How to configure Nucleo F746ZG with TFT 7' TFT LCD.

Datome · ‎2020-08-20

Hi everyone.

I have Nucleo F746ZG Board and TFT 7" with SSD1963 display and I need a guidance/help for the configuration of CubeMX, Touch GFX in CubeIDE in order to get best performance of my Stm-Nucleo boards on custom Tft Lcd screens. (I don't understand why all tutorials and workshops of ST related to the TouchGfx are executed on disco boards while custom screens are out of scope).

Thanks

Alexandre RENOUX · ‎2020-09-08

You library path was incorrect, you need to change it. I suppose you modified your project name and therefore the lib path was lost.

Also, after this I still had issues because you don't have enough internal RAM for an entire framebuffer.

If you look at the .ld file in STM32F746ZGTX_FLASH.ld

You only have this written :

MEMORY
{
  RAM    (xrw)    : ORIGIN = 0x20000000,   LENGTH = 320K
  FLASH    (rx)    : ORIGIN = 0x8000000,   LENGTH = 1024K
}

However, to store a framebuffer 800x480 with 16 bpp you need 480x800x2/1024 = 750KBytes > 320 KBytes

You need to add external RAM otherwise you cannot do much.

/Alexandre

View solution in original post

Alexandre RENOUX · ‎2020-08-20

Hello,

ST is doing workshops and tutorials on disco boards because these boards are ST boards and therefore they are known by ST. A custom board or custom display can be so many things, it's irrelevant for ST to cover one custom board that is not an ST one. Of course, it is possible to use and implement TouchGFX on custom board but this is the reason why ST does not explain things on custom boards.

To configure in CubeMX, you need to know the specifications of your board (external RAM, external Flash, LCD screen, etc.)

You can refer to the Application Template F746G-DISCO for some inspiration.

/Alexandre

Datome · ‎2020-08-20

Hi Alexandere,

Thanks for the reply but I think I made a mistake by writing custom boards so I edited the question to custom displays. Also, covering ST boards with custom displays to show your boards/software abilities is not irrelevant and not much different than covering motor control (which can be anything ) with ST products. It will ease our job to work with your products and will be much appreciated.

Alexandre RENOUX · ‎2020-08-21

Hello,

I agree with you that having explanation on one custom board/display is interesting because most customers use custom boards/display in their final product. Then the question to ask ourselves is : Will it cover enough for people with a different custom board/display as the one we presented ? If the answer is yes, then you are totally right and it is indeed necessary to have a proper tutorial (in video format because people love this format). If the answer is that we have to cover many boards/display to help every developer for their own particular board, this will be too time consuming for us. And therefore, we tried to write a documentation website explaining in general terms how to create your own Application Template https://support.touchgfx.com/docs/development/board-bring-up/board-introduction

This is the current philosophy and I'll discuss with the team what we can do ;)

Keep us updated on your progress

/Alexandre

Datome · ‎2020-08-21

Exactly, because you know the screen size of disco boards are limited and we need to work with bigger size touch screens.

Not an answer but as a suggestion to your question; you can mention about what your board/software (cubemx touchgfx) combination brings to table for custom screens as a solution. You should explain what you have for custom screens and present couple of examples for general abilities of your tools, for example how many setup options we can apply while working with your tools such as GPIO porting or FSMC/LTDC etc without additional shields just with board and software configuration, what is their prons and cons against each other, what are the key points we should be aware of while configuring those setups, for instance I learned from one of your workshops that we should prefer TIM6/7 instead of SysClk in some cases for better performance issues.

For me, it will be also amazing to see how to setup external SD card to store and transmit large touchgfx application data (1 GB) to control hardware(actuators) interactions in the video :)) but it's a joke of course :)

Datome · ‎2020-09-06

Hi again,

I created a fmc setup and a single background image via touchgfx but it gives compilation error as " cannot find -l:libtouchgfx-float-abi-hard.a " and I couldnt resolve the issue. I attached all files.

Could you please help me to display this simple "hello world" task?

Thanks

Datome · ‎2020-09-07

How can I solve the error?

Alexandre RENOUX · ‎2020-09-08

I'm investigating and will give you an answer as soon as I find out the problem.

/Alexandre

Datome · ‎2020-09-08

Thank you so much Alex.

Alexandre RENOUX · ‎2020-09-08

You library path was incorrect, you need to change it. I suppose you modified your project name and therefore the lib path was lost.

Also, after this I still had issues because you don't have enough internal RAM for an entire framebuffer.

If you look at the .ld file in STM32F746ZGTX_FLASH.ld

You only have this written :

MEMORY
{
  RAM    (xrw)    : ORIGIN = 0x20000000,   LENGTH = 320K
  FLASH    (rx)    : ORIGIN = 0x8000000,   LENGTH = 1024K
}

However, to store a framebuffer 800x480 with 16 bpp you need 480x800x2/1024 = 750KBytes > 320 KBytes

You need to add external RAM otherwise you cannot do much.

/Alexandre