I think your thinking of the Outrun hardware,which didn't even use that many colors....
System 16 specs pretty much revolve around this:
Note only System 16B supports sprite zooming.
Main CPU : MC68000 @ 10 MHz
Sound CPU : Z80 @ 5 MHz
Sound chip : YM2151 @ 4 MHz + ( NEC uPD7759 ADPCM decoder @ 640 kHz in System 16B)
Video resoution : 320 x 224 (vertical)
Colours : 4096
Board composition : Mother board + Rom board
Hardware Features : 128 Sprites on screen at one time, 2 tile layers, 1 text layer, 1 sprite layer with hardware sprite zooming, translucent shadows.
1 sprite layer with sprite zooming is not as intensive as alot of scaling found on other hardware. Thats why there is not a ton of it going on in System 16 games anyway as it is.
For reference here is the Outrun hardware specs:
Main CPU : 2 x MC68000 @ 12.5 MHz
Sound CPU : Z80 @ 4 MHz
Sound chip : YM2151 @ 4 MHz & SegaPCM @ 15.625 kHz
Video resoution : 320 x 224
Board composition : CPU board + Video board
Hardware Features : 128 Sprites on screen at one time, 2 tile layers, 1 text layer, 1 sprite layer with hardware sprite zooming, 1 road layer, can draw 2 roads at once, translucent shadows.
Games run on this hardware,Limited Edition Hang-On,Out Run,Super Hang-On,Turbo Out Run.
Granted some of this could be wrong,but this is what I am seeing on the net for the Supergrafx,and I am inclined to believe most if not all of it:
*CPU: 8-bit HuC6280A, a modified 65C02 running at 3.58 or 7.16 MHz (switchable by software). Features integrated bankswitching hardware (driving a 21-bit external address bus from a 6502-compatible 16-bit address bus), an integrated general-purpose I/O port, a timer, block transfer instructions, and dedicated move instructions for communicating with the HuC6270A VDC.
*GPU: A multiple graphics processor setup. One 16-bit HuC6260 Video Color Encoder (VCE), two 16-bit HuC6270A Video Display Controllers (VDCs), and one HuC6202 Video Priority Controller. The HuC6270A featured Port-based I/O similar to the TMS99xx VDP family.
Display
*Resolution
** Horizontal resolution: variable, maximum of 512 (programmable in increments of 8 pixels)
** Vertical resolution: variable, maximum of 242 (programmable in increments of 1 scanline)
** The majority of SuperGrafx games use 256×224.
*Color
** Depth: 9 bit
** Colors available: 512
** Colors onscreen: 482 (241 background, 241 sprite)
** Palettes: 32 (16 for background tiles, 16 for sprites)
** Colors per palette: 16
*Sprites
** Simultaneously displayable: 128
** Sizes: 16×16, 16×32, 32×16, 32×32, 32×64
** Palette: Each sprite can use up to 15 unique colors (one color must be reserved as transparent) via one of the 16 available sprite palettes.
** Layers: The dual HuC6270A VDCs are capable of displaying 2 sprite layers (1 each). Sprites could be placed either in front of or behind background tiles.
*Tiles
** Size: 8×8
** Palette: Each background tile can use up to 15 unique colors via one of the 16 available background palettes.
** Layers: The dual HuC6270A VDCs were capable of displaying 2 background layers (1 each).
Memory
*Work RAM: 32KB
*Video RAM: 128KB (64KB per HuC6270A VDC)
Audio capacity
* 6 PSG audio channels, programmable through the HuC6280A CPU.
* The addition of the CD-ROM peripheral adds CD-DA sound, and a single ADPCM channel to the existing sound capabilities of the SuperGrafx.
System 16 and Supergrafx can both display 128 sprites.System 16 has 1 sprite layer. Supergrafx has 2 sprite layers I take it? There are tricks and work arounds to get kinda near the same effect as sprite zooming found in System-16 hardware. Yes,System 16 can display more colors,but its not like you ever said the pc-Engine was colorless. Monster Lair was on both System 16 and Pc-Engine,and both look pretty much the same,and that is one of the most colorful games on System 16.
I always laugh when people think System 16 is mighty,when its actually pretty weak compared to alot of other hardware used on pcbs.Even the updates done to the hardware for System 18 were not up to snuff other then for the audio. What do you expect though,its hardware is built around what was needed in 1986 for high end usage.
A real system to contend with would be the MVS:
Main CPU: MC68000 @ 12MHz
Sound CPU: Z80 @ 4MHz
Sound hardware: YM2610 @ 8MHz
Sound Capability: Stereo up to 56KHz, 4 channels FM (4 operators + LFO) + 3 PSG + 1 noise + 7 4-bit ADPCM
Video hardware: 2 palette banks with 4096 (15-bit) colours each. Simple (4-bit) tile layer + 380 zoomable, linkable sprite-strips. Sprite-strips consist of upto 32 16x16 (4-bit) tiles each.
Resolution: 320x224.
Main RAM: 64KB
Sound RAM: 2KB
Video RAM: 128KB (only 68KB is used)
Main ROM: 128KB on-board (BIOS) + upto 8MB on cartridges
Sound ROM: 128KB on-board (only less then 32KB used) + upto 512KB on cartridges
Sprite ROM: up to 64MB
Tile ROM: 128KB on-board + 128KB on cartridges, later cartridges use a portion of sprite ROM that can be larger.
Sound ROM: up to 16MB
Backup RAM: 64KB
Clock/calender: NEC uPD4990a
Memory Cards: JEIDA 3.0 compliant.
Pretty much Segas best most powerful hardware 2D wise was from the Y-board and System 32 days.
