[game_preservation] TV emulation

[Mike Melanson]

Devin Monnens wrote:

> It's interesting too because artists don't like the scanlines (which is 

> why you have the option of using them!). This focus on how the 

> technology looks brings up other questions - what happens if I want to 

> emulate broken hardware (say the NES 'flash' or glitched graphics)? Is 

> there a point where you can try to do too much?


It's useful to note that not all NES flashing is a hardware-related. 
Well, not directly. The NES video hardware is incapable of displaying 
more than 8 sprites on a line. Remember all those games where the 
sprites would start to flicker if there were too many sprites on a 
scanline? That's because the software was toggling them on and off when 
too many crowded on the same scanline. That's why the flickering will 
still show up in emulators.

I remember an NES hacker who reverse engineered Konami's pseudo-random 
algorithm for deciding which sprites to en/disable. Wish I could dig 
that up again.

-- 
     -Mike Melanson