Video Acceleration Fund

[guylhem]

Hello

Since I am seriously interested in video acceleration on the 6000 and have no time to look at it in details (I've never played with that), I would like to create a "bounty" which could be used to motivate the development of "decent" video acceleration.

By decent, I mean for both 2.4 and 2.6:
 - kernel support for the various accels available, with sample code for each acceleration (to ease integration into applications)
 - faster scroll speed in text more (try dmesg and cry)
 - a plugin for mplayer to have hi-res video support (538x400 is ok)
 - libsdl tweaks to give a good speed to emulators (with 640x480 and 480x320 mode)

I would glady give 100 Eur to see such features. mahadri or anyone else could be interested if more people could donate.

How I see this - we publically say how much we will give for this feature, and post a total. When that happen, we keep our promise - it'd be simply based on trust.

So if you want to play hires divx on your 6000 or play games, like a 3100 can, please also offer something.

Guylhem

[robyinno]

I'm interested in video acceleration, I can give 10-20 Euro for this.
Even I can test a little...

Roberto Innocenti

[adf]

I'm interested in video acceleration, I can give 10-20 Euro for this.
Even I can test a little...

Roberto Innocenti
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I might be interested.

Are you sure acceleration is possible to any great extent? I mean a faster dmesg would be nice..but not worth much.  vga video at 24 fps would be worth something....

Do we know, or have a clue, what is possible with this hardware?

[speculatrix]

I pledge 50 euro

[neuroshock]

I'm in.

I'm good for $50usd.  Maybe more -  if I've got it available at the moment it's needed I'll go a $100usd, but I'll pop $50 at a bare minimum.

I would also be probably be willing to post a smaller portion of that amount as an up-front incentive to demonstrate that I/we are serious about this.

-NeuroShock

PS I will be a bit more specific though - I'm with Adf on the focus issues though.  I'm looking for real world performance benefits in areas such as video playback and video speed when using snes emulators/ first person shooter type graphics.  A text only speed benefit is of no worth to me personally.  I realize it DEFINITELY is of benefit to us as a community, but if a text speed benefit is all we're talking about I'm just not going to be very impressed.

So let me be plain up front - I'll donate for any real-world speed increase that's noticeable to the naked eye,  BUT I'll tip above and beyond that for graphic speed performance that would meet or at least approach the Cxx00 speeds.  The faster it goes the higher I'll donate.

-NeuroShock

[undrwater]

I'm in.

I'm good for $50usd.  Maybe more -  if I've got it available at the moment it's needed I'll go a $100usd, but I'll pop $50 at a bare minimum.

I would also be probably be willing to post a smaller portion of that amount as an up-front incentive to demonstrate that I/we are serious about this.

-NeuroShock

PS I will be a bit more specific though - I'm with Adf on the focus issues though.  I'm looking for real world performance benefits in areas such as video playback and video speed when using snes emulators/ first person shooter type graphics.  A text only speed benefit is of no worth to me personally.  I realize it DEFINITELY is of benefit to us as a community, but if a text speed benefit is all we're talking about I'm just not going to be very impressed.

So let me be plain up front - I'll donate for any real-world speed increase that's noticeable to the naked eye,  BUT I'll tip above and beyond that for graphic speed performance that would meet or at least approach the Cxx00 speeds.  The faster it goes the higher I'll donate.

-NeuroShock
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I'll second this (both in terms of idea and $ amount).

[mahadri]

I would glady give 100 Eur to see such features. mahadri or anyone else could be interested if more people could donate.[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105836\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Video acceleration is suddenly looking very interesting. =)

- kernel support for the various accels available, with sample code for each acceleration (to ease integration into applications)
 - libsdl tweaks to give a good speed to emulators (with 640x480 and 480x320 mode)

All of the TC6393's accelerations are supported by the kernel's framebuffer core, so adding framebuffer acceleration operations should accelerate the X server and all X applications without modifying them.  The same applies to OPIE and libsdl if they use the framebuffer operations (I would assume they do).

- faster scroll speed in text more (try dmesg and cry)

xenophobe recently posted the parameters for the screen copy command.  A short ~30 line kernel patch would make this a reality.  I'll look into it. =)

- a plugin for mplayer to have hi-res video support (538x400 is ok)

Are you sure acceleration is possible to any great extent? I mean a faster dmesg would be nice..but not worth much. vga video at 24 fps would be worth something....

Do we know, or have a clue, what is possible with this hardware?

I've benchmarked copying from CPU to video memory at ~9.5 MB/s, so it could theoretically do 528x400 @ 22.6 fps.  If mplayer renders to the off-screen video memory in less than 32K chunks at a time (probably in 8x8 pixel blocks, using 8 cache lines = 256 bytes), then it's possible that the CPU can cache the writes and perform them in the background while the CPU is decoding another 8x8 block.  If this is the case, then writing to video memory will not stall the CPU, and 528x400 @ 22 fps or 512x384 @ 24 fps is theoretically possible.

[the_oak]

I am also willing to contribute to 6000 video acceleration fund!! If my Z had video acceleration and gpsdrive (another day, another thread) , it would be everything I want in a handheld!!

I would also like to see Guylhem finish his rom. Just needs right-hand rotation fonts fixed, network setup app, and power button to suspend properly (this seems to be a snag in each new 6000 rom). I am willing to also contribute toward that, but am uncertain that Guylhem has the time or interest in doing this. Guylhem's finished rom along with video acceleration would be awesome!!

[amdonati]

I am also in.
I think a 50€ is reasonable for me in order to have a HW accellerated Video on the 6000

Adalberto

[gfdsa]

50e from me

[speculatrix]

so far I make the bounty about 300 euros, which isn't, admittedly, going to pay for masses of work, BUT, I would guess that someone who was really interested in this anyway would find it a nice bonus - and something very worthwhile to put on their CV ("I wrote an accelerated video driver for a handheld arm linux device, winning a bonus, and massive kudos, and now I'm irresistable to members of the opposite sex"!).