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So what is a typical use case scenario for doing the 256x1 writes? I remember playing with these registers hoping to find a way to optimize for streaming new sprite graphics but it doesn't seem like that's what the address remapping is for.

The priority bit thing is likely so that you can have both a far BG and a HUD providing that the two never overlap the same vertical space.

"Flicker" here may refer to the effect of interlace when fed unfiltered high-resolution graphics, rather than to sprite flicker. "Slowdown" remains unjustified. Yep. That is specifically why I mentioned that the PPU operates with constant timing. It can't "slow down" l...

I'm not familiar with the details, as this is something I still need to play with myself, but to the best of my knowledge... On the SNES, the rendering is effectively done twice, first on the "main screen" and again on the "sub screen". The color math registers determine how thes...

I suppose I could be considered both a coder and an artist. Here are the observations I've made that are relevant to artists based on the technical details of the PPU. First, you need to realize that because it's a graphics processor for a retro system, it is closely timed with the display of the TV...

Well are you trying to call this during initialization or during gameplay? For gameplay it belongs in the NMI handler, if it's initialization you should enable force-blank (it's a bit in the INIDISP register at $2100) to turn off the display so you have free access to the PPU registers without needi...

I'm assuming this code is run in the NMI handler or a setup routine during force-blank? Is there any other part of your program that accesses the same registers? And is this debugger stepthru from a successful run?

Last I checked, Tiled actually has several different export formats (some of them engine-specific too) so the best approach would likely be to program a Tiled exporter rather than something that reinterprets a different Tiled export format.

Something I've been kind of wanting is just a simple visual reference of using HDMA on all the PPU registers. This is making me want to make a PPU documentation ROM with examples of the different graphical features. After all, the Genesis/MD has one for its VDP, and it could potentially be useful g...

Mode 7 is most often used as a rotoscaler but it's actually working off a generic transformation matrix. I'd say one of the less used effects is the ability to vertically shear images at the pixel level. The effect could possibly be combined with horizontal interrupts for more complex visuals but th...

This is something that's been on my mind for a while. Here are my thoughts: A lot of demoscene stuff is basically smoke and mirrors. I get that the whole point is to optimize around a lack of interaction but I'd think the majority of people don't realize this. The effect is that you have people who ...

Objects use the index register - convention is to use X for the "current" object, and it's what the various routines expect for functions involving objects. Each object takes up 33 bytes - as for memory layout, each field takes up 384 bytes, and thus the X register is a multiple of 3. This...

The object pool system effectively works like this: - Initialize a region of memory to include all the possible object indexes - Use it like a queue (FIFO), so have two values to keep track of the current head and tail positions of this queue - When creating an object, pop the value at the head of t...

So I'd been suffering from burnout for a while. My initial goals were maybe a bit too lofty (a project I'm moving over to a more high-level platform - the modern desktop computer). But this stuff is so interesting to me that I still want to have a go at _something_. So right now I'd like to make a s...

Nononono, I don't think you folks understand. I want the aliasing. It lets me do stuff like LFO-like effects without having to make large samples for it. I just want to be sure that the audio emulation in bsnes aliases the same as a real console.