Portable Game Console Project - Graphic System Implemented!

June 17, 2018, 7:03 a.m. Behind the Scenes Electronics Portable Game Console Programming ilo musi

The graphic system of the portable game console project is implemented! In addition, the clock control and power saving stuffs are also implemented. This blog post focus on Graphic System. I'll save other stuffs for my next blog post.

Graphic System Design

API Calls Listing

Typical Procedure of Using Graphic System

Double buffering isn't used in this procedure:

  1. Wait for the completion of the previous DMA transfer process. Function: graphicIsDisplayReady()
  2. Set a graphical buffer to have stuffs to be drawn to. Function: graphicDrawText(), graphicDrawImage()
  3. Clear the buffer to remove previously drawn image
  4. Draw stuffs to the buffer
  5. Start the DMA transfer process to transfer the buffer to the LCD. Then optionally enter sleep mode to save power
    • Do not modify the buffer until the transfer is completed

Updated sample program

I've modified the sample program that I made for testing storage system, input system and synth system. Now that it's also capable for testing the new graphic system!

The updated sample program draws a lot of stuffs on the LCD, including a background image loaded from a resource in the ROM, a square, and system information like system tick, clock frequency and sleep mode.

In the updated sample program, the drawing mode of the square can be configured. Here's a few photo comparing some of the available the drawing modes:

Four photos showing the comparison of drawing modes

Implemented but Removed Features

Due to flash space constraint, some graphical features were removed. They include ellipse, triangle, line and dot drawing support. :(

We have 16kB of flash in total. Currently the bootloader and library takes 10kB, which is taking more space than the originally planned 8kB. It'd be even worse if these features were enabled. :(

Fortunately, it's still possible to draw those shapes by implementing the drawing function in the game itself.

Other Progress to be Blogged in the Future

I've already implemented the following features. However, these features deserve another blog post. I'll blog about them later.

What's next?

I'll be working on the following stuffs:

That's it for now. I'll update you guys for any progress! :)

And I guess I'm going to take a short break from this project. I'm going to work on a piece of music!


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