# ------------------------------------------------------------------- # BLITTER (c) Copyright 1996 Nat! & KKP # ------------------------------------------------------------------- # These are some of the results/guesses that Klaus and Nat! found # out about the Jaguar with a few helpful hints by other people, # who'd prefer to remain anonymous. # # Since we are not under NDA or anything from Atari we feel free to # give this to you for educational purposes only. # # Please note, that this is not official documentation from Atari # or derived work thereof (both of us have never seen the Atari docs) # and Atari isn't connected with this in any way. # # Please use this informationphile as a starting point for your own # exploration and not as a reference. If you find anything inaccurate, # missing, needing more explanation etc. by all means please write # to us: # nat@zumdick.ruhr.de # or # kp@eegholm.dk # # If you could do us a small favor, don't use this information for # those lame flame-wars on r.g.v.a or the mailing list. # # HTML soon ? # ------------------------------------------------------------------- # $Id: blitter.html,v 1.32 1997/11/16 18:14:39 nat Exp $ # -------------------------------------------------------------------
The BLiTTER
-----------
The Blitter is a little different to what you're used to
on your ST (and you probably didn't get used to it very much
anyway).
You can blit a scaled pixmap to an unscaled destination
or you can blit an unscaled pixmap unto a scaled destination. Or you can
rotate the source and the destination bitmap, and in some cases you
can scale and rotate at the same time (I think scaling up and rotating
without leaving holes isn't possible)
The former will probably be the most often used. The source or the
destination can be arbitrarily 'angled' lines and need not be
contiguous addresses. Furthermore you can blit pixels of 1 bit, 2 bit
4 bit 8 bit 16 bit or 32bit depth.
The Blitter in broad outline works like this:
The blitter has two channels called A1 and A2, where it reads from and
writes data to.
A1 is the sophisticated channel allowing fractional pixel treatment
(like f.e. read pixel 1 twice, then pixel2 twice etc. for an effective
scaling of 2.0), whereas A2 is a simple channel allowing only integer
increments of the addresses. This means that A2 can only be used for
straight or diagonal lines.
Picture in your mind that a channel is pointing to a square bitmap.
You define the width of this bitmap and the origin at which the blitter
should start fetching data. The origin might for example be the center
of your bitmap, or the upper left corner, you decide!.
You then define the orientation (slope) of the line the blitter should
'draw' into (or 'fetch' from) this bitmap.
.....width.......
channel --> +----------------+
| |
| x (origin) |
| \ |
| \ (slope) |
| |
+----------------+
In a real life environment you might for example use A2 as the source
of your texture, that is stored as a contiguous block in memory and
A1 is used to draw an arbitrary scaled and angled line of your polygon.
Or you might use A1 to traverse the texture data at an arbitrary angle
and update the destination pixmap in a scan-line fashion horizontally
left to right.
If you want to scale the bitmap you gotta figure out whether you want
to shrink or to enlarge. If you want to enlarge, you need to use A1
as the source and A2 as the destination, using fractional incrementing
on the source, if you want to shrink you want to use A1 as the destination
(also with fractional increments)
You can do a few operations concurrently while blitting your data.
If you're drawing with a single color and outputting cry-color pixels
you can gouraudshade them at the same time at no extra cost. The
blitter will use the intensity of the pixel and add the contents of a
register to it (saturating add). This will work nicely for single lines,
but not for regions, where the blitter does not reinitalize the intensity
for the starting pixel. (Your job)
The contents of this register are then updated for the next pixel.
Since the update is fractional, you can achieve a smooth shaded
line with this.
You can add an intensity factor to your incoming cry-color data.
You can also use the Z-buffering capabilities of the blitter.
Your destination data is not just an array of pixel values, but rather a
combination of Z-data and pixel data. Consider the Z-data to be the
third coordinate providing depth.
The smaller the value, the nearer it is to the viewer. (usual convention)
You set up the blitter with a starting Z-value for your line and a factor
that should be added for every pixel step, thereby possibly increasing
or decreasing the Z-position.
