Direct Color

Direct Color is a display technique that does not use CGRAM. Instead, the colors come directly from VRAM. Direct color is available only on BG1, in the following background modes:

• Mode 3
• Mode 4
• Mode 7

Direct Select is the name of the bit that turns direct color on or off. ^[3] It lives at bit 0 of CGSWSEL (2130h).

Colors

This mode gets RGB values from the palette and color number. One tile can use 256 colors, and Layer 1 can use 2041 colors. The color value comes from 3 bits R, 3 bits G, 2 bits B from the pixel value, plus 1 bit from the palette value. However, palette 00 is a transparent color rather than black, pure black cannot be used. And, it is RGB443, pure white cannot be used.

YXPbgrTT (YXPCCCTT)
BBGGGRRR (Pixel's value)

The final color values are:

-BBb00GGGg0RRRr0

• 

  Palette 0

• 

  Palette 1

• 

  Palette 2

• 

  Palette 3

• 

  Palette 4

• 

  Palette 5

• 

  Palette 6

• 

  Palette 7

See Also

• Indirect Color

References

1. Chapter 8, "CG Direct Select" on page 2-8-1 of Book I of the official Super Nintendo development manual
2. Appendix A-17 lbid
3. page 2-27-16 of Book I lbid
4. Appendix A-5 lbid

External Links

1. at least four licensed games using direct color: https://snes.nesdev.org/wiki/Uncommon_graphics_mode_games#Direct_Color
2. https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread&t=125133&page=1&pid=1625490#p1625490
3. direct color discussed at 4:37 https://youtu.be/5SBEAZIfDAg?si=QD734cMgjbgNu7fM