FastLED 3.9.4

• Fixes some name collisions from users including a lot of libraries in their project.
• Other misc fixes.

FastLED 3.9.3

• Beta Release 3 for FastLED 4.0.0
• ESP32C6 now supported with RMT5 driver without workaround. This chip does not use DMA and so must go through the non DMA path for RMT.
• RMT5 tweaks for ESP32
  • For non DMA memory boards like the ESP32, ESP32C3, ESP32C6 RMT will now double it's memory but only allow 4 RMT workers.
  • This was the behavior for the RMT4.X drivers.
  • This is done to reduce LED corruption when WIFI is enabled.
• WS2812 now allows user overrides of it's timing values T1, T2, T3. This is to help debug timing issues on the new V5B of
  this chipset. You can define FASTLED_WS2812_T1, FASTLED_WS2812_T2, FASTLED_WS2812_T3 before you include FastLED.

FastLED 3.9.2 - Beta Release 2 for 4.0.0

FastLED 3.9.2

• In this version we introduce the pre-release of our WS2812 overclocking
• We have compile fixes for 3.9.X
• WS28XX family of led chipsets can now be overclocked
  • See also define FASTLED_LED_OVERCLOCK
    • Example: #define FASTLED_OVERCLOCK 1.2 (gives 20% overclock).
    • You can set this define before you include "FastLED.h"
    • Slower chips like AVR which do software bitbanging will ignore this.
    • This discovery came from this reddit thread:
      • https://www.reddit.com/r/FastLED/comments/1gdqtw5/comment/luegowu
      • A special thanks to https://www.reddit.com/user/Tiny_Structure_7/ for discovering this!
    • See examples/Overclock.ino for a working demo.
  • You can either overclock globally or per led chipset on supported chipsets.
  • Real world tests
    • I (Zach Vorhies) have seen 25% overclock on my own test setup using cheap amazon WS2812.
    • u/Tiny_Structure_7 was able to overclock quality WS2812 LEDs 800khz -> 1.2mhz!!
    • Assuming 550 WS2812's can be driven at 60fps at normal clock.
      • 25% overclock: 687 @ 60fps
      • 50% overclock: 825 @ 60fps
      • Animartrix benchmark (ESP32S3)
        • 3.7.X: 34fps
        • 3.9.0: 59fps
        • 3.9.2: 70fps @ 20% overclock (after this the CPU becomes the bottleneck).
      • FastLED is now likely at the theoretical maximum speed and efficiency for frame draw (async) & dispatch (overclock).
  • Fixes ESPAsyncWebServer.h namespace collision with fs.h in FastLED, which has been renamed to file_system.h

Example of how to enable overclocking.

#define FASTLED_OVERCLOCK 1.2 // 20% overclock ~ 960 khz.
#include "FastLED.h"

Bug fix for namespace conflicts with ArduinoJson

FastLED 3.9.1

• Bug fix for namespace conflicts
• One of our third_party libraries was causing a namespace conflict with ArduinoJson included by the user.
  • If you are affected then please upgrade.
• FastLED now supports it's own namespace, default is fl
  • Off by default, as old code wants FastLED stuff to be global.
  • Enable it by defining: FASTLED_FORCE_NAMESPACE

FastLED 3.9.0 / Beta 4.0

• Beta 4.0.0 release
• ESP32 RMT5 Driver Implemented.
  • Driver crashes on boot should now be solved.
  • Parallel AND async.
    • Drive up to 8 channels in parallel (more, for future boards) with graceful fallback
      if your sketch allocates some of them.
      • In the 3.7.X series the total number of RMT channels was limited to 4.
    • async mode means FastLED.show() returns immediately if RMT channels are ready for new
      data. This means you can compute the next frame while the current frame is being drawn.
  • Flicker with WIFI should be solved on ESP32's featuring DMA. The new RMT 5.1 driver features large DMA buffers and deep transaction queues to prevent underflow conditions.
  • Memory efficient streaming encoding. As a result the "one shot" encoder no longer
    exists for the RMT5 driver, but may be added back at a future date if people want it.
  • If for some reason the RMT5 driver doesn't work for you then use the following define FASTLED_RMT5=0 to get back the old behavior.
• Improved color mixing algorithm, global brightness, and color scaling are now separate for non-AVR platforms. This only affects chipsets that have higher than RGB8 output, aka APA102, and clones
  right now.
  • APA102 and APA102HD now perform their own color mixing in psuedo 13 bit space.
    • If you don't like this behavior you can always go back by using setting FASTLED_HD_COLOR_MIXING=0.
• Binary size
  • Avr platforms now use less memory
  • 200 bytes in comparison to 3.7.8:
    • 3.7.8: attiny85 size was 9447 (limit is 9500 before the builder triggers a failure)
    • 3.8.0: attiny85 size is now 9296
    • This is only true for the WS2812 chipset. The APA102 chipset consumes significantly more memory.
• Compile support for ATtiny1604 and other Attiny boards
  • Many of these boards were failing a linking step due to a missing timer_millis value. This is now injected in via weak symbol for these boards, meaning that you won't get a linker error if you include code (like wiring.cpp) that defines this.
  • If you need a working timer value on AVR that increases via an ISR you can do so by defining FASTLED_DEFINE_AVR_MILLIS_TIMER0_IMPL=1
• Board support
  • nordicnrf52_dk now supported and tested (thanks https://github.com/paulhayes!)
• Thanks to all the contributors that have supported bug fixes and gotten random boards to compile.

