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:
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
References
- Chapter 8, "CG Direct Select" on page 2-8-1 of Book I of the official Super Nintendo development manual
- Appendix A-17 lbid
- page 2-27-16 of Book I lbid
- Appendix A-5 lbid
External Links
- at least four licensed games using direct color: https://snes.nesdev.org/wiki/Uncommon_graphics_mode_games#Direct_Color
- https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread&t=125133&page=1&pid=1625490#p1625490
- direct color discussed at 4:37 https://youtu.be/5SBEAZIfDAg?si=QD734cMgjbgNu7fM