TVout + gamebuino bootloader

[albertinjo]

Hello

I recently had a wild idea of gamebuino playing games with a tv out library. Just like this hackvision thingy.

http://nootropicdesign.com/hackvision/

So I thought of soldering my own custom gamebuino , I would connect TVout connectors to two pins left for i2c communication (or RX/TX pins). So that gamebuino could play gamebuino games (loaded from the SD card) written for gamebuino screen, and could also play TVout games also loaded from the SD card. That would be like some hackvision-gamebuino hybrid.

[ripper121]

So you can build a TV-out module

[jonnection]

I've worked on the Hackvision and have ported the TVout library to SFML so I've had a look at the inner workings of TVout.

TVout depends on Timer1 and timing is critical. In my opinion, a scenario where you are using both Gamebuino libraries and TVout libraries is technically not possible without (at least) disabling sound. Furthermore, you'd probably run out of memory.

So, what you could do, is define the code to either compile for TVout or the LCD. Even then, Gamebuino audio output would not work with TVout. This is an oversimplification, but thats pretty much the situation. You'd have to limit the audio of your Gamebuino game to 1 tone simultaneous only and use only Timer2.

Ofcourse, you could create an "intelligent" TVout module that has its own MCU that communicates with the Gamebuino via i2c. Afterall, the Hackvision DOES connect to a Nunchak via i2c. But I don't know if that would work either, because TVout can only be used with software serial comms (max 115200 bps) which would give you 3,5 only frames per second update rate at 84x48.

I see some pretty substantial technical challenges with regards to a hardware Gamebuino->TVout adapter. However, the sdcard bootloader is in my opinion the single best feature of the Gamebuino and having just that in a Hackvision would be really cool.

Having said that, I am going to make my Outrunduino run on both TVout and the Gamebuino. They will simply be 2 different sourcecodes with only the game logic ported.

[adekto]

would it be possible to have 1to1 code conversion (i mean screen aspect ratio be the same in pixels on tv out) and that the code to draw stuff is the same but u include a different library

also why would u need a gamebuino u put a mcu in ur module why not just make a home console and on use the display pins?

[minecraftlog21]

Just giving an Idea what if instead of resending the video over the I2c bus to the second mcu, You where to use a addressing system so not to resend non changing pixels on the screen or do a block system where you resend a block if something changes in it.

[rodot]

Hey,
You should get a look at what this post... Myndale already did a TV out adapter