FastLED is now the FASTEST driver in the led space!

For sketches that do a lot of heavy processing for each frame, FastLED is going to be significantly faster with this new release.

How much faster?

I benchmarked the animartrix sketch, which has heavy floating point requirements (you'll need a Teensy41 or an ESP32S3 to handle the processing requirements).

FastLED 3.7.X - 34fps FastLED 3.9.0 - 59fps (+70% speedup!)

Why?

In FastLED 3.7.X, FastLED.show() was always a blocking operation. Now it's only blocking when the previous frame is waiting to complete it's render.

In the benchmark I measured:

• 12 ms - preparing the frame for draw.
• 17 ms - actually drawing the frame.

@ 22x22 WS2812 grid.

So for FastLED 3.7.X this meant that these two values would sum together. So 12ms + 17ms = 29ms = 34fps. But in FastLED 3.9.0 the calculation works like this MAX(12, 17) = 17ms = 59fps.

If you fall into this category, FastLED will now free up 17ms to do available work @ 60fps, which is a game changer.

As of today's release, nobody else is doing async drawing. FastLED is the only one to offer this feature.

3.7.8

FastLED 3.7.8

• Attiny0/1 (commonly Attiny85) support added.
  • #1292 , #1183 , #1061
  • Special thanks to @freemovers, @jasoncoon, @ngyl88 for the contribution.
  • Many common boards are now compiling in the Attiny family. See our repo for which ones are supported.
• Arduino nano compiling with new pin definitions.
  • #1719
  • Thanks to https://github.com/ngyl88 for the contribution!
• New STM32F1 boards compiling
  • bluepill
  • maple mini
• CPPCheck now passing for HIGH and MEDIUM severity on all platforms.

3.7.7

What's Changed

• WS2812 RGBW mode is now part of the API.
  • Api: FastLED.addLeds<WS2812, DATA_PIN, GRB>(leds, NUM_LEDS).setRgbw(RgbwDefault());
  • Only enabled on ESP32 boards, no op on other platforms.
  • See examples/RGBW/RGBW.ino
• WS2812 Emulated RGBW Controller
  • Works on all platforms (theoretically)
  • Has an extra side buffer to convert RGB -> RGBW data.
    • This data is sent to the real driver as if it were RGB data.
    • Some padding is added when source LED data is not a multiple of 3.
  • See examples/RGBWEmulated/RGBWEmulated.ino
• New supported chipsets
  • UCS1912 (Clockless)
  • WS2815 (Clockless)
• New supported boards
  • xiaoblesense_adafruit
    • Fixes #1445
• PixelIterator has been introduced to reduce complexity of writing driver code
  • This is how RGBW mode was implemented.
  • This is a concrete class (no templates!) so it's suitable for driver code in cpp files.
  • PixelController<> can convert to a PixelIterator, see PixelController<>::as_iterator(...)
• Fixed APA102HD mode for user supplied function via the linker. Added test so that it won't break.
  Full Changelog: 3.7.6...3.7.7

3.7.6

What's Changed

• Adds experimental RGBW support for ESP32 WS2812 RGBW by @zackees in #1704
• Add RP2040 Arduino-Pico build by @maxgerhardt in #1703
• Make NRF sense work by @zackees in #1706

New Contributors

• @maxgerhardt made their first contribution in #1703

Full Changelog: 3.7.5...3.7.6

3.7.5

What's Changed

• split the esp32-idf 4.x vs 5.x rmt driver. 5.x just redirects to 4.x by @zackees in #1682
• manually merged in stub from #1366 by @zackees in #1685
• manually merge changes from master...ben-xo:FastLED:feature/avr-clockless-trinket-interrupts by @zackees in #1686
• Add simplex noise [revisit this PR in 2022] by @aykevl in #1252
• Add ColorFromPaletteExtended function for higher precision by @zackees in #1687
• correct RP2350 PIO count / fix double define SysTick by @FeuerSturm in #1689
• improved simplex noise by @zackees in #1690
• Fix shift count overflow on AVR in simplex snoise16 by @tttapa in #1692
• adds extended color pallette for 256 by @zackees in #1697
• RP2350 board now compiles.

New Contributors

• @FeuerSturm made their first contribution in #1689
• @tttapa made their first contribution in #1692
• @generalelectrix for extended pallete
• @sutaburosu for extended pallete

Full Changelog: 3.7.4...3.7.5

3.7.4

What's Changed

• fixes 1653 compiler error for Apa102 hardware spi pins on ESP32-S3 by @zackees in #1670
• adds build directory caching to massively speed up builds by @zackees in #1671
• Adding Adafruit Pixel Trinkey M0 by @BlitzCityDIY in #1630
• Doxygen + Documentation Maintenance by @dmadison in #1626
• First pass at RMT refactor. Seperated the RMT driver from the FastLED… by @zackees in #1675
• make framework changes to allow massive parralelization by @zackees in #1676
• Nrf feather sense support for WS2812 by @zackees in #1681

New Contributors

• @BlitzCityDIY made their first contribution in #1630

Full Changelog: 3.7.3...3.7.4