Sega Master System colors

[Joe Redifer]

OK OK.  Since I was 13 or 14, I figured the SMS had a total palette of 64 colors with 16 available on the screen.  It even said so right on the box, so this is what I based all of my scientific research on.  But I see in a lot of places (usually random web pages and even some magazines) which say that the SMS has a 256 color palette.  Are they insane?  Or am I the insane one?

So the definitive question is this:  How many colors does the Sega Master System have?

[Turbo D]

Enough to look hella cool dude 

[Keranu]

I was under the impression that it could display around 50 something colors (while Game Gear could display 64) out of a palette of 124. I'm pretty sure it can display more than 16 colors because even the puny NES can display more than that!

[turbofan1]

Enough to look hella cool dude 

Um... yeah.I believe he asked how many colors the Sega Master system could display.

[Joe Redifer]

Actually I asked how many colors it has.  Maybe it can have 31 colors simultaneously.  The NES has 52 total with 16 at once.

From what I recall, the Game Gear is 4096 total with up to 16 at once.

[guyjin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_master_system

# Graphics: VDP (Video Display Processor) derived from Texas Instruments TMS9918

    * Up to 32 simultaneous colors available (16 for sprites, 16 for background) from a palette of 64 (can also show 64 simultaneous colors using programming tricks)
    * Screen resolutions 256×192 and 256×224. PAL/SECAM also supports 256×240
    * 8×8 pixel characters, max 488 (due to VRAM space limitation)
    * 8×8 or 8×16 pixel sprites, max 64
    * Horizontal, diagonal, vertical, and partial screen scrolling

so sayeth wikipedia, anyway.

their article on the game gear claims 32 colors from a pallete of 4096, but that sounds wrong. 

[Turbo D]

Enough to look hella cool dude 

Um... yeah.I believe he asked how many colors the Sega Master system could display.

um... how bout you suck mah balls you troll 

[Joe Redifer]

I've never seen a non-letterboxed SMS game (due to the resolution being only 192 px high).  Are there any games that actually run in 256x224?

Also, as far as the Genesis is concerned, are the SMS colors part of the Genesis 512 color library, or separate?

[guyjin]

probably. Have you ever opened a power base converter? it's pretty much a cartridge connector with one chip in between. What that one chip does, I have no idea.

[ccovell]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_master_system

# Graphics: VDP (Video Display Processor) derived from Texas Instruments TMS9918

    * Up to 32 simultaneous colors available (16 for sprites, 16 for background) from a palette of 64 (can also show 64 simultaneous colors using programming tricks)
    * Screen resolutions 256×192 and 256×224. PAL/SECAM also supports 256×240
    * 8×8 pixel characters, max 488 (due to VRAM space limitation)
    * 8×8 or 8×16 pixel sprites, max 64
    * Horizontal, diagonal, vertical, and partial screen scrolling

so sayeth wikipedia, anyway.

their article on the game gear claims 32 colors from a pallete of 4096, but that sounds wrong. 

No, this is correct.  The SMS' palette is 6-bit, meaning 64 colours to choose from.  BG tiles can select one of two 16-entry palettes, meaning 32 on-screen (roughly).  When they made the Game Gear, Sega upped the colour depth of the palette to 12 bits, meaning 4096 colours to choose from.

If anyone's interested (plug plug), you can see a couple of demos I made for Sega 8-bit, a 3-D SMS one which uses the glasses (and scanline colour changing), and a GG one that shows up to 288 colours on-screen at once.


A lot of Sega's hardware is backwards-compatible.  The SMS' VDP contains SG-1000 video modes: the GG contains SMS and SG-1000 video modes; and the Genesis contains SMS (but neither GG nor SG-1000) video modes.  The palettes are not really designed to be "subsets" of each other, since the SMS' palette is 6-bit, and the Genesis' 9-bit, and so the relative brightnesses of each channel don't overlap between the SMS/Gen except for black and full brightness.  (Do the math to see that this is true.)

As far as the 224/240-line modes go on the SMS, I don't know it in depth, but I'm sure you can find some technical docs that say these modes exist only in the SMS2, PAL SMS, and Game Gear.  Codemasters games use these modes.

[TurboXray]

I've never seen a non-letterboxed SMS game (due to the resolution being only 192 px high).  Are there any games that actually run in 256x224?

The SMS cpu is slower compared to the NES. I'm putting my money on that they decreased the screen res was to gain more vblank time for cpu resouce reasons (more vblank time relaxes CPU resource in a lot of situations - and more so for a VRAM vs VROM type setup).

[ccovell]

The SMS cpu is slower compared to the NES. I'm putting my money on that they decreased the screen res was to gain more vblank time for cpu resouce reasons (more vblank time relaxes CPU resource in a lot of situations - and more so for a VRAM vs VROM type setup).

