Got GLES2 working in ubuntu!

Thanks to some help from the Ubuntu ARM maintainers, I was able to resolve my GLES2 crashing issues and get it working. The issue was that the kernel and the GLES2 kernel module were out of sync.

Using the SDK I got from the PowerVR web site (I forgot their "real" name), I modified my sample GLES2 program so that it was written correctly. I tried to compile it on the Beagleboard but ran out of time so this will be my next task.

Did a full install of Ubuntu 10.10 for beagleboard

I installed Ubuntu "Natty" on the beagleboard this morning. Trying to run anything to do with GL gives a segfault. Interesting. Now I am going to try to go back to the demo image I got with my xM and see if that still works. If it doesn't then I guess I may be in trouble. *fingers crossed*

GLES not working on beagleboard currently

So I discovered this morning that when I upgraded to a newer version of the GLES libraries on my beagleboard linux install that all of the GLES demos stopped working. I spent most/all of my time this morning trying to troubleshoot. No luck yet.

The good news is I found an SDK that seems to be designed to run on beagleboard and it has a ton of coding examples so this should get me well on my way once I can get GL working again.

Made progress on GLES2 for Beagleboard

I wrote a tiny OpenGL test program that uses a simple vertex and fragment shader. I verified that it works on Windows (heh) and got this compiled/linked on the beagleboard but attempting to run it gave an SDL error saying that the GLX context could not be created. I actually have no idea whether SDL can be used for OpenGL on the beagleboard. I'm currently looking for simple OpenGL examples for beagleboard but they are surprisingly hard to find. In fact, I am having an unsually difficult time finding example code _anywhere_ for how to do GLES2 which is shocking since as far as I know, it is the standard on both iphone and android.

OpenGL Shading Language and Matrices

So it turns out that OpenGLES2 does not support the legacy fixed function mode of OpenGL v1.x which includes functions like glMatrixMode and glOrtho. I rely heavily on these functions in Daphne's OpenGL code but it looks like now I have to learn the 3D math behind these functions and implement that stuff in shaders instead. I've always wanted to do this anyway, so this will be a nice excuse.

I spent this morning reading my OpenGL books trying to figure out the matrix stuff, and also refreshing myself on how matrix multiplication works. I also played around with ATI's RenderMonkey program.

AVR debugger ordered, LD-V1001 is still not working

I thought I'd try my LD-V1001 again since it's warmer. Still no dice. It stays in parked mode when I issue it the play command.

I also ordered the AVR Dragon today (and a routing card for the STK600 that matches the ATMega324P). The Dragon is a low cost debugger. I've decided that I really need it to work out the software bugs in my AVR code because using the simulator can be brutal when a lot of setup is required. Based on past history, I'd say the Dragon will be on my door step in exactly 7 days.

MAME's LD-V1000 isn't so great after all..

So after my LD-V1001 apparently stopped working, I decided to use MAME's emulated LD-V1000 to discover some specific LD-V1000 behaviors during error conditions. For example, if I seek to a frame that can't be found and then issue a play command once it has returned an error, from where does the LD-V1000 start playing (if at all)?

Unfortunately, it seems that the MAME emulation for the LD-V1000 is not that great. For one thing, during disc spin-up it alternates between status codes 0x64 and 0x58 and I verified on my real LD-V1001 (when it used to actually work) then during spin-up it would display solid 0x64's.

I also tried to simulate a search error by telling it to search to frame 79999 (which didn't exist) yet somehow the search succeeded in MAME. I can't really say what would happen on a real LD-V1000 but I am assuming that the search would fail with an error.

I suppose I don't necessarily need to know about all the error conditions, since Dexter (in theory) should never get errors when working properly. But it would make me sleep a little better at night.