60 Frames Per Second?

[viviridian]

Thanks John!

We at Freeplay actually had a somewhat quiet release of a new display driver, but decided to leave it disabled by default since it can impact battery life. To what extent, we are currently unaware, but it shouldn't be anything terrible, and are aware of no low battery throttling that happens (though more strenuous games could very easily cause the framerate to stutter due to the CPU downclocking to compensate for that heat).

I will say that all thanks go to juj's REPO (LINK) which he is continuously updating. We found the version we compiled was good enough that rather than ask users to compile it from source (which could be a bit much for some of the not-so-*nix-savvy), we just bundled a bunch of precompiled binaries and installed them by default in the newer images. If you don't have the ability to update via one of our images (savegames, scraped data), then we have a repo HERE with everything so you can install it on an already setup image.

To do so, just SSH in with a terminal or TTY client of your choice (or plug a keyboard in and exit to terminal by quitting emulationstation from the menu) and run the following:

Code:

git clone https://github.com/mootikins/freeplayili9341
cd freeplayili9341

Then depending on your Freeplay unit, run the corresponding setup script with either:

Code:

./setupCM3.sh
OR
./setupZero.sh

You may need to run whichever you need as sudo since some super user stuff needs to be done, but we didn't encounter any issues with this during our testing. A simple reboot of the system with the power switch at this point, and you should now have the wonderful high speed driver available to be switched to in your RetroPie Menu under Freeplay Display Driver!
If anyone runs into any issues with this, please contact me or TheFlav and we'll do our best to help you TS and get any errors in the repo fixed right away, and if you see any features you want that are in the repo I linked above we'll do our best to update the binaries with those newer versions.

As far as I am aware, there are no other options needed to keep that silky smooth framerate, but if you are savvy a flip through that repo and user compile could improve battery life and performance, though I only recommend doing so at your own risk. If your SD gets a little messed up by something, I recommend looking at the install script and finding the location and filename needed for the replacement of the old driver.

Thanks for enjoying our hard work!
Matthew

I'm trying to get this driver working on my FPZ. It works as I boot up and navigate around emulationstation, but the instant I launch any game the display stops updating. If I have HDMI attached the HDMI screen continues to work.

The easiest way for me to see what is happening was to stop the fbcpZero unit & run it in the foreground over ssh.

As I boot, here is the output:

Code:

root@vivgba:/home/pi# systemctl stop fbcpZero
root@vivgba:/home/pi# /usr/local/bin/fbcpZero
bcm_host_get_peripheral_address: 0x20000000, bcm_host_get_peripheral_size: 33554432, bcm_host_get_sdram_address: 0x40000000
BCM core speed: current: 250000000hz, max turbo: 400000000hz. SPI CDIV: 6, SPI max frequency: 66666667hz
Allocated DMA channel 3
Allocated DMA channel 1
Enabling DMA channels Tx:3 and Rx:1
DMA hardware register file is at ptr: 0xb4b50000, using DMA TX channel: 3 and DMA RX channel: 1
DMA hardware TX channel register file is at ptr: 0xb4b50300, DMA RX channel register file is at ptr: 0xb4b50100
Resetting DMA channels for use
DMA all set up
Initializing display
Resetting display at reset GPIO pin 27
InitSPI done
Relevant source display area size with overscan cropped away: 1024x768.
Source GPU display is 1024x768. Output SPI display is 320x240 with a drawable area of 302x202. Applying scaling factor horiz=0.29x & vert=0.26x, xOffset: 18, yOffset: 9, scaledWidth: 302, scaledHeight: 202
Creating dispmanX resource of size 302x202 (aspect ratio=1.495050).
GPU grab rectangle is offset x=0,y=0, size w=302xh=202, aspect ratio=1.495050

Then, I launch a game (for example, using lr-gambatte). The status of all the DMA channels is dumped and fbcpZero exits.

Code:

GPU grab rectangle is offset x=0,y=0, size w=302xh=202, aspect ratio=1.495050
DMA channel 0 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 1 has peripheral map 7 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 2 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 3 has peripheral map 17 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 1, current control block: 0xdf4fe6a0)
DMA channel 4 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 5 has peripheral map 11 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 6 has peripheral map 13 (is lite channel: 0, currently active: 1, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 7 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 8 has peripheral map 13 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 9 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 10 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 11 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 12 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 13 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel 14 has peripheral map 0 (is lite channel: 1, currently active: 0, current control block: (nil))
DMA channel collision! DMA channel 3 was expected to be assigned to our peripheral 6, but something else has assigned it to peripheral 17!
System is likely unstable now, rebooting is advised.
root@vivgba:/home/pi#

It seems something else is taking DMA channel 3 as soon as I launch a game. It's not clear to me what. Nothing interesting in dmesg or journalctl. I tried to use 'lsdev' but it's looking in /proc/dma which doesn't exist.

I haven't tried with a fresh image since I'd prefer to use this one; i've installed some extras and modified some scripts, and also don't want to open up my case.
As far as I know nothing I've done should impact this... let me know if you have any thoughts or want to see any config files.