That value is then compared to the Z-data of the destination pixel.
If the z-value (in the registers) is less than the the destination value,
the pixel will be written - else the pixel will not be written. The
destination pixel is then updated with the new Z-buffer value.
A Z-data is the same size as the pixel, and a pixel is always 16 bit sooo...
The layout will be typically something like this:
phrase #0 phrase #1 phrase #2 phrase #3
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
P0 P1 P2 P3 Z0 Z1 Z2 Z3 P4 P5 P6 P7 Z4 Z5 Z6 Z7
The you'd specify a phrase offset of 1 for the Z-data and use a "pitch"
of 2 for accessing the pixel phrases (in the Blitter's A?_FLAGS registers).
You can probably do collision detection on background colors, and
transparent blits...
Phrasemode and Pixelmode.
------------------------
The blitter can operate either in pixelmode or in phrasemode. Phrasemode
is (in 16-bit cry-color) usually four times faster and is therefore much more
desirable. But there are some limitations that are connected to phrasemode:
o Both A1 and A2 must work in phrasemode, you can't have one running in
pixelmode and the other in phrasemode
o Phrasemode implies linear address (or horizontally oriented) blits
It looks like phrasemode doesn't work with all resolutions. So
far only 16bit modes are known to work.
Scales and rotates aren't possible in phrasemode.
[ Please note, that you can do (non rotated) sprite scaling also with an OP
object, which might (or not) be more convenient ]
For blitter actions that span across a page you
currently gotta figure, that the machine takes
time = 1 write + [4 cycles read source] + [1 cycle read destination]
(This is mathematically correct doesn't really reflect the reality
though, because source reads outside the page also force a slower
destination write)
regardless of pixelmode or phrasemode. If you keep the accesses to within
a page you should calculate it as:
time = 1 write + [1 cycles read source] + [1 cycle read destination]
Of course in phrasemode you usually speed up the blitting process in
16 bit pixel mode by a factor of four.
(Cycles meaning bus cycles (i.e. 2 system cycles))
This means, that the Blitter should be capable of doing about
(with the video system running a 256x200 cry-color screen):
Gouraud pixelmode : 13.3 / 1 = 13.3 Mio pixels / second
or ca. 222000 pixels / frame
Copyblit pixelmode : 13.3 / 5 = 2.7 Mio pixels / second
or ca. 44000 pixels / frame
XOR blit pixelmode : 13.3 / 6 = 2.2 Mio pixels / second
or ca. 37000 pixels / frame
and in phrasemode (16 bit pixels)
Gouraud phrasemode : 13.3 * 4 / 1 = 53.2 Mio pixels / second
or ca. 887000 pixels / frame
Copyblit pixelmode : 13.3 * 4 / 5 = 2.7 Mio pixels / second
or ca. 177000 pixels / frame
XOR blit pixelmode : 13.3 * 4 / 6 = 2.2 Mio pixels / second
or ca. 148000 pixels / frame
READ-MODIFY-WRITE
-----------------
It's important for the proper setup of the blitter, to know when the
blitter will need to do a RMW. A RMW occurs whenever the destination
is read, then modified by the blitter and then written back back. A
classic example of RMW is the exclusive or like *dst ^= 0xFFFF;
RMW does happen when you're using the blitter in pixelmode and the
bitmap depth is below 16 bit (8 bit?).
RMW does also happen with _all_ logical blitting ops except:
0: LFU_ZERO DST = 0 (LFU_CLEAR)
3: LFU_NOTS DST = ! SRC
12: LFU_S DST = SRC (LFU_REPLACE)
15: LFU_ONE DST = 1
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Your friendly blItter-registers
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
R: B_STATUS ($F02238)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^-----+--+
| unused |i |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+--+
31...............................................................1 0
idle (i): bit 0
This bit gives the blitter status: 0 if busy, idle if set. Not the
other way round.
