Embedded CPU for 2d graphics

Hi folks,

I'm working on a system on which we need to have pretty decent 2d graphics capabilities.

It will have to handle a video game with at least 800x600 graphics (1024 would be even better). We don't need any high end graphics here but still we're looking for the most appopriate solution.

At the moment we have designed a board running a 200MHz TI DM355 CPU with 128MBs DDR2. All the graphics are handled in software. This gets some pretty decent results, but I'm really sure we can find a much better solution.

The main issue is that we are extremely cost constrained (thus the 10$ DM355). So we're looking for the best-for-the-money solution (the whole CPU/RAM/Flash/Video DACs/... shouldn't be more than 30$ in volume).

I've looked up the AT91SAM9G45: 400MHz and twin DDR2, the cpu itself costs 10$ in volume. So it's globally twice the performance for the same price. However it's not yet in full production and linux support seems still very buggy.

All the CPUs I could find with embedded 2d acceleration are on the 30$ price range, which is far too much.

Would you have any hints/advices on other solutions which could bring better performance in this price range?

Thanks in advance,
Theodore

What are you exactly do you need to accelerate? Depending on the type of animations and movements you might be able to get away with just the hardware layers available on many arm processors. We talk about it on our blog here

https://cranksoftware.com/blog/?p=17

Regards
Jason

www.cranksoftware.com

Hi, I think blackfin is fit your project.
It is cheap.

Hi,

Thanks alot to you both for your answers!

The Blackfins seems pretty interesting. They are indeed very cheap and fast, and some of them are even in LQFP instead of BGA which could give some good PCB manufacturing price reductions.
However they only run on SDRAM. How do you think a 400MHz Blackfin with SDRAM would compare to a 200MHz ARM9 with DDR2 in my application?

Jason, the game itself will be defined by what the hardware will be able to achieve in this price range. What I was looking for in accelerated graphics is mainly hardware alpha blending and bit blitting, that's what consuming the most.

Mainly the graphics drawn will be a fixed background with at least a dozen small to medium sized animated sprites with alpha blending. As I said before we're looking for at least 800x600 resolution.


Again, thanks for your help!
Theodore

Look the ADI’s world-class Blackfin BF506F with 12-bit dual-SAR ADC integrated. No external DDR! All on chip flash memory.

Thanks ramesh. However the BF506F has internal ROM (Flash) not RAM. Anyways my application will require at least 64MB of RAM and 512MBs of Flash so this will not fit.

I am seriously considering the BF531. Does anyone has an idea of how this CPU (400MHz/SDRAM) will compare in perf to an 200MHz ARM9 with DDR2?


Thanks,
Theodore

Well, I think you should buy a bf531 demo board to evaluate.
I have ever seen a mp4 using bf531. So for normally graphic drawing, it is no problem. But you say need to alpha blending, then it is difficult to bf531.
You know in dm355, it has hardware blend module to do this. If you use software to do, then it will slow.