock x2.5), resulting in altered vertical frequency as well.

With the full framebuffer, HighGFX was brought to a new life: While the Amiga generates a picture with very low horizontal and vertical frequencies (outside any real monitor's capabilities), the flickerfixer takes care of pumping that up to today's monitor's requirements. Again, no scaling, just changing the data rate.

The only thing that Indivision AGA MK2 implements differently from the old model is data rates and output interface: While the old model is limited to about 330MBytes/second, this new model can handle over 600MBytes per second. In addition to the known VGA output, I have also added DVI output (complete DVI-I implementation). The basic principle remains the same: One pixel that's coming in will still be a single pixel on the output interface.

If you want to scale, you have to look at several pixels at a time and calculate a proper "in-between value" for the output pixel. I have no intention to go that way, because in order to do it properly, you have to implement fairly complicated algorithms: Picture interpolation is non-linear, so I'd have to implement DSP functions in the FPGA. Anything else just looks blurry or distorted. Not impossible, but also not the scope of the product.

As you have already pointed out, picture quality is best when it's not scaled. So once again, Indivision does not scale, which is a synonym for "does not change size".

Jens

[Mr B]

Forgive me for being thick, but that means games booting to their own world... Wouldn't they end up being really small on a big screen? (As in, would the Indivision output uh, 640 × 256?) From there then the TV's scaling would take over, if asked to.

Sorry if i'm wasting your time, i'm trying to wrap my head around this. Either way i guess i should shut up, and let you get back to work, as i need one. I think i do. It should still do what i want it to, even if i lack understanding of how it does it.
B!

[NovaCoder]

i've currently got my standard 1200 connected to an hd lcd, the Amiga outputs a low res PAL screen but the monitor scales this up to almost hd

Originally Posted by Mr B

Forgive me for being thick, but that means games booting to their own world... Wouldn't they end up being really small on a big screen? (As in, would the Indivision output uh, 640 × 256?) From there then the TV's scaling would take over, if asked to.

Sorry if i'm wasting your time, i'm trying to wrap my head around this. Either way i guess i should shut up, and let you get back to work, as i need one. I think i do. It should still do what i want it to, even if i lack understanding of how it does it.
B!

[Lord Aga]

Well it's the same for say... modern PC connected to a HD TV.
If you run some really old game (320x200 / 640x400) it will be tiny on a TV if you have it set to 1:1 (dot by dot). But if you switch to full screen it will upscale.

[Mr B]

I'm guessing i lack a sh*tload of knowledge between the Amiga and the telly, leaving me struggling to understand what is going on, how and why.
Lets make it stupid simple.

Resolution, Frequency kHz, and Frequency Hz.

720x400, 31.468, 70.08
640x480, 31.469, 59.94
800x600, 37.879, 60.31
1024x768, 48.363, 60.00
1280x768, 47.78, 59.87
1360x768, 47.72, 59.80
1280x1024, 63.981, 60.02
1920x 1080, 66.587, 59.93
(RGB-PC)
1920x 1080, 67.5, 60.00
(HDMI-PC)

Thats apparently what i got to work with. Make sure the Indivision MKII works with that, and you'll get to sell one to Sweden ;- )

(Well, at least someone who understands whats going on should be able to say yes / no, when the time comes)
I'll stop wasting everyones time. With a bit of luck there will be some sort of list for straightforward guesswork later on, letting me figure it out.
B!

[Schoenfeld]

Mr.B (and everyone else who is trying to follow) - let me give one simple example:

The Amiga with it's "Hires interlace plus a little overscan" screenmode comes closest to 800x600. Indivision will take the maximum overscan area of 768 Amiga- pixels and write it into an 800x600 pixel framebuffer.

This framebuffer has two ports: One write-port (for the Amiga-side) and one read-port for the monitor output.

The monitor output is now reading the 768 pixels width, but pads a few black pixels to the left and to the right in order to reach full 800 pixels. This will bring the output to a standard resolution. The same happens to the number of lines - the output "processor" will choose whatever PC screenmode fits the Amiga screenmode best. In addition to that, you have control through the conifig tool: If you want to change the number of padding-pixels, you're free to do so. For example: Your screen seems to have a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. This is more than the Amiga can display. However, you want the screen to not scale at all, so you give it a non-standard screenmode of - say - 960x540 pixels. If your monitor isn't too stupid, it will display pixels with exactly 2x2 native pixels.

I can freely program output modes. Indivision AGA MK2 is based on an FPGA, which is launched from flash. This means that whenever I add a new screenmode, I can distribute a new flash image through my website. After you've updated your flash, the new screenmode is available to you. If at some point a new type of flat panel becomes available that has "the" killer resolution that everybody wants, I can support that in Indivision AGA MK2.

Got to go to bed now. Tomorrow is pre-screening day (EMI test - yay..).

Jens

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Mr.B (and everyone else who is trying to follow) - let me give one simple example:

You rock. I knew you did good things with hardware, but your way with words is impressive as well. You just sorted this thick swede out. Thank you.
B!