W: B_CMD ($F02238)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+-+------^--------+^--------+^------+-^-----+--^--+-----^----+---^--+-----+
| | control | OP | z-op | ity | mode|A1ctl|misc| dst | src |
+-+---------------+---------+-------+-------+-----+-----+----+------+-----+
30.........25 24...21 20..18 17..14 13.11 10..8 7..6 5..3 2..0
Writing into the lower word activates the blitter!
src:
bit 0: SRCEN source data read enable
bit 1: SRCENZ source Z-data read enable
bit 2: SRCENX source extra data read enable
With this set of bits you tell the blitter what kind of
data accesses it needs to perform. It can not figure it out from the
way the other command bits are set and conclude what it needs to
do, you have to instruct the blitter yourself. If you're doing
straight copies from memory to memory, you will want to set bit0.
If you're using the Z-buffer capabilities you'd want to set bit1
as well.
If your source data spans more phrases than the destination data
then you need to set bit2 to tell the blitter to do that extra
phrase read.
dst:
bit 3: DSTEN destination data read enable
bit 4: DSTENZ destination Z-data read enable
bit 5: DSTWRZ destination Z write enable
You'd want to set DSTEN if you're doing read-modify-write cycles on the
destination. (See RMW-Cycles below). Else you should clear this bit
(or pay the price in speed decrease).
Likewise if you're not going to do Z-buffer blitting keep bits 4 and 5
clear, else set'em!
Note that you can not disable 'destination write' because, you'd just
not use the Blitter in this case, right ?
misc:
bit 6: CLIP_A1 enable A1 clipping
bit 7: unused
You can clip the pixmap that is handled with the A1 register set.
If this bit is set, then the information in the A1_CLIP register is
used to clip the A1 lines. See A1_CLIP for more information about
clipping.
Actually it's a lie, that bit 7 is unused. It does something but
nothing interesting so far.
A1-control (A1ctl):
bit 8: UPDA1 enable A1 update step fraction part
bit 9: UPDA1F enable A1 update step integer part
bit10: UPDA2 enable A2 update step
You hint the Blitter here, which step registers it should update.
If you're just doing line-drawings you don't need any of these bits
set. Only when you're blitting in two dimensions you need to consider
these bits. The idea behind them is probably not that you can
improve the blitter performance but rather the setup performance,
since you know which registers change and which not and need not
update all of them for consecutive blits.
mode:
bit11: DSTA2 use A2 as destination
bit12: GOURD enable Gouraud shading
bit13: ZBUFF enable Z-buffer handling (sometimes called GOURZ)
Usually (DSTA2 cleared) you use A2 as the source and A1 as the
destination. You can reverse the roles by setting this bit.
Set bit12 (GOURD) to enable Gouraudshading. Gouraudshading will only
be "gouraud shading" if used on cry-color data. Use the intensity
counters/incrementers to specify the shading (see B_IINC for
further reference)
With ZBUFF you enable Z-buffer handling (look for the A1_FLAGS for
a small description of Z-buffer handling).
intensity (ity) and other stuff:
bit14: TOPBEN carry into nybble
bit15: TOPNEN carry into byte
bit16: PATDSEL use pattern data (instead of source)
TOPBEN and TOPNEN will all be explained in the gouraud shading description
coming up soon. You can control with the bit TOPB/NEN where the overflow
from the intensity addition should be stored (added to)
On a completely different note, if you just want to initialize a
memory region (or draw a line) in a single color, you don't need to
read the source data from memory. You can let the blitter pull the
color from one of its own registers (B_PATD). This saves you on
the average a read cycle for every phrase written, which is a good
thing. None of the logical blitter operations apply when using the
pattern data register. You can't XOR your bitmap with the pattern data!
z-op:
bit18-20:
bit18: ZMODELT source < destination
bit19: ZMODEEQ source = destination
bit20: ZMODEGT source > destination
or
0: unused
1: src < dst
2: src == dst
3: src <= dst
4: src > dst
5: src != dst
6: src >= dst
7: unused
You can tell the blitter how to decide, whether the source data should
overwrite the destination pixel or not when using the Z-buffer mode.
