Gameduino for Arduino: A Game Adapter for Microcontrollers

Introduction

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

FAQ

Gameduino FAQ Forum

Support

If you have questions or other better design ideas, you can go to our forum to discuss or creat a ticket for your issue at linksprite support.

See Also

Other related products and resources.

Licensing

This documentation is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 Source code and libraries are licensed under GPL/LGPL, see source code files for details.