No argument that it's expensive and there is probably a better card out there
somewhere. This was just the first one I came across that met the basic needs.
As far as what kind of FPGA is needed, that would depend entirely one what you
were trying to do. Assuming you have a hw block for PCIe, you can probably do
a basic framebuffer in most any FPGA. If you want to go further, my gut
feeling is that you get into chips that aren't supported in the free Xilinx
tools pretty quick.
Patrick M
________________________________
From: ""Ing. Daniel Rozsnyó"" <[email protected]>
To: Patrick McNamara <[email protected]>
Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Open-graphics] The next OGA card?
That is quite an expensive piece of hardware given that:
- it has an old generation device
- it has nonstandard extension plugs
The nice thing is the support for DIMMs, however is that a soft-core
or hw core, like the one in Spartan6? (there are up to 4x 12.8 Gb/s
DDR3 interfaces).
There are far more accessible boards which already got some digital
video output and have support in the free version of ISE (The
SP605).
Is there really a need for Virtex class device?
/* From my viewpoint, the slowness of OG development was also caused
by the fact, that the boards were not for everyone. If there would
be hardware, maybe smaller, but more exposed, the individuals in the
community could "play" more - resulting in a specialized cores /
modules of smaller scale, which can be embed into a bigger and more
complex card, by the ones, who have access to ISE licenses and
expensive hardware. */
Another playground will be a Zynq device - there is an FPGA and a
CPU, but no graphics card - development kits will be available soon.
Daniel
On 10/31/2012 03:37 PM, Patrick McNamara wrote:
In the commercial board space, something like this would be a good fit:
http://twinind.com/catalog_detail.php?id=346
>
>
>Up to 2GB of DDR2 and PCIe native support in the Virtex. Good off board
>connections. If you are looking for a basic framebuffer, the all you need is
>a daughter card with DVI/HDMI/VGA/etc components. If you have to do a 3D
>engine, the add an FPGA for the engine to the daughter card. Let the Virtex5
>do the memory interface/framebuffer and let the daughter board FPGA do the
>computational engine.
>
>
>The problem, of course, is that it isn't going to be cheap by hobbyist
>standards. But then people need to realize that you are getting into the
>realm of FPGAs that cost hundreds of dollars just for the chip itself in
>single and low number quantities.
>
>
>
>________________________________
> From: Timothy Normand Miller <[email protected]>
>To: Ing. Daniel Rozsnyó <[email protected]>
>Cc: [email protected]
>Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 8:48 AM
>Subject: Re: [Open-graphics] The next OGA card?
>
>OGD1 is open source, and the mods to add a PCIe to PCI
bridge for it
>wouldn't be too tough (for someone who is good at PCB
design). If you
>can do the board, the FPGA logic is there. OGD1 already
works and can
>be plugged into a PC (with a PCI slot) and booted as
console.
>
>The biggest challenge is the expense of having it produced.
25 OGD1
>boards cost somewhere around $13000 to make.
>
>Or we could start from scratch. Andre Pouliot and I had
some
>(slightly divergent) ideas for an OGD2, which would be based
on a
>newer FPGA and be highly modular.
>
>Another idea would be to see if there is _already_ an FPGA
board out
>there with a PCIe on it. Actually, I'm sure there is.
Xilinx and
>others make project boards for their FPGAs. I don't know if
you'll
>find one with video on it, but if you did, we could do a
graphics core
>pretty easily. If not, we might be able to design a DVI
daughter
>board.
>
>Another weird idea (particularly because of the signal
integrity
>challenges) would be to see if one of these project boards
brings
>SERDES outputs to some pins with reasonably good quality; we
could
>then design our own TMDS/DVI circuit to go in the FPGA. :)
If we
>could pull that off, it would be by far the least expensive
OGD2
>option, because it would require almost zero hardware design
on our
>part. We'd need to do FPGA logic, drivers, and adapt I/Os
to a DVI
>connector. Analog video might be out of the question.
>
>So, here are the features we need in an off-the-shelf FPGA
project board:
>
>- PCIe connector
>- Memory
>- DVI and/or VGA/DAC is bonus
>
>Can you find something like that?
>
>
>Actually, if we have lots of I/Os to spare, we might be able
to do
>analog video using a resistor network and a low-pass
filter. Someone
>with a better EE background could answer that.
>
>
>On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 5:24 AM, "Ing. Daniel Rozsnyó"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> currently I am having quite a trouble to get my system
working - the board
>> is Intel DN2800MT, with an n2800 dualcore Atom (Cedar
View) - which got that
>> crappy PowerVR SGX 545 graphics.
>>
>> Currently, there is no driver for it for 64bit windows
and the driver for
>> Linux is a binary only thing which links to an old xorg
and old kernel (3.0
>> or 3.1).
>>
>> There is same problem with the older generation of
Atoms (Poulsbo) as they
>> have also this 3rd party graphics core and comes with
no support.
>>
>> I was thinking - would it be possible to put together
a simple graphics
>> card based on Opengraphics, with the following
parameters:
>>
>> - PCIe 1x
>> - single DP/HDMI/LVDS output
>> - form factor to match a full mini pcie card
(50mm)
>>
>> If I picked up correctly, there is a drive for
embedded targets.. so this
>> could be interesting.
>>
>> From the hardware point, it should be enough to use a
single FPGA with a
>> single (or dual) ddr3 memories (that makes 12.8 or 25.6
gbit/s) which is
>> quite enough for filling it over pcie (2.5Gb) and
reading to DP.
>>
>> For the start, a simple 2D framebuffer with region
copy acceleration would
>> be sufficient..
>>
>> What does the masses say to that?
>>
>>
>> I can manage to make the hardware, is there somebody
who can make the fpga
>> core and somebody to write drivers for it?
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>--
>Timothy Normand Miller, PhD
>http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti
>Open Graphics Project
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