That may be true, but remember the TMS9918's resolution, on which the SMS' VDP is based, is also limited to 256x192.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't buy this BS about the SMS' CPU being slower than the NES CPU.  The SMS used a Z80.  The Neo Geo also used a Z80.  The Neo Geo wouldn't have used a Z80 if it wasn't totally bad ass.  Therefore SMS = Neo Geo.

[ccovell]

Neo-Geo used a 68000.  CD-I used a 68000.

Therefore Metal Slug = CD-I Zelda.

[TurboXray]

I don't buy this BS about the SMS' CPU being slower than the NES CPU.  The SMS used a Z80.  The Neo Geo also used a Z80.  The Neo Geo wouldn't have used a Z80 if it wasn't totally bad ass.  Therefore SMS = Neo Geo.

Buying? Who's selling? I'm givin' it away for free 

[Kitsunexus]

Neo-Geo used a 68000.  CD-I used a 68000.
Therefore Metal Slug = CD-I Zelda.

Well the Neo·Geo and CD-I lack sentience, so they can't really use anything but they did contain a 68000. 

Oh and btw, read the fascinating history of the CD-I Zeldas.

[ccovell]

Boy, is your idea of the uses of the verb "use" narrow!  You'd make a good law partner with Bill "is" Clinton.

The first counterexample I could think of for non-sentient uses of "use" was really common:

Photosynthesis uses the sun's energy and water to convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and simple sugars.

etc etc

[CrackTiger]

So then all those SMS screenshots online that have 20 colors or so, are the extra colors from coverting between file formats or something?

[Nazi NecroPhile]

So then all those SMS screenshots online that have 20 colors or so, are the extra colors from coverting between file formats or something?

20 is less than 32, so they're doable (it's 16 colors for background and 16 colors for sprites for a total of 32 on screen colors).

[CrackTiger]

So then all those SMS screenshots online that have 20 colors or so, are the extra colors from coverting between file formats or something?

20 is less than 32, so they're doable (it's 16 colors for background and 16 colors for sprites for a total of 32 on screen colors).

I was confused by the early posts claiming that it was supposed to be limited to 16 at once. Still, games with a similar number of total onscreen colors sure look a whole lot better on NES than SMS.

I don't buy this BS about the SMS' CPU being slower than the NES CPU.  The SMS used a Z80.  The Neo Geo also used a Z80.  The Neo Geo wouldn't have used a Z80 if it wasn't totally bad ass.  Therefore SMS = Neo Geo.

The NES cpu crushing the wimpy Z80 would explain why on NES Altered Beast is silky smooth and Genesis fast compared to the slow SMS version.

[ccovell]

20 is less than 32, so they're doable (it's 16 colors for background and 16 colors for sprites for a total of 32 on screen colors).

Remember that any background tile can use either the BG or Sprite palette, so it's 32 for the BG alone, without resorting to sprites.

[TurboXray]

So then all those SMS screenshots online that have 20 colors or so, are the extra colors from coverting between file formats or something?

20 is less than 32, so they're doable (it's 16 colors for background and 16 colors for sprites for a total of 32 on screen colors).

I was confused by the early posts claiming that it was supposed to be limited to 16 at once. Still, games with a similar number of total onscreen colors sure look a whole lot better on NES than SMS.

I don't buy this BS about the SMS' CPU being slower than the NES CPU.  The SMS used a Z80.  The Neo Geo also used a Z80.  The Neo Geo wouldn't have used a Z80 if it wasn't totally bad ass.  Therefore SMS = Neo Geo.

The NES cpu crushing the wimpy Z80 would explain why on NES Altered Beast is silky smooth and Genesis fast compared to the slow SMS version.

I dunno. I think you can see the difference in colors per screen usage when you look at the sprites. NES sprites are limited to 3 colors while the SMS 15 colors. Games like Megaman overlaid another set of sprites in order to get that higher color sprite, but this increases the occurance of flickers while still only upping the color count to 6. NES can do more than 16 colors on screen combined between the sprites and BG tiles, but sub-palette is what hurts it in comparison. Of course MMC 5( or was it 6) helped increase the color per sprite tile limit by mid screen swap outs. I'm sure Chris can elaborate on that more.

[ccovell]

I've never heard of any colour-per-sprite tile changing capability of the MMC5.  Sounds very unlikely.  The MMC5 (and VRC6) could allow every 8x8 tile on the background to have its own choice of the 4 NES palettes;  Without this feature, every group of 16x16 pixels had to share the same palette.

[TurboXray]

Ahh.. that's what it was.