How the SNES Graphics System Works
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How the SNES Graphics System Works
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Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#2excellent SNES PPUs overview, also reading part 2:
https://fabiensanglard.net/snes_ppus_why/
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#3FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#4FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)
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Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#5Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could play it on the North American SNES.
What I really never understood is how the whole system dealt with the differences between PAL and NTSC. For starters, the Japanese system outputs in PAL, which is 625 horizontal scan lines at ~25 fps. The North American system outputs in NTSC, which is 525 horizontal scan lines at ~29.97 fps.
Does anybody understand how that worked?
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#6Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could…
Japan used NTSC-J, not PAL. Apparently it's close enough to American NTSC that they are basically compatible.
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#7Nand 2 Tetris (which gets posted on HN a lot, rightly) will give you a fundamental understanding of a lot of these low-level concepts https://www.nand2tetris.org/
A good exercise for the junior systems engineer, or someone who wants to fundamentally understand computers better than the REPL, is to build their own emulator.
There is likely a wealth of tutorials out there, but if there is not yet a canonical book on how to write an NES, Genesis, SNES, etc. emulator from scratch that can load real ROMs, I think this would really scratch an itch for the aspiring hardcore developer. It is a very illuminating exercise and given the performance of modern computers and the extensive number of graphics libraries for every semi-popular language in existence, I think a universal book could be written that pseudo-codes the concepts of emulation and enables developers of all stripes to build their own emulator.
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#8Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could…
Europe runs PAL, here it was popular to hunt TV's that could run NTSC because of the higher framerate. This leads to less flicker. All TV's that can run NTSC can also run PAL so you can switch between the 50/60 Hz as you need on computers. Can't remember how it was with consoles, once I got a computer I never really touched a console again :-)
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#9Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could…
As other people have said, Japan used an NTSC-based system.
I’m in the UK but I ended up buying a Super Famicom to play SNES games* because I didn’t want to play the crappy slowed-down PAL versions and a good-condition SFC was significantly cheaper than a US SNES. The Japanese/European case design is also way cooler than the US one imo.
Funnily enough the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis power supply is a perfect match for connecting a Super Famicom to a UK power socket.
*I know US SNES carts are physically larger and won’t fit in an SFC without an adaptor, but I was using a flash cart with an SFC-sized shell. I had it connected to a CRT at the time so I wanted real hardware rather than emulation.
Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works
#10Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could…
The only difference to handle PAL and NTSC is the master clock. The two consoles shipped with two different oscillator. I actually detailed how this works in last month article[1].
And as other have pointed out, Japan and USA both use NTSC.
[1] https://fabiensanglard.net/snes_video/#:~:text=totally%20use...