WiiU Gamepad Technical Documentation

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====== LCD controller ======

The gamepad provides simple display hardware that can display a video feed (from the camera or the H264 decoder) and a framebuffer overlay on top.

Register map:
^ Address    ^ Desc. ^
| 0xF0009400 | Horizontal timing control |
| 0xF0009404 | Vertical timing control |
| 0xF0009408 | ?? |
| 0xF000940C | ?? |
| 0xF0009410 | Horizontal start of display |
| 0xF0009414 | Vertical start of display |
| 0xF0009418 | Horizontal end of display |
| 0xF000941C | Vertical end of display |
| 0xF0009420 | Video feed X offset |
| 0xF0009424 | Video feed width |
| 0xF0009428 | Video feed Y offset |
| 0xF000942C | Video feed height |
| 0xF0009430 | ?? |
| 0xF0009434 | ?? |
| 0xF0009460 | Framebuffer X offset |
| 0xF0009464 | Framebuffer width |
| 0xF0009468 | Framebuffer Y offset |
| 0xF000946C | Framebuffer height |
| 0xF0009470 | Framebuffer stride |
| 0xF0009474 | Framebuffer address |
| 0xF0009478 | ?? |
| 0xF0009480 | Display control |
| 0xF0009484 | ?? |
| 0xF0009488 | ?? |
| 0xF0009490 | ?? |
| 0xF0009494 | ?? |
| 0xF00094B0 | Pixel format |
| 0xF00094B4 | ?? |
| 0xF00094B8 | ?? |
| 0xF00094BC | ?? |
| 0xF00094C0 | ?? |
| 0xF00094C4 | ?? |
| 0xF00094C8 | VCount - current vertical position |
| 0xF00094D0+(N*4) | YUV->RGB matrix (N=0..8) |
| 0xF00094F4 | ?? |
| 0xF00094F8 | Camera sync |
| 0xF00094FC | Counter of sorts |
| ||
| 0xF0009500 | Palette address |
| 0xF0009504 | Palette data |
| 0xF0009508 | VCount IRQ position 1 |
| 0xF000950C | VCount IRQ position 2 |
| 0xF0009510 | VCount IRQ position 3 |
| 0xF0009514 | VCount IRQ position 4 |
| ||
| 0xF0009600+(N*4) | Color correction LUT entry N (N=0..31) |
| 0xF0009684 | Color correction mask |
| ||
| 0xF0009700 | ?? |
| 0xF0009704 | ?? |
| 0xF0009708 | ?? |

Related IRQs:

^ IRQ  ^ Desc. ^
| 0x12 | ?? |
| 0x15 | Display start (VBlank end) |
| 0x16 | VBlank |
| 0x1E | VCount match |

The LCD pixel clock is, by default, 32 MHz. It is sourced from [[General_registers|register 0xF0000034]].


===== Framebuffer registers =====

**0xF0009400**

Controls horizontal timing.

^ Bits  ^ Desc. ^
| 0-11  | Total number of horizontal pixels |
| 16-27 | ??? |

The number of horizontal pixels defines how long each line lasts. Should be set to 1047 for 60FPS output.

Bits 16-27 affect video timings in weird, subtle ways.

**0xF0009404**

Controls vertical timing.

^ Bits  ^ Desc. ^
| 0-10  | Total number of vertical lines |
| 16-24 | ??? |

The number of vertical lines defines how long each frame lasts. Should be set to 510 for 60FPS output.

Bits 16-24 cause VBlank to last a little longer when set to a value lower than 0x100.

**0xF0009410**

Horizontal start of display.

Should be set to 96 to match LCD output.

This register is 11 bits wide.

**0xF0009414**

Vertical start of display.

Should be set to 8 to match LCD output. TODO: this register works weirdly

This register is 13 bits wide.

**0xF0009418**

Horizontal end of display.

