Questions tagged [graphics]
For questions regarding graphical - as opposed to text - processing and display.
219 questions
19votes
6answers
6kviews
Were there any games running at high refresh rates such as 90 and 120 Hz on computers and consoles of the 80s and 90s?
Games these days allow us to set the refresh rate as high as we want, the monitor's refresh rate notwithstanding. From what I understand, CRT TVs could easily clock above 60 Hz even in the 20th ...
- 795
2votes
0answers
204views
My TRS-80 CoCo (26-3004) displays only left half of game screen
Have looked online for answers and even asked r/trs80, but can't seem to figure this out. The computer cuts off the right half of the game being displayed. It doesn't seem to be an issue with hardware ...
12votes
3answers
2kviews
Have there been any parallel blitter implementations?
I read about blitters - history and technical implementation (what I could understand), for example in Amiga and Bally Astrocade. The principle is that there is a fast copying of memory from one place ...
- 733
2votes
1answer
375views
Removing Graphics, but not Sprites on C64
I am trying to remember that removing all graphic elements, but not sprites. The aim is to disable DMA and ease to open side borders etc... As I remember it was an option at $D011, but it seems it ...
- 329
5votes
2answers
703views
Advice creating and saving a logo with Apple II HGR graphics (BASIC prog)
I'm working on a small project with a local association to revive and illustrate what can be done with an Apple II. They have both a II c and e models. With the low res GR mode, I use HLIN, VLIN and ...
- 59
8votes
1answer
372views
SNES sprites - are they rendered using shift registers or with a line buffer?
The SNES has the ability to render 34 sprite slices (8px wide) per line, based on up to 32 sprites from its 128 sprite attribute list. However something I've never been able to find a concrete answer ...
- 4,902
7votes
0answers
393views
Where can I find an EGA demo by IBM that created a full screen animation by redefining the EGA character glyphs?
It was an IBM demo of the EGA's ability to show arbitrary text characters, like Chinese or hieroglyphics. It was a full screen animation of a waterfall and a brook and trees with waving leaves. but it ...
4votes
2answers
921views
How does the Sega Master System handle a sprite moving off the left edge of the screen?
The NES and SMS have horizontal resolution 256. This feels like a very natural choice for that tech level; apart from giving roughly square pixels on a CRT, it allows pixel position for e.g. sprites ...
- 64.5k
14votes
4answers
3kviews
Were there 3D accelerators built on discrete logic?
I wonder if there were 3D accelerators (that is, a device that calculates rotations, scaling, texturing, etc. for 3D points) built on discrete logic (7400 series, most likely its fastest variants, ...
- 733
7votes
1answer
727views
Which computer first used stored characters (shape selector) and character bit patterns in the same memory
On the Commodore VIC-20, the VIC chip alternates between cycles where it fetches a byte from screen memory that identifies a character (and also a nybble from color memory), and cycles where it ...
- 40.2k
3votes
1answer
2kviews
How does Quake 1 access video memory in software mode? [closed]
I have WinQuake.exe game file which I compiled myself from source. In software mode (without DirectX/OpenGL), what function is used to access video memory? I know, for example, the DrawDibDraw WinAPI ...
- 147
7votes
2answers
1kviews
How were sprites handled on the IIgs?
The Apple II series including the IIgs did not have hardware sprite handling, though the IIgs did have high resolution graphics (compared to other Apple II machines). However people did manage to ...
- 2,512
17votes
7answers
4kviews
Which 8 bit computer could display the most colors?
Which 8-bit computer could / can display the most colours on screen? Please take into account undocumented/newly discovered video modes and other hacks. For example, static sprites supposedly allow ...
- 827
38votes
7answers
26kviews
Why did older computers and OSes use UPPER case instead of lower case?
Memory constraints in ye olden days meant that text-mode display adapters had room for either upper or lower case, but not both. Why was this universally uppercase and never lowercase? I remember ...
- 491
9votes
2answers
1kviews
Were printed manuals for HP PCL or GL ever published?
If one wants to learn about PostScript, it's possible to find copies of the "Red", "Green" and "Blue" books, which were published by Adobe. Were similar manuals ever ...