Usually you will want to put a 3 or a 1 here, so that you're
'nearer' pixels overwrite the 'farther' pixels. (Assuming that your
Z-buffer values are the higher, the farther away from the viewer
they are)
OP: logical operation the Blitter should perform
bit21: LFU_NAN ! source & ! destination
bit22: LFU_NA ! source & destination
bit23: LFU_AN source & ! destination
bit24: LFU_A source & destination
or
0: LFU_ZERO DST = 0 (LFU_CLEAR)
1: LFU_NSAND DST = ! SRC & ! DST
2: LFU_NSAD DST = ! SRC & DST
3: LFU_NOTS DST = ! SRC
4: LFU_SAND DST = SRC & ! DST
5: LFU_NOTD DST = ! DST
6: LFU_N_SXORD DST = ! (SRC ^ DST)
7: LFU_NSORND DST = ! SRC | ! DST
8: LFU_SAD DST = SRC & DST
9: LFU_SXORD DST = SRC ^ DST (LFU_XOR)
10: LFU_D DST = DST
11: LFU_NSORD DST = ! SRC | DST
12: LFU_S DST = SRC (LFU_REPLACE)
13: LFU_SORND DST = SRC | ! DST
14: LFU_SORD DST = SRC | DST
15: LFU_ONE DST = 1
Just as on the Atari ST blitter you can have the usual set of
logical operations you can perform on your data. Use 12 for your
copying blits and 0 for your single color initilization. Note that
if you set bit16 (use pattern data), then the blitter will NOT
zero your buffer with OP==0, but fill it with the pattern color
instead.
The opcodes are ignored when bit16 is set.
control:
bit25: CMPDST compare destination pixel with pattern pixel
bit26: BCOMPEN bit compare, write inhibit
bit27: DCOMPEN data compare, write inhibit
bit28: BKGWREN write inhibit, still write
bit29: BUSHI hog the bus
bit30: SRCSHADE source shading
bit25 (CMPDST): If you enable this the destination pixel (that
will be overwritten) is compared with the value
stored in the pattern-data register (B_PATD).
If you enable this in conjunction with B_STOP this _maybe_ is used as
a way to do hardware collision detection. (like in GTIA on the Atari
8 bit). Supposedly works only in 8 and 16 bit modes.
bit26 (BCOMPEN): speculation: The lower 8 bit of the source value
are examined. If all bits are 0 then nothing will
be written back, if all of them are set then everything will be written
back. Now what happens if there are just a few bits set ?
Imagine that the pixels of the destination pixmap are numbered from
7 to 0 wrapping at -1 back to 8.
Start of line blit
\
7654321076543210765
^
current pixel position
Source pixel value: 0xFF55 -> 11111111 01010101
76543210
01010101
^
So this pixel value will not be written.
Don't ask me what that might be good for. See DCOMPEN for more details
about collision detection. Supposedly works only in 8 and 16 bit modes.
bit27 (DCOMPEN): used most often in conjunction with bit25.
If you set bit25 and bit27 the effect will be that
only those destination values will be overwritten that do not match
the value stored in B_PATD. (If bit 25 is off, then the comparison will
be made with the source pixel)
So if you put the color 0x0000 into B_PATD only those pixels will be
written, where there are not zero-valued pixels in the destination bitmap.
You should have DSTEN on!
The write inhibit serves a second function in collision detection. If
bit #2 is set in the B_STOP register, then the blitter will stop when
such a inhibit would occur. Look at B_STOP for more details.
If you have BKGWREN set, then the data will be written back still.
