Monday, November 25, 2013

Gameduino for Arduino: A Game Adapter for Microcontrollers.

Gameduino is a game adapter for Arduino (or anything else with an SPI interface) built as a single shield that stacks up on top of the Arduino and has plugs for a VGA monitor and stereo speakers. The sound and graphics are definitely old-school, but thanks to the latest FPGA technology, the sprite capabilities are a step above those in machines from the past. The adapter is controlled via SPI read/write operations, and looks to the CPU like a 32Kbyte RAM. (Unlike many 8-bit machines, there are no restrictions on when you can access this RAM). There is even a handy reference poster (which you can download below) showing how the whole system works.
Model:[GAMEDUINO]

Features

  • Video output is 400x300 pixels in 512 colors
  • All color processed internally at 15-bit precision
  • Compatible with any standard VGA monitor (800x600 @ 72Hz)
  • Background Graphics
    1. 512x512 pixel character background
    2. 256 characters, each with independent 4 color palette
    3. pixel-smooth X-Y wraparound scroll
  • Foreground Graphics
    1. each sprite is 16x16 pixels with per-pixel transparency
    2. each sprite can use 256, 16 or 4 colors
    3. four-way rotate and flip
    4. 96 sprites per scan-line, 1536 texels per line
    5. pixel-perfect sprite collision detection
  • Audio output is a stereo 12-bit frequency synthesizer
  • 64 Independent Voices 10-8000 Hz
  • Per-Voice Sine Wave or White Noise
  • Sample Playback Channel
  • Physical Connection:
  • Gameduino is the standard Arduino module. Arduino pins which have to be connected to it are as following picture shows:

Gameduino is superimposed on top of Arduino directly.