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Increase SPI Screen Refresh or New Screen?

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:54 am
by skorpien
I'm working on building a Game Boy Pi 3 and have a few questions about my screen.

I purchased a generic 3.5" SPI screen from ebay, and while I did manage to get it working with RetroPie, the refresh rate is abysmal.

My question is, can the refresh rate be increased on this screen or am I better off getting an HDMI or DSI screen instead?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

For reference, here's what my screen looks like:
Image

Re: Increase SPI Screen Refresh or New Screen?

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:19 pm
by moosepr
Yeah once you go over 240x320 on the resolution, spi can't keep up.

A DPI screen is much more work, you have to connect a tone of pins, and get the settings to match your screen. While it does chomp up gpio pins, you do get a super fast connection, and less "driver board" getting in the way

HDMI is super easy, pretty much plug and play, but there will be an extra board to contend with, and it will probably need more power

Re: Increase SPI Screen Refresh or New Screen?

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2017 2:57 pm
by skorpien
Would you recommend a composite screen with its own driver board then? I'm going by a parts list from a Facebook group I'm in and they say that in a pinch they use the Adafruit NTSC/PAL screen (a bit expensive) but this one from GearBest is their usual one
https://www.gearbest.com/development-bo ... 29447.html

Though the HDMI would be easiest I'm hesitant on giving up battery life.

Re: Increase SPI Screen Refresh or New Screen?

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2017 3:05 pm
by moosepr
HDMI screens might not use any more power than a composite screen. They both have a board in them to convert the input signal into the screen signal. HDMI will give you a better image than composite