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Dream features for a new PCI-e card for arcade games?
John Blund:
--- Quote from: emphatic on July 20, 2012, 03:33:34 pm ---Sign me up as a game tester. As I live near you and have cabinets to test the card in this is a no-brainer. Add to that my vast knowledge on 1985-1990 arcade games as I know most of the most known games better than my own pocket. :cheers:
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Well that would be a wonderful resource to make this work, and get as many games converted as possible, in the least amount of time.
emphatic:
Btw, this will only use +12V for power, right? I want a power LED at least and perhaps some other LEDs for each major part of the card's logic components. This way, you can troubleshoot very quickly if thunder strikes and something smells burnt in your cabinet. Power LED is the most important one though.
John Blund:
--- Quote from: emphatic on July 21, 2012, 05:39:31 am ---Btw, this will only use +12V for power, right? I want a power LED at least and perhaps some other LEDs for each major part of the card's logic components. This way, you can troubleshoot very quickly if thunder strikes and something smells burnt in your cabinet. Power LED is the most important one though.
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Well thats a good idea. I think that you would like to know if a game is loaded and up and running or not for example.
Well it could be possible to add a diagnostics mode. This could be used to check that everything connected to the board on the headers are correctly connected and working. It could also be used to test joysticks and buttons and anything else connected to the board, it could be really handy.
The 12 volt won't be used for anything actually. I will probably only pass it though to the headers. If you want to use a more simpler power-supply, it's okay to go ahead and do that. And all extra stuff like converters and other things is something that I will cut down to a minimum. I will do anything in my power, to make the board 100% self sufficient. On the card there will be plenty and extreme good possibilities to convert any signal or video signals and other stuff. This is possible thanks to the reconfigurable nature of the hardware. So what type of conversion for things is it that you use extra stuff for today? What would be a comprehensive list?
And there are some things that I have been thinking about, and that are image enhancing. Today if you want to by a standard monitor you have to buy a LCD. And that is in most cases not on pair with the resolutions used in arcade games. What I am thinking of doing is to use algorithms to dramatically enhance the picture quality and resolutions, with algorithms specially designed for arcade graphics. This could be used to make the picture quality much better. Or it could be used make a low res image from this enhanced graphics, compatible with the pixel size on your LCD monitor. The algorithms will we be first class with sub pixel scrolling and movement predictions, and sub pixel edge, line and field detection. All these image enhancements could be turned off, or fine-tuned.
emphatic:
I think the up-scaling algorithms is a good idea, preferably with scanlines as the original low res games are drawn with this in mind, but I also hope that this is something that doesn't add to the price of the board. Also, will up-scaling and image processing add lag to the video if it's done the way you have in mind?
John Blund:
--- Quote from: emphatic on July 22, 2012, 05:15:45 am ---I think the up-scaling algorithms is a good idea, preferably with scanlines as the original low res games are drawn with this in mind, but I also hope that this is something that doesn't add to the price of the board. Also, will up-scaling and image processing add lag to the video if it's done the way you have in mind?
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Well it won't cost anything extra to do this. And it won't add any lag, it will be done in real-time in hardware, without any software intervention. Well gaps between the scan lines will be there for anyone that want this. The good thing with making functionality in real hardware logic, is that you can add things without compromising 100% speed, or add any lag. Even if you use 1, 2 and 3 processors or more, each processor will always have 100% speed. This will not be a software emulation, everything will be done in hardware. The only software will be the original ROM files from the games.
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