piLagTesterPRO status update: Pi4 or nothing? Maybe not.
The piLagTesterPRO is an add-on for the Raspberry Pi that measures your display's input lag and response time with real-time graphs of what the monitor is doing.
There have been some significant delays producing a shippable version but the tl;dr is that I have a finished lag tester that's ready to be used by the outside world!
There have been two setbacks: first a critical component ordered from china almost 2 months ago is lost in the mail (assuming it was ever really sent). I have recently found a second but much more expensive US source, so that's not holding me back, though it does lessen my enthusiasm for purchasing more parts for a more professional build for this device, especially given no concrete measure of demand (read: how much to order).
2nd, the PI4 turns out to be a bit of a work in progress despite having been out for essentially a year. There are probably lots of great things about it, and certainly I've really appreciated how much faster my code compiles. But the video output on the device is plagued by issues with poor drivers. Luckily these are under active development. Unluckily, there are two drivers and the one I've been using until now is not their primary focus going forward.
I'm sure the driver(s) issue(s) will be resolved with the Pi4, but I'm tired of waiting for official firmware builds to see if it's finally good enough. In fact, it's 99% of the way there - I have lag test code now that works fine on both firmwares about 99% of the time. But that 1% results in incorrect measures of lag. I can filter them out on my own hardware but I'm not confident enough that it will work on all resolutions and refresh rates supported by the PI4 to want to advertise Pi4 support just yet. Also, the current firmware doesn't support interlaced resolutions so you couldn't test 480i with a Pi4.
However, I'm willing to sell the piLagTesterPRO to anybody who wishes to use it on earlier versions of the PI. Everything but the PI4 uses the same video chipset. That means every pi that doesn't have a 4 in it's name should work, and even the Pi Zero (only $5!) works great with the piLagTesterPRO, despite being the slowest Pi you can buy. And when the Pi4 video drivers finally work right, I'll send you a free upgrade.
And if you happen to have both an older Pi and a Pi4 I'd be very interested in working with you to test if the piLagTesterPRO works at higher resolutions and refresh rates.
There have been some significant delays producing a shippable version but the tl;dr is that I have a finished lag tester that's ready to be used by the outside world!
There have been two setbacks: first a critical component ordered from china almost 2 months ago is lost in the mail (assuming it was ever really sent). I have recently found a second but much more expensive US source, so that's not holding me back, though it does lessen my enthusiasm for purchasing more parts for a more professional build for this device, especially given no concrete measure of demand (read: how much to order).
2nd, the PI4 turns out to be a bit of a work in progress despite having been out for essentially a year. There are probably lots of great things about it, and certainly I've really appreciated how much faster my code compiles. But the video output on the device is plagued by issues with poor drivers. Luckily these are under active development. Unluckily, there are two drivers and the one I've been using until now is not their primary focus going forward.
I'm sure the driver(s) issue(s) will be resolved with the Pi4, but I'm tired of waiting for official firmware builds to see if it's finally good enough. In fact, it's 99% of the way there - I have lag test code now that works fine on both firmwares about 99% of the time. But that 1% results in incorrect measures of lag. I can filter them out on my own hardware but I'm not confident enough that it will work on all resolutions and refresh rates supported by the PI4 to want to advertise Pi4 support just yet. Also, the current firmware doesn't support interlaced resolutions so you couldn't test 480i with a Pi4.
However, I'm willing to sell the piLagTesterPRO to anybody who wishes to use it on earlier versions of the PI. Everything but the PI4 uses the same video chipset. That means every pi that doesn't have a 4 in it's name should work, and even the Pi Zero (only $5!) works great with the piLagTesterPRO, despite being the slowest Pi you can buy. And when the Pi4 video drivers finally work right, I'll send you a free upgrade.
And if you happen to have both an older Pi and a Pi4 I'd be very interested in working with you to test if the piLagTesterPRO works at higher resolutions and refresh rates.
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