Supposedly works only in 8 and 16 bit modes.
bit28 (BKGWREN): when a write inhibit occurs, this flag enables the
blitter to still perform the write, but to write
back destination data. This only applies to pixel mode, in phrase
mode destination data is always written.
bit29 (BUSHI): seems to let the blitter hog the bus completely.
This is not such a good idea for extensive blits,
since apparently the OP is also shut off and you'll see garbage on the
screen. For small blits this might yield an overall system performance
increase, when you're pushing the machine to its limits.
bit30 (SRCSHADE): Enable source shading. Yes it does work, although
the setup is a bit weird because you seem to have to
set bit3 (destination read enable) for real source shading to happen.
Put the shade value into B_IINC. Looks really cool.
You can get some funky albeit as yet unpredictable (?) effects putting
a value in B_DSTD and disabling the destination read. F.e. put the
B_IINC to $40000 and blit repeatedly incrementing B_DSTD (and delaying
a little between blits). It's psychedelic!
Alternatively, if you've ZBUFF on, you don't have to enable DSTEN.
RW: B_COUNT ($F0223C)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| n_lines | n_pixels |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
16 bit 16 bit
n_pixels: number of pixels to draw in a line
n_lines: number of lines to draw
You need to draw at least one line of size one pixel. After n_pixels are
drawn the STEP registers are applied to the current pixel position and
blitting resumes.
RW: B_IINC ($F02274) pixel mode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RW: B_I3 ($F0227C) \
RW: B_I2 ($F02280) \ phrasemode
RW: B_I1 ($F02284) /
RW: B_I0 ($F02288) /
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------+---------+---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
|chroma.i|chroma.f | intensity.i | intensity.f |
+--------+---------+------------------+-----------------------------------+
4 bit 4 bit 8 bit 16 bit
chroma.i: delta for chroma change, integer part
chroma.f: delta for chroma change, fractional part
intensity.i delta for gouraud shading, integer part
intensity.f: delta for gouraud shading, fractional part
This register is used for chroma changes and gouraud shading (or
both operations together). Chroma changes are like gouraud shades,
but with an intensity delta of zero. Pure gouraud shadings have a chroma
delta value of zero.
This register is added to either B_PATD in pixelmode or B_I0 to B_I3 in
phrasemode. The intensity is saturation added, meaning that you can't
have an intensity wrap around. The chroma change on the other hand does
wrap around. The integer part is by the way sign extended.
So normally chroma and intensity are two separate entities that don't
influence each other. If you want you can set in the B_CMD register
either TOPBEN or TOPNEN.
If you set TOPNEN then the carry of the saturation add will be added to
the upper nybble (chroma.i) of the current source data value.
If you set TOPBEN then there will be _no_ saturation for the addition
of the intensity delta. Instead the carry is added to the top byte of
the current source data value. If you set both, you'll achieve the
effect of TOPBEN but _with_ saturation.
B_I0, B_I1, B_I2, B_I3 are used in phrasemode instead of B_IINC,
which is used in pixelmode.
RW: B_ZINC ($F02274) pixel mode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RW: B_Z3 ($F0228C) \
RW: B_Z2 ($F02290) \ phrasemode
RW: B_Z1 ($F02294) /
RW: B_Z0 ($F02298) /
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------+---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| z.i | z.f |
+------------------+------------------+-----------------------------------+
16 bit 16 bit
z.i: z value integer part
z.f: z value fractional part
The documented makeup of the register is just an educated guess!!
These is the increment factor that is added to the Z-value, which
is used in the comparison, that decides whether the pixel should
be draw or not.
Z_I0, Z_I1, Z_I2, Z_I3 are used in phrasemode instead of B_ZINC,
which is used in pixelmode.
RW: B_DSTD ($F02248)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^--------+
0 | pixelvalue |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
64 60 56 52 48 44 40 36 32
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^--------+
1 | pixelvalue |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
pixelvalue:
If you're doing RMW-cycles with the blitter and have not enabled data
reads, then this register will be used as input for the logical operations
instead.