Should be set to 950 to match LCD output. Smaller values result in garbage being displayed after the end of the display area. TODO: some values behave weirdly

This register is 11 bits wide.

**0xF000941C**

Vertical end of display.

Should be set to 488 to match LCD output. Smaller values result in a longer VBlank interval at the cost of some vertical resolution (the last line to be displayed will be repeated across the rest of the screen).

This register is 9 bits wide.

**0xF0009460**

X offset, specifies where the framebuffer will start on the screen.

**0xF0009464**

Framebuffer width in pixels.

**0xF0009468**

Y offset, specifies where the framebuffer will start on the screen.

**0xF000946C**

Framebuffer height in pixels.

**0xF0009470**

Framebuffer stride. It is in bytes, except for pixel formats 2 and 3, where it is in 16-bit units.

**0xF0009474**

Framebuffer address. This register is 22 bits wide, thus the framebuffer may only be within main RAM.

**0xF0009480**

Display control register, not yet known how this works.
^ Bits ^ Desc. ^
| 0    | ?? breaks display |
| 1    | Enable display (0=black screen) |
| 2    | Enable video feed (camera/H264?) |
| 3    | Video feed input? (0=post-processed camera?, 1=raw camera?) |
| 4    | Enable overlay | 
| 5    | ?? |
| 6    | ?? |

**0xF00094B0**

Pixel format register.

^ Bits ^ Desc. ^
| 0-1  | Pixel format |
| 2    | ?? |
| 3    | ?? |
| 7    | Color mode; 0=RGB, 1=YUV |
| 8    | ?? collapses overlay to 1px vertical line |
| 9    | ?? |
| 10   | ?? |
| 16-23 | ?? (set to 0xFF) |

The following pixel formats are supported:
^ Value ^ Desc. ^
| 0     | 8-bit paletted |
| 1     | 4-bit paletted (LSb first) |
| 2     | 16-bit ARGB1555 |
| 3     | 16-bit RGB565 |

For the paletted formats, see the palette registers.

Bit 7 causes color components to be interpreted as YUV, with the following mapping: R=V, G=Y, B=U. It seems the handling is different based on the pixel format? Notably, in YUV mode, pixel formats 0 and 1 seem to entirely ignore the palette and instead somehow directly convert indices to color components.

In YUV mode, the matrix at 0xF00094D0..0xF00094F0 is used to convert the YUV components to RGB.


**0xF00094C8**

Current vertical position.


**0xF00094D0+(N*4)**

YUV->RGB matrix.

^ Register   ^ Description   ^ Default value |
| 0xF00094D0 | Y -> G factor | 0x0A5 = 74 |
| 0xF00094D4 | U -> G factor | 0x04E = -14 |
| 0xF00094D8 | V -> G factor | 0x062 = -34 |
| 0xF00094DC | Y -> B factor | 0x0A5 = 74 |
| 0xF00094E0 | U -> B factor | 0x122 = 136 |
| 0xF00094E4 | V -> B factor | 0x000 = 0 |
| 0xF00094E8 | Y -> R factor | 0x0A5 = 74 |
| 0xF00094EC | U -> R factor | 0x000 = 0 |
| 0xF00094F0 | V -> R factor | 0x0B9 = 114 |

The factors work in a bit of a weird way.

^ Bits ^ Desc. ^
| 0-5  | Amount |
| 6    | Sign |
| 7-8  | Multiplier; 0=1, 1=2, 2/3=4 |

The sign bit makes the value negative, but it's not two's complement. Instead: 0x3F = 63, 0x7F = -63.

The multiplier allows to increase the final value. For example, values 0x30, 0x98, 0x10C and 0x18C are equivalent.

Note: YUV mode produces darker colors, even with maximum factor values. One can use the color correction registers at 0xF0009600 to compensate for this.


**0xF00094F8**

Camera sync.

^ Bits ^ Desc. ^
| 0-10 | Vertical position |
| 15   | ??? |

This register allows to synchronize camera output to the display. The camera frame IRQ fires 8 scanlines after the specified position.

