This still fits on a DE0-CV! It’s also running on a dinosaur of a CRT.
As you can see in the image here, this week I upgraded our implementation from VGA 640×480@60hz to SVGA 800×600@72hz. This provides some benefit to the user as the latency is further reduced in monitors that support the higher refresh rate with no drawback as the majority of monitors with VGA compatibility can manage the signal without issues. The VGA spec ranges up quite far, 800×600 is the limit in our implementation due to the clock, rather than the standard itself.
Upgrading turned out to be useful in another way as well, the higher resolution created more area to allocate to each user’s HUD.
I also implemented the lines received/garbage management area in the display (finally!), so that we can provide a visual cue to the user as to the amount of garbage that is going to be loaded into the playfield.
With that, I have successfully used the spring break slack week to get back on schedule. I am effectively ready to start integrating with Eric. I believe he may be somewhat behind schedule though, so perhaps I’ll just start stealing tasks from his list to continue moving us forward as a group. I am now back on schedule.
I expect there to be some adjustment time as my (and everyone’s) classes are switching over to online/remote classes. I suspect this will be tricky to navigate and some time will be lost in the transition. Despite the directives from the school, I plan to be in Pittsburgh for the remainder of the semester. I believe my partners will also be, by circumstance. This makes things somewhat easier for us to integrate, but integration will be difficult nonetheless.
Next week, I plan to work on generating garbage into the playfield and starting to build assets for the various menu screens that user will be interacting with.