Depending on the blitter-mode (pixelmode or phrasemode) there is either
only one pixel kept in here (phrase 0) right-side aligned by the way,
or as many pixels that can fit in a phrase.
Experiments show that the value in DSTD is NOTed before being used as
a logical operation. Curious.
f.e.
move.l #(1<<16)|WIDTH,B_COUNT
move.l #PITCH1|PIXEL16|WID320|XADDPIX,A1_FLAGS
move.l #PITCH1|PIXEL16|WID320|XADDPIX,A2_FLAGS
move.l #$00000FFFF,B_DSTD
move.l #SRCEN|LFU_XOR,d0
is actually a straight replacement, although one would expect
S ^ 0xFFFF to yield ~S and not S
RW: B_SRCD ($F02240)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^--------+
0 | pixelvalue |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
64 60 56 52 48 44 40 36 32
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^--------+
1 | pixelvalue |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
pixelvalue:
This is probably just the same as B_DSTD but for those case when you
did not have source read enabled (bit #0 of the CMD register) and
when you haven't selected the pattern as the source of your blit.
RW: B_STOP ($F02278)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^-+------+
| unused | stop |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+------+
stop:
bit 0: Resume
bit 1: Abort
bit 2: Collision detection
Uses 3 bits to resume or stop after a write inhibit occurs. Inhibit
will occur when painting pixel-pixel mode, Xadd=1, BKGWREN=0, and one
of the BCOMPEN, DCOMPEN or Zmodem0-2 are set, with matching conditions.
Resume: Writing a one to this bit when the blitter has stopped
will cause the blitter to resume operations.
Abort: Writing a one to this bit when the blitter has stopped
will cause the blitter to terminate the current operation
and return to its idle state.
Coll.: Set this bit to enable blitter collision stops. This should
stop the blitter. Then you can decide, whether to keep going
or whether to abort the blit, using the first two bits.
RW: A1_BASE ($F02200)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^--------+
| address |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
address:
Pointer to the bitmap. The bitmap must (probably) be phrase aligned.
For pixel positioning use A1_PIXEL
RW: A1_FLAGS ($F02204)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^--------+---------+--+-----^-----+--^---+----^-+------+
| unused | addctl | | width | z-off| depth| pitch|
+---------------------------+---------+--+-----------+------+------+------+
20...16 14...9 8..6 5..3 2..0
^
pitch: +---- unused
bit0-bit2:
0: 1 phrase
1: 2 phrases
2: 4 phrases
3: 8 phrases
The amount of phrases the blitter should add to the address when
accessing the next phrase. Usually set to zero, although when you
Z-buffering or interleaving for better memory locality in copying
blits, this will come in handy.
depth:
bit3-bit5:
colors bit-planes bits
------------+-------------------+-------------
0: 2 1 1
1: 4 2 2
2: 16 4 4
3: 256 8 8
4: 32768/65536 16/CrY 16
5: 16 mio 24 32
6: unused
7: unused
The pixel size the blitter should move. Remember all pixels on the
Jaguar are chunky (meaning the bits to a pixel are adjacent, not like
on the Amiga or the ST)
z-offset (z-off):
bit6-bit8 gives the number of phrases the Z-data is offset from
your pixel phrase.
Apparently 0 and 7 are unusable values
width:
bit9-14:
This is the width in pixels of a scanline of the area pointed
to by A1. Or in different words A1 points to a rectangular
block of pixels. The pixels are organized in horizontal strips.
You give the width of such a strip with this value.
