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General discussion (archive)A question about the NES palette limitations.(8 posts)solved(8 posts)solved
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Posted September 07, 2013
I've been trying to figure out the limitations of the NES palette, but there's one more thing that's not quite clear to me. Here's what I know so far: The NES has 56 colors, but only 25 of them can be on the same screen at once. Those 25 colors are displayed in 8 palettes with 3 colors each, plus one solid background color. An 8x8 pixel graphic tile can only have one palette applied to it.
Now, here comes the part where I get a bit confused.... Can the 8 palettes be applied to both background tiles and sprite tiles, or are 4 palettes reserved for background tiles, and 4 reserved for sprite tiles?
This question / problem has been solved by Barefoot_Monkeyimage
Posted September 07, 2013
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NerdKoopa: I've been trying to figure out the limitations of the NES palette, but there's one more thing that's not quite clear to me. Here's what I know so far: The NES has 56 colors, but only 25 of them can be on the same screen at once. Those 25 colors are displayed in 8 palettes with 3 colors each, plus one solid background color. An 8x8 pixel graphic tile can only have one palette applied to it.
Now, here comes the part where I get a bit confused.... Can the 8 palettes be applied to both background tiles and sprite tiles, or are 4 palettes reserved for background tiles, and 4 reserved for sprite tiles?
I remembered seeing something about it on Dueling Analogs, so a quick googling gave me this: http://www.duelinganalogs.com/article/the-nes-that-never-was/

I suppose some info on either the post or the comments will be useful to you.
Post edited September 07, 2013 by joppo
Posted September 07, 2013
Sorry, but that didn't help. That article only adressed the color limitiations. I'm wondering about the palette applying limitations.
Posted September 07, 2013
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NerdKoopa: Can the 8 palettes be applied to both background tiles and sprite tiles, or are 4 palettes reserved for background tiles, and 4 reserved for sprite tiles?
I'm not certain, but this article reads like they are separated.

"Palette tables live in 0x3F00 - 0x3F20 in VRAM, and are mirrored all the way up to 0x4000. The palettes are broken up into two separate tables. Background palettes are located in 0x3F00 - 0x3F0C, and sprite palettes are in 0x3F10 - 0x3F1C"
Posted September 07, 2013
Perhaps the NESdev site contains useful information?
The Nintendo Entertainment System documentation v2.0 by Jeremy Chadwick perhaps?
Posted September 07, 2013
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adambiser: I'm not certain, but this article reads like they are separated.

"Palette tables live in 0x3F00 - 0x3F20 in VRAM, and are mirrored all the way up to 0x4000. The palettes are broken up into two separate tables. Background palettes are located in 0x3F00 - 0x3F0C, and sprite palettes are in 0x3F10 - 0x3F1C"
Oh crud... This got complicated really fast! Not helped by the fact that I don't know how to read hex values.
Posted September 07, 2013
The background/sprite attributes allow 2 bits for selecting palette, meaning only 4 palettes are available. To allow as many colours on the screen as possible, backgrounds and sprites get a separate selection of palettes. That makes 8 3-colour palettes available in total - 4 to sprites and 4 to backgrounds.
Posted September 07, 2013
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adambiser: I'm not certain, but this article reads like they are separated.

"Palette tables live in 0x3F00 - 0x3F20 in VRAM, and are mirrored all the way up to 0x4000. The palettes are broken up into two separate tables. Background palettes are located in 0x3F00 - 0x3F0C, and sprite palettes are in 0x3F10 - 0x3F1C"
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NerdKoopa: Oh crud... This got complicated really fast! Not helped by the fact that I don't know how to read hex values.
The main part of my answer was "The palettes are broken up into two separate tables" which I assumed meant that backgrounds can't use sprite palettes and vice versa, which I think Barefoot_Monkey explains a bit better.
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General discussion (archive)A question about the NES palette limitations.(8 posts)solved(8 posts)solved
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