retrocomputing, game design, make code go fast
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Games & Graphics 5History & Retro Computing 3Software Engineering 2
Released in 1983, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) home console was a cheap, yet capable machine that went on to achieve tremendous success. Using a custom designed Picture Processing Unit (PPU) for graphics, the system could produce visuals that were quite impressive at the time, and still hold up fairly well…
Part 1 and part 2 described CHR data, nametable based backgrounds, sprites, and scrolling. Combined, these cover nearly everything a basic NES cart can do without using additional hardware. To go any further will require a quick tangent to discuss, in detail, how rendering happens.
Part 1 discussed the components of NES background graphics – chr, nametable, palettes, and attributes. But this was only half of the story.