This register can be disabled by setting it to a value equal to or greater than the display's total vertical span (as set in 0xF0009404). In this case, the camera outputs at its 'natural' framerate without synchronizing to the display, and the camera frame IRQ fires whenever a frame is finished.


**0xF00094FC**

Counter of sorts. Seems to be based on the [[timers|count-up timer]].

This register is 27 bits wide.


===== Palette registers =====

**0xF0009500**

Palette address. Specifies which palette entry will be accessed by 0xF0009504.

**0xF0009504**

Palette data. 

Reading from this register returns the palette entry pointed by the address register.

Writing to this register will write to the palette entry pointed by the address register, and increment the address register.

The color format is ARGB8888. The MSB of color values seems to actually function as an alpha value, which suggests that the LCD controller may be able to blend the framebuffer with something else, presumably output from the video decoder.


===== VCount IRQ registers =====

**0xF0009508 to 0xF0009514**

These registers allow to trigger IRQ 0x1E based on the current vertical position (VCount).

When VCount matches any of these registers, IRQ 0x1E is triggered. The multiple registers allow to split the frame time in smaller intervals.

These registers are 11 bits wide. They can be 'disabled' by setting them to a value outside of the configured vertical range.

The stock firmware uses IRQ 0x1E to perform input polling and audio sync. The settings it uses divide each frame into 3 equal parts, effectively firing IRQ 0x1E at a 180 Hz interval.


===== Color correction registers =====

These registers allow to correct output color levels. They are presumably used to do gamma correction.

Individual RGB components are simply corrected based on a lookup table with 33 entries.

**0xF0009600+(N*4)**

These registers are the correction LUT.

Presumably, interpolation is used to make up for the limited precision of this LUT, ie. values 0..7 would be mapped to entries 0/1, values 8..15 would be mapped to entries 1/2, and so on.

These registers are 9 bits wide.

**0xF0009684**

Color correction mask. Enables color correction for individual channels.

^ Bits ^ Desc. ^
| 0    | Red   |
| 1    | Blue  |
| 2    | Green |

0 means to output the corresponding channel as-is, 1 means to correct the corresponding channel using the LUT.


===== Timing? registers =====

**0xF0009704**

Unknown. Affects the way video sync/data is sent to the LCD. Has no effect on video timings.


===== Display modes =====

The stock firmware has settings for three different video modes.

^ Setting    ^ Mode 0     ^ Mode 1     ^ Mode 2     ^
| Mode       | 854x480 60Hz | 854x480 50Hz | 640x480 60Hz |
| X offset   | 96         | 202        | 96         |
| Width      | 854        | 854?       | 640?       |
| Y offset   | 8          | 8          | 8          |
| Height     | 480        | 480?       | 480?       |
| 0xF0009400 | 0x03B00417 | 0x01AC04EB | 0x03B00417 |
| 0xF0009404 | 0x01B201FE | 0x01BD01FD | 0x01B201FE |
| 0xF0009408 | 32         | 32         | 32         |
| 0xF000940C | 8          | 8          | 8          |
| 0xF0009410 | 96         | 202        | 96         |
| 0xF0009414 | 8          | 8          | 8          |
| 0xF0009418 | 950        | 1056       | 950        |
| 0xF000941C | 488        | 488        | 488        |
| 0xF0009420 | 96         | 202        | 203        |
| 0xF0009424 | 854        | 854        | 640        |
| 0xF0009428 | 8          | 8          | 8          |
| 0xF0009480 | 0x2        | 0x2        | 0xA        |
| 0xF0009508 | 0x8        | 0x8        | 0x8        |
| 0xF000950C | 0xB2       | 0xB2       | 0xB2       |
| 0xF0009510 | 0x15C      | 0x15C      | 0x15C      |
| 0xF0009514 | 0x7FF      | 0x7FF      | 0x7FF      |