The number is not an integer value but rather a floating point
value (no kidding). It is made up like this:
1.[bit14-13] * 2^[bit12-9] so for example
01 0101 would be 1.25 * 2^5 = 40 or
10 1000 would be 1.5 * 2^8 = 384
(1.00bin -> 1.00dec 1.01bin -> 1.25dec
1.10bin -> 1.5dec 1.11bin -> 1.75dec)
or you can think of it as:
x = 1 << [bit12-9]
res = x + (bit14 ? (x >> 1) : 0) + (bit15 ? (x >> 2) : 0);
01 0101 would be
x = 1 << 5 /* 32 */
res = 32 + (0 ? 16 : 0) + (1 ? 8 : 0); /* 40 */
Some often used values are:
value width value width value width
-------+------- -------+------- -------+-------
4 2 8 4 10 6
12 8 13 10 14 12
15 14 16 16 17 20
18 24 19 28 20 32
21 40 22 48 23 56
24 64 25 80 26 96
27 112 28 128 29 160
30 192 31 224 32 256
33 320 34 384 35 448
36 512 37 640 38 768
39 896 40 1024 41 1280
42 1536 43 1792 44 2048
45 2560 46 3072 47 3584
adding control (addctl)
** please note that the bit descriptions are as an exception
** interleaved
Xadd control
bit16-17:
0: XADDPHR add phrase offset to X and truncate
1: XADDPIX add pixelsize (1) to X
2: XADD0 add zero (for those nice vertical lines)
3: XADDINC add the contents of the increment register
bit19: XSIGNADD/XSIGNSUB pixel add operation, 0 = add 1 = subtract
when using "add pixelsize" mode
If you don't set any of these bits (0) then you are using the blitter
in phrase mode. That means that pixels are grabbed in lots of phrases
updated concurrently (one step) and written back in lots of phrases.
(lots as in "quantity-size", not as "many"). Obviously you can use the
phrasemode only for horizontal line blitting operations. Else you
need to put the Blitter in pixel mode (in CrY Mode ~4x slower).
Yadd control
bit18: YADD0/YADD1 add zero (clear) or one (set) to Y
bit20: YSIGNADD/YSIGNSUB add 1/sub1 to Y (when bit18 is set)
RW: A1_CLIP ($F02208)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| height | width |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
Height is the height and the width that the blitter should clip at
starting from the base. It does work but seems to be buggy. (i.e.
sometimes clips one pixel to early)
RW: A1_PIXEL ($F0220C)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| Y.i | X.i |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
X.i: horizontal position (integer part)
Y.i: likewise vertical pixel offset
horizontal and vertical pixel offset from A1_BASE where the
blitting operation should begin. Note that for the calculation
of the proper address offset, the blitter needs to know the
pixel size and the width of one line
RW: A1_FPIXEL ($F02218)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| Y.f | X.f |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
X.i: horizontal position (fractional part)
Y.i: likewise vertical pixel offset
You can position the pixel value at a fractional pixel value using this
register. If you're using fractional stepping rates, this register will
be updated as well as the integer A1_PIXEL register.
Guess: 0.FFFF will still address pixel 0 and will not round up
to 1.
RW: A1_INC ($F0221C)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| Y.i | X.i |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
X.i: integer delta added to horizontal pixel position
Y.i: integer delta added to vertical pixel position
offset to add to A1_PIXEL after a pixel has been blitted.
this register is used only, if a certain addressing mode
(XADDINC bit16... of A1_FLAGS) is used.
Please also look at the update A1 bits in the blitter command
for proper operation.
An easy way in C to calculate the slope for X or Y, assuming
a stepping value of 1.0 for the other direction here would be:
/*
* Little structure for fractional representation
* done this way, for educational purposes only
*/
typedef struct
{
signed short i, f;
} fraggle;
/*
* Calculate slope for a line of `pixels` length.
*/
void calc_fraggle( fraggle *p, int p0, int p1, unsigned int pixels)
{
signed long distance;
signed long slope
distance = p1 - p0;
slope = (distance << 16) / pixels;
p->i = slope >> 16;
p->f = slope & 0xFFFF;
}
RW: A1_FINC ($F02220)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| Y.f | X.f |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
X.f: fractional delta added to horizontal pixel position
Y.f: fractional delta added to vertical pixel position
As above but this is the fractional part of the stepper.
