beach_boy98

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XKT4MZ Something like this would be much better suited to gaming. The SSD will speed up the computer a lot and adding a bigger HDD later is simple. The 1050ti will also perform much better.

Technical Update:
 

 
I finished a prototype implementation of BAM/BCM (Binary Code Modulation) and Charlieplexing on the Arduino Micro, and results are very promising!
 
To reiterate, with Charlieplexing I am able to control all 36 LEDs individually using just 7 I/O pins. Because Charlieplexing requires tri-state logic to work properly, I can not use the built-in PWM facilities of the microcontroller, so I'm using BCM to minimize the processor overhead caused by a implementing the modulation in software.
 
There are two main concerns when doing this, flickering and brightness. Because of the high number of LEDs, for 24-bit colour it is required to switch the state of the output pins 56 times for just a single frame of animation. Even worse, because some of them need to take much longer than others, more than 114000 steps are required for one animation frame. Additionally, each LED can maximally be on for 1/7th of the time. If the microcontroller isn't able to switch between states fast enough, the LEDs would seem to flicker and potentially be much darker than desired.
 
But after finishing my implementation on 6 LEDs using 3 pins, it is fairly safe to say that at least flickering won't be an issue. The Arduino Micro has a 16MHz crystal, and I am able to render at a little over 320 FPS. Switching over to 7 pins would only decrease that to about 138 FPS, which is still pretty great. Additionally, Iris 16 will run at 48MHz, so thrice as fast. There's also no noticeable flickering of any sort, so that's pretty great.
 
The only unknown now is the brightness. We'll see how that works out, but I'm pretty positive that it will be bright enough.
 
There's actually some pretty neat stuff like manual loop unrolling and adaptive delay correction built in to my implementation that allows for these fast speeds and also makes the whole thing more accurate. Reading this back those two sound like awesome marketing buzzwords.
 
I'll make the source code available in due time, but please understand that it'll stay confidential for now.
 
Hope to give you some hardware updates soon, thanks for reading!

For now I am. But when time for production comes I'll do a crowdfunding campaign or group buy of sorts. Maybe I'll be able to break even, who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
 

That feel when LMG has 10 times the staff as the last time they made a build guide, but the build guide was 10x worse
 

Update! Version 0.1.1 is out!
For this version, I replaced the stock colour picker with a custom one that also displays how the colour moves through the Hue-Luminosity-Plane. This should give a better understanding of how changing the parameters influences the colour transitions.
 
To use it, just grab either end of the transition line with your mouse. All colours will be changed live with almost no delay. The transition line will also change its colour to remain visible at all times.
 
Try it out here!

Saturation can't be modified with this system for now, it is at 100% constantly. While it's easy to pick a point on a plane with a mouse (or touch device), doing the same thing in a 3D space is much harder, especially when it should be possible to pick an arbitrary number of points, so I still need to figure out a good UI solution for that.
 
I am aware that the moving display dot wobbles when the transition line is at odd angles. That's because it is manually redrawn onto a canvas element for each frame, which doesn't support sub-pixel positioning. The solution to this are CSS animations, but that makes live updating much harder, so I didn't implement it yet.
 
Let me know what you think and stay tuned!

So... They should sell this, at Retail, for a premium price (Say an extra $150 or $200 over the regular version).
 
People would definitely pay more to get the extra CU's and the 1TB SSD.

This sounds awesome, only problem I see is damage to the screen. The projectors don't have to worry about customers touching the screen when entering/leaving the auditorium... An LED screen would.

Update! First Hardware tests and a surprise!
TL;DR: Got an Arduino Micro to test how stuff would work.
This is what my testing setup currently looks like:

I'll go through the parts and explain what they do and what they simulate.

Arduino Micro: This is basically a breakout of the ATMega32u4, which will be the MC inside the button. Connecting that to my PC, I can implement firmware features easily and check their feasibility before committing to a Prototype PCB. The six long orange wires: Those connect the pins PF[014567] of the MC to the "actual" GPIO pins of the button, which I'll be dubbing P[1-6]. The "internal" PF pins offer a separate ADC-channel (analog input) each and PF[4-7] expose the JTAG serial interface on P[3-6] for anyone who wants to use it. The multi-coloured wires below those connect the PD[2-3] and PB[0-3] pins of the MC to the P[3-6] "actual" pins. The former two will provide 2-wire serial interface on P[1-2], the latter SPI serial on P[3-6] and all of them can also act as digital interrupt inputs. The button and the short wires around it simulate the pushbutton itself and the switch that can be used to free up P1 when required. The configuration seen in the picture is the standard one, where P0 and P1 both connect to one side of the button. When moving the button on the breadboard one column to the right, it is connected to P0 and GND. The bridge row of orange wires and resistors represents the actual I/O pins P[0-6]. In the picture, two LEDs are connected to the latter four pins. Arduino Uno: This one is set up and programmed to flash a new bootloader onto the Arduino Micro. This was an important part for testing and will be useful in the future as well when I replace the original bootloader with my modified version.

