What is the actual purpose of VDP1 end codes?

[mrkotfw]

I'm unable to see any use (to a developer's point of view) on using end codes other than a way to improve the sprite fill rate (i.e. a "sparse" sprite would benefit from this)

Is this a correct assumption?

 

[antime]

That was the intended use. I've never come up with any practical creative way to abuse the feature.

 

[mrkotfw]

That was the intended use. I've never come up with any practical creative way to abuse the feature.

Is it explicitly stated somewhere?

It seems like it's used quite a bit. I see a lot of games with end codes enabled.

 

[antime]

Is it explicitly stated somewhere?

I don't remember if it's spelled out more explicitly anywhere than in the VDP1 manual ("If a second end code is read in the horizontal direction during drawing of a character ... drawing of that row is terminated"). Since end codes don't cost anything I guess it's not too surprising they're used.