Arvid - external video card introduction

[olin]

Hi, new member here.

for those of you who are considering to use Euro SCART TV for an arcade project this might be of some interest.
I'm developing an external video card to produce arcade quality output on TV sets equipped with Euro SCART connector.

The project is called Arvid. It is an open ource and open hardware project and at the moment you have to build the card yourself (it's not too hard actually, breadboard, few resistors, multimeter and patience is all you need).

The video card is external, so it can be connected to a laptop or mini pc or even small development board based on ARM processor (at least Cortex A15 or similar) that runs the emulator. I also made an unofficial port of mame that works with the Arvid video card.

The first prototype of the video card is up and running, video is here:


If you are curious about the other features of the card, here is the list:
- RGB output via Euro SCART connector
- more than 40 refresh rates ranging from 50 - 61 Hz which allows smooth scrolling while preserving original game speed.
- pixel perfect resolutions: 320, 256, 288, 384, no interpolation or scaling is involved.
- videomodes use progressive mode, that means natural scanlines.

More info about the project, emulator, source code and build instructions are here:
www.volny.cz/molej/arvid

[Paradroid]

Looks amazing! 

Seems like a lot more work than slapping in an old ATI HD 4350, plugging in a UMSA and installing the GroovyMAME suite though...

[olin]

Thanks,
the thing is I switched to linux long time ago, and I don't have a desktop computer. Also my livng space is limited so proper cab with an arcade monitor is unfortunately no-go for me. That's how Arvid happened, via lack of options. Inspired by similar projects (video signal generators) based on various MCUs (arduino, pic chip, fpgas,  etc.), but mainly by Lazarus-64 project. And also making stuff is great fun.