So, what did I test with this thing so far?
Most importantly, I tested whether I could flash a new bootloader with the series resistors and the parallel internal I/O pins. As you can see or may already know, there is one series resistor of 330Ω on both P5 and P3 to comply with Intels Front I/O Design Guide, to allow driving the LEDs of existing front panels with the button if so desired. Those pins are also used for the SPI interface, through which the bootloader is flashed onto the MC. Additionally, they are also connected to another I/O pin each for enhanced functionality. In some cases you need isolation circuitry to make sure that the SPI signals can reach the MC unimpeded.
Luckily, all GPIOs are left in their standard state during programming, which means that none of them interfere with the SPI signals. And additionally, the resistors didn't influence the reliability of flashing at all. Even when putting 1K resistors in there, the bootloader flashed perfectly with no issues.
This means that the bootloader of a fully assembled button can be flashed, which in turn means that I won't have to do the assembly myself but can let a contractor take care of that if production volume justifies it. Very useful! Additionally, it gives me a little bit more freedom when laying out the components onto the board.
The only other thing I did so far was to implement a rudimentary version of the non-RGB part of the firmware, which will probably go through many iterations before I'm satisfied with it.
And finally, I had a little chat with the people from Arduino about a possible collaboration! There's nothing set in stone yet, so I don't want to go into any details yet, but I hope we can work something out and I'm very excited for it!

Update! Please vote for the project name!
I've narrowed it down to three final candidates. One Latin word followed by the number 16 to denominate the hole diameter. The meaning of the word is written in parenthesis. The initial list was almost 70 words long.
 
Vote here!
 
If you have any additional thoughts, please let me know!
 

just this 

Personally modding a Micro HDMI cable wouldn't be an issue. For other people I think a box like this would be great. +1 to buy one, once they are released though.

Update!
Ok, so I've been doing a lot of research this night, and despite being somewhat of a set-back, made the decision to abandon the PIC micro and move to the well-known Atmega32u4. 8-bit and 16-bit PIC microcontrollers can't be made compatible with Arduino easily, because there is no C++ compiler for those architectures. It can be hacked together, but I really don't want to spend any time on that.
So, what use is the Atmega32u4 to us?
Advantages:
Same microcontroller used in the Arduino/Genuino Micro, which means: No need to write a new bootloader Easy modification of firmware through Arduino IDE More GPIO, the button can now have 7 GPIO pins instead of 5 Support for SPI and U(S)ART, maybe JTAG as well GPIO pins are now capable of Analog Input (possibly all of them, but I can't confirm that yet) Hardware PWM for internal LED control
Disadvantages:
Higher material cost (about 3$) No support for SCL/SDA 2-wire serial Possibly higher assembly cost (because of VQFN package instead of SSOP) Rework of two PCB assemblies required
The size of the button won't change at all. The maximum current for external LEDs might decrease from 50mA to 40mA, but it could also increase to 80mA if two pins are allowed to source in parallel.
Overall, pretty good value for money if you ask me, but that slowed my progress a little bit.

I don't like the change in thumbnail style for your videos. I really liked the old style

Microsoft are really forcing edge down our throats aren't they... 

Thank You

Man this is amazing. I can't wait to see what other builds you come up with.

This makes me wish I had money.

The performance might be due to the PCIE slot. Try going up to the top one.

No plans on 1080's at the minute. I will wait for the hype to slow down a bit. Would be more interested in the 1080ti. However the two 980ti's I am running boss everything, so I have real need to upgrade...

Not likley because current boards will be compatible with the new CPUs so they will just stay with the Rampage 5

Its not worth it. The upgrade is 5-10% and motherboards are getting kinda pricey for lga 1150. If you are looking for an upgrade I would wait for Kaby Lake because of some more features.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($194.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($26.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Sandisk Z400s 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($69.85 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($46.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  ($173.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($61.49 @ Newegg)
Total: $684.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-08 06:42 EDT-0400

1080 is good enough for most people. TBH A lot of people just want to see the VR performance.

Fair call will probably be choosing that

Start Getting into Videoograpgy and then video editing. That'll get some use of your hardware.