VDP1 resolution

Originally posted by ClaudioSH2@Wed, 2005-08-03 @ 01:37 AM

The max res of VDP1 are 640x480 or 640x224 ? Using 3d can use high res?

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The resolutions you can use are:

Horizontal: 320, 352, 640, 704

Vertical: 224, 240, 256 (PAL-only), 448, 480, 512 (PAL-only)

So the largest ones are 704x480 (NTSC) and 704x512 (PAL).

The VDP1 3D graphics are limited by the framebuffer size. The framebuffer is 256K and can be any of these sizes:

512x256, 16-bit

512x512, 8-bit

1024x256, 8-bit

For a high-res display, you are limited to an 8-bit framebuffer and furthermore can only have a increased vertical OR horizontal resolution. So you can have a 640x224 display (Virtua Fighter 2 uses this, IIRC) or a 320x448 display (like Tekken 3 on PSX) but not any bigger.

If you use a larger screen size, the frame buffer is repeated in the empty areas IIRC. In theory you could use a 640x224 screen and use the windows to hide part of the border to display a 512x224 16-bit frame buffer if you really wanted to. Maybe the border could be filled with a status bar generated by the VDP2.

For the VGA and EDTV modes, there is a bit that basically doubles each pixel and each scanline to map a 320x240 / 352x240 area of the framebuffer to a 640x480 (VGA) / 704x480 (EDTV) display. Maybe this could be used in the regular display modes to map the a smaller frame buffer to a high-res VDP2 display. The 3D graphics would look blockier but you could have a mix of high and low-res graphics.

Anyway, as you can see the high-res 3D capabilities of the Saturn are very limited, which is probably why so few games used them.
 
Can't you always double your vertical resolution using the double-interlace mode? Since it divides the scanlines between the two framebuffers you shouldn't be constrained by their size.
 
speaking of which, how many Saturn games used hires in-game? I only remember Virtua Fighter 2, Kids, D-Xhird and Toshinden URA. All of them being fighters...
 
Originally posted by antime@Wed, 2005-08-03 @ 01:34 PM

Can't you always double your vertical resolution using the double-interlace mode? Since it divides the scanlines between the two framebuffers you shouldn't be constrained by their size.

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I totally forgot about that. :D

You are right, for the interlaced modes you can render the even and odd lines to each framebuffer since it only has to hold half of the screen at any given time.

The few times I experimented with this mode I kept forgetting to toggle the draw even/odd lines bit and this made me think it didn't work right, of course that's silly.
 
Originally posted by ClaudioSH2@Thu, 2005-08-04 @ 07:55 PM

VF2 use 640x480 or 640x224 ? Its possible make a PAR code to change the resolution in games using low res?

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I would think that changing the res via a PAR code would brake the games as they might use the framebuffers (and the whole video hardware) for other stuff, not leaving room for the hires rendering.
 
Originally posted by Borisz@Wed, 2005-08-03 @ 02:19 PM

speaking of which, how many Saturn games used hires in-game? I only remember Virtua Fighter 2, Kids, D-Xhird and Toshinden URA. All of them being fighters...

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Last Bronx should, and I suppose also Dead or Alive, Virtual on and Zero Divide.

I read Saturn Bomberman is supposed to run in hires too, maybe the only 2D game (if true)?
 
I'm quite sure that the 10 player mode was running in hires (damn, how could I forgot about that game...) in Bomberman.
 
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