41–50 of 105 posts
I've played around with the pi and pygame. Is there a way this will help with accelerated pygame graphics? (last I tried, all blits were in software)
At some point we'll have to migrate to new terms for "in hardware" for offloaded operations since we are no longer using fixed function hardware :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
we're pretty much there. The new pi 4 compute module breaks out the pcie bus. The official pi4 compute base board routes that to a standard pcie x1 slot instead of USB 3.0 which is a massive win in my book (hello more ethernet/sata/fpga/nvme/etc). It's a baby Arm mobo with pci and I'm a little excited :-) I have a pi4 compute + base board on pre-order plus I just bought a pcie x1 m.2 M-key card off amazon. I plan to…
Almost! :) Not sure about the IO performance of this solution. > The official pi4 compute base board routes that to a standard pcie x1 slot instead of USB 3.0 Do you have more info on this? I am not sure how it works.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question, does this mean my family's holy grail of performant Minecraft on a Pi is coming closer?
I actually wish there was a more powerful Raspberry PI. Whenever you say you want more powerful the answer is the current way it's primary goal is to be affordable and its primary target audience are schools etc. E.g. The standard version of the Pi 400 with 4 GB covers most (consumer / school children / students) application purposes. 8 GB are rather needed in the area of video editing / prosumer / server, and would…
Compared to that, what would make you go for a Pi at that price point?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Broadcom is notorious for hiding everything behind very restrictive NDAs. You want a CPU from them? Don't bother contacting them unless you plan buying six figures, is the common sentiment on HN. On the other hand, there aren't many competitors that are better in terms of accessibility. Sigh. Implementing embedded devices with any sorts of "smarts" beyond some Atmel uC from scratch is a pain - one has to go with read…
Thanks for the detailed answer. That is indeed meh. I suppose when RPi started and the quantity they ordered it still made sense. Hope that more open hardware will come out over time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the detailed answer. That is indeed meh. I suppose when RPi started and the quantity they ordered it still made sense. Hope that more open hardware will come out over time.
We need something to drive that change though.
Regulation is out of any question, both in the US and the EU. While there may be some hard-won progress in the "right to repair" fights recently, the needs of hobbyist electronics people aren't on any politician's radar and I doubt that will change soon (even if easier access to high quality electronics could unleash so much potential for innovation!).
Market pressure is out of the question too, simply because the volumes that us hobbyists order are too small. For what it's worth I'd pay a couple hundred bucks for an 1:1 q&a/consulting session with an expert from a semiconductor or other company for my hobby projects and I'd also accept a reasonable "small volume handling/shipping fee" for getting my hands on ten chips... but I'm the utter minority of hobbyists who can actually afford that for a project that won't bring any profit. Corporate entities however who are going to sell thousands or orders of magnitude more units of some random gizmo can afford putting up six figures upfront anyway... so they have no incentive either to pressure vendors into providing better service.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For first year(s?), Broadcom RPi components (GPU) were closed source (opaque binary blob) and need RE work. For a hardware supposed to be "open to hack", it was considered a non-sense. I suspect things have changed regarding RPi situation.
Is there an "open" SBC by your definition? Intel has ME/AMT, and requires an opaque, PK-signed-and-only-intel-and-NSA-have-the-key blob. AMD is the same with PSP. I'm not up to date, there might be a RISC-V core available today that is blob free, but in 2012 when RasPi was introduced I wasn't aware of anything blobless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question, does this mean my family's holy grail of performant Minecraft on a Pi is coming closer?
I actually wish there was a more powerful Raspberry PI. Whenever you say you want more powerful the answer is the current way it's primary goal is to be affordable and its primary target audience are schools etc. E.g. The standard version of the Pi 400 with 4 GB covers most (consumer / school children / students) application purposes. 8 GB are rather needed in the area of video editing / prosumer / server, and would…
It isn't as sexy or prone to looking cool, but technically it is possible. I'm actually planning on trying to tinker a traditionally networked cluster that I?m going to evolve to an attempt at an SSI'd cluster.
That's really all what most Integrated Circuits are going to mowadays. Just take a few ALU's, clock circuits, register files, Memory, some caches, a few MMU's, connect it all with buses, fab x gang bustahs and you've got a new system. The toughest part seems to be getting someone to be frank with you and just giving you an accurate datasheet/not screwing you with locked down firmware and rent extractiom arramgements.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually wish there was a more powerful Raspberry PI. Whenever you say you want more powerful the answer is the current way it's primary goal is to be affordable and its primary target audience are schools etc. E.g. The standard version of the Pi 400 with 4 GB covers most (consumer / school children / students) application purposes. 8 GB are rather needed in the area of video editing / prosumer / server, and would…
For about 2x the price of the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB model, I can buy a significantly more powerful X86 solution, in terms of compute and I/O. Compared to that, what would make you go for a Pi at that price point?
This is what sets the raspberry pi apart from all other SBCs in my experience: software support. Kudos, this is fantastic stuff! Will love to see the ecosystem of stuff that springs up that takes advantage of this.
I wish there was a multi CPU RPI board with M2 option. Sort of like this one: https://www.solid-run.com/nxp-lx2160a-family/clearfog-cx-lx2...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question, does this mean my family's holy grail of performant Minecraft on a Pi is coming closer?
I actually wish there was a more powerful Raspberry PI. Whenever you say you want more powerful the answer is the current way it's primary goal is to be affordable and its primary target audience are schools etc. E.g. The standard version of the Pi 400 with 4 GB covers most (consumer / school children / students) application purposes. 8 GB are rather needed in the area of video editing / prosumer / server, and would…
The vendor is a charity with a mission that they have chosen [1]. They can target the Pi however they want to meet that mission. The fact that it doesn't happen to do something that you want it for is your problem not theirs.
There has been a virtuous cycle that something originally aimed at education has been of use to so many hackers, resulting in high volumes and all the benefits that brings. But that doesn't mean that they also need to focus on other sectors.