fafling
Gear Supporter
There are examples of games (in the intro video of Megaman 8, and in game for Machinehead) where color RAM mode different of 0 cancels the effect of gradation, which is a particular case of extended color calculation that always require CRAM mode 0. So it's very likely that setting CRAM mode to 1 in your game would cancel the ECC effect on the console (if not, that would be an undocumented behavior of VDP2).
So what you describe is another emulator bug, this time in SSF. However, in SSF 0.12 Preview R9, ECC is working in Sonic R which uses CRAM mode 0. What version of SSF are you using ? And by the way, what is that game you're working on ?
Generally speaking, even if Saturn emulators have made a lot of progress, none of them is 100% accurate currently.
About why ECC was not widely used, I think there are several factors :
So what you describe is another emulator bug, this time in SSF. However, in SSF 0.12 Preview R9, ECC is working in Sonic R which uses CRAM mode 0. What version of SSF are you using ? And by the way, what is that game you're working on ?
Generally speaking, even if Saturn emulators have made a lot of progress, none of them is 100% accurate currently.
About why ECC was not widely used, I think there are several factors :
- You have to read VDP2 manual almost entirely to be aware of ECC, and it's not the easiest read (I needed several pass to fully understand ECC process and restrictions).
- It's hardly mentioned in the graphic libraries manuals. SBL manual doesn't mention it at all (in the code of the library, ECC can be set by a macro documented in japanese). There is a documented way to set it in SGL, but again they don't explain it and refer to VDP2 manual. In other words, it possible that some developers were simply unaware that ECC existed at all, especially for 2D games that most likely used SBL.
- Most 3D games using SGL were geared toward localized blending effects between polygons, rather than layered effect like ECC. Moreover that kind of multilayer full screen blending effect would have been problematic for performance on PSX, so multiplatform games would tend to avoid it. That's why Sonic R is really an exception, it's built with Saturn in mind by developers who understood the machine very well. Maybe there would have been more game like this if Saturn had had a longer support.
- The fact that ECC halves the number of colors in CRAM to make it work with a palette background could have been a deal breaker for some games that preferred to have more colors available for palette graphics.