Comment by EvanAnderson
10 hours ago
You might be thinking of another system (like the NES, perhaps), because the C64 has 160x100 and 320x200 bitmap modes.
10 hours ago
You might be thinking of another system (like the NES, perhaps), because the C64 has 160x100 and 320x200 bitmap modes.
Even on NES a lot of games use CHR-RAM so arbitrary bitmaps are at least possible, though only a small part of the screen is unique without some rarely used mapper hardware. Zelda and Metroid mostly just use this to compress the graphics in ROM, Qix is a simple example with line drawing, Elite is an extreme one.
I made a demo of the Mystify screensaver using the typical 8KB CHR-RAM. Even with a lot of compromises it has pretty large borders to avoid running out of unique tiles. https://youtube.com/watch?v=1_MymcLeew8
Elite is my go-to example for madness in a tile-based grapgics system. Watching the CHR-RAM in an emulator while Elite is running is mesmerizing.