RW: A1_STEP ($F02210)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| y_step.i | x_step.i |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
x_step.i: value to be added to A1_PIXEL.x
y_step.i: value to be added to A1_PIXEL.y
Values added to the pixel-pointer after a line has been drawn.
You must set a bit in the control register to allow this update to happen.
RW: A1_FSTEP ($F02214)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| y_step.f | x_step.f |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
x_step.f: value to be added to A1_FPIXEL.x
y_step.f: value to be added to A1_FPIXEL.y
Values added to the pixel-pointer after a line has been drawn.
You must set a bit in the control register to allow this update to happen,
which is different than the control bit used for integer step updates!
RW: A2_BASE ($F02224)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------^--------^--------^--------^--------+
| address |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
See A1_BASE
RW: A2_FLAGS ($F02228)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^--------+^--------+--+-----^-----+--^---+----^-+------+
| unused | addctl | | width | z-off| depth| pitch|
+---------------------------+---------+--+-----------+------+------+------+
20...16 14...9 8..6 5..3 2..0
See A1_FLAGS
RW: A2_PIXEL ($F02230)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| Y.i | X.i |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
See A1_PIXEL
RW: A2_MASK ($F0222C)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| mask.y | mask.x |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
mask.x: x modulo value
mask.y: y modulo value
A2_MASK is probably used to mask off the pixel value of A2 creating
thereby a circular buffer
RW: A2_STEP ($F02234)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0
+--------^---------^---------^--------+--------^--------^--------^--------+
| y_step.i | x_step.i |
+-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
See A1_STEP
BUGS:
-----
It seems that when the blitter is done with blitting it is so happy that
it's done, it forgets to update the PIXEL registers with the STEP
registers (UPDA1 UPDA2 UPDA1F).
Therefore this:
move.l #$00400040,B_COUNT
move.l #VALUE,B_CMD
is not equivalent to this
moveq #$3F,d1
.loop:
move.l #$00010040,B_COUNT
move.l #VALUE,B_CMD
.wait:
move.l B_CMD,d0
ror.w #1,d0
bcc.b .wait
dbra d1,.loop
Clipping seems to be buggy, occasionally clipping too early. (??)
Rumor has it that you shouldn't start the blitter while the 68k is in
interrupt processing. This is reported, although it sounds like bullshit.
DISCUSSION:
----------
The designers of the Jaguar thought a lot about what makes a good
blitter and not. Important for a good blitter is that the setup time
is minimal. One of the reasons the Atari ST Blitter wasn't that successful
was that in the time needed to setup the chip - and you did have to
setup and calculate quite a lot of values - you were typically just
about done doing the blit in software (a small exaggeration).
The Jaguar blitter needs minimal setting up, because the hardware does a
lot of the calculations for you. For doing a memory clear f.e. you need to
write only five registers:
A1_BASE
A1_PIXEL
A1_FLAGS
A1_CMD
B_PATD
With a little imagination you will find a lot of uses for this nice
piece of hardware, that go way outside of just drawing and filling.
The way the Jaguar's memory is accessed (in pages) make the Blitter
unfortunately not necessarily the speediest method for some operations,
since especially a blit is very often a nonlocal operation.
(REF :How to organize your bitmaps)
Usually you want to copy a smaller bitmap (sprite) from some part of
memory to another bigger bitmap (screen), which will most probably
lie outside of the page, the source bitmap resides in.
This might mean (academically waxing here) that the blitter is an
outdated concept as long as RAM is as slow as it is. To salvage the
blitter concept it would seem promising to use a buffer to copy in a
first pass all source data of a line into it. Then rerun the loop and
use only destination (reads and) writes in conjunction with the now cached
source data. This should approximate the maximum memory thruput.
It'd be probably just as well to provide the programmer with a
third fully busconnected GPU with a stripped down instruction set
to emulate a blitter himself.
$Id: blitter.html,v 1.32 1997/11/16 18:14:39 nat Exp $