what was the supergrafx actually capable of? do we really know?

[touko]

is it possible to change background priority like md/snes
for exemple to change priority mid-frame, bg2 came in front of bg1 ..
or to change spr1 priority over bg1 in front or behind in mid frame ??

[Arkhan]

Imagine a SFX with playing a cd-rom game that takes advantage on the arcade card too. Would be great.

Imagine how great those SNK fighters would have turned out if they were designed for SFX not PCE.

Very few people have this kind of setup. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are ParanoiaDragon and probably ccovell... maybe BlueBMW.

I have it. 

[ccovell]

is it possible to change background priority like md/snes
for exemple to change priority mid-frame, bg2 came in front of bg1 ..
or to change spr1 priority over bg1 in front or behind in mid frame ??

IIRC, sprite/bg priority on the MD is per BG tile, and on the SNES, stored in each sprite entry.  They can't have their priorities changed with a single register write mid-frame, can they?

The PCE is similar, with priority determined for each sprite.

Here's Charles Macdonald's summary of SGX priority:

Code: [Select]

The default priority as as follows:

 Back                          Front
 SP2 > BG2 > SP2' > SP1 > BG1 > SP1'

 BG2 = VDC #2 background
 SP2 = VDC #2 low priority sprites
 SP2'= VDC #2 high priority sprites
 BG1 = VDC #1 background
 SP1 = VDC #1 low priority sprites
 SP1'= VDC #1 high priority sprites

 The 2-bit priority field affects the layer ordering. The above default
 priority setting is selected for values of 00b and 11b.

 For 01b, VDC #1 sprites are shown behind the VDC #2 background. However,
 the VDC #1 background has missing sprite-shaped areas where it's sprites
 are, even though they are hidden behind both background layers.

 For 10b, VDC #2 sprites are shown in front of the VDC #1 background and
 behind VDC #1 sprites. However, low priority VDC #2 sprites are still
 shown behind VDC #2 background tiles.
Layer priority and windowing can be changed for each scanline as intended.

[touko]

yes i know for md, and you can change (not by changing a registry of course) BG priority easily .
TF4 water stage uses extensively this feature .
Some snes games do the same .

I did some tests with charle's doc, and i found VPC not very useful(in common use), because the only serviceable sprites priority is SPR2 in front of BG1 & BG2 ..
You have only 4 values, two are default VPC parameters, one is cool but usable in some restricted case, and the last for SPR2 in front of BG1 & BG2, the only useful .

It seems impossible to do SPR1(with high priority) in front of BG2, but behind BG1 in mid frame ..

[SignOfZeta]

Imagine a SFX with playing a cd-rom game that takes advantage on the arcade card too. Would be great.

Imagine how great those SNK fighters would have turned out if they were designed for SFX not PCE.

I'm pretty sure those SNK games would have turned out exactly the same. The ACD versions they did make we're pretty damned good, Fatal Fury Special in particular. When you port a Neo game you're probably not going to do much that the Neo didn't do, and the PCE does pretty much everything the Neo version did.

Art of Fighting could be better, but I'm not sure the SGX would have helped. Maybe?

[esteban]

I know it might sound silly, but I would have loved a MAGICIAN LORD REDUX for the ACD PCE.

Just thinking about SNK's stable of games (I know SNK was merely publisher and not developer for Magiciane Lorde).

[spenoza]

I know it might sound silly, but I would have loved a MAGICIAN LORD REDUX for the ACD PCE.

Just thinking about SNK's stable of games (I know SNK was merely publisher and not developer for Magiciane Lorde).

ADK actually developed Magician Lord, but ADK also developed the World Heroes games and the PCE got one of those, so having ADK as a developer shouldn't have been an issue for licensing. Probably demand was a bigger issue.

[Tatsujin]

it would have been the one and only magian lord port outside the SNK world.