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What is the actual purpose of VDP1 end codes?

mrkotfw - Jan 2, 2015

		mrkotfw	Jan 2, 2015
		I'm unable to see any use (to a developer's point of view) on using end codes other than a way to improve the sprite fill rate (i.e. a "sparse" sprite would benefit from this) Is this a correct assumption?

		antime	Jan 4, 2015
		That was the intended use. I've never come up with any practical creative way to abuse the feature.

		mrkotfw	Jan 4, 2015
		antime said: That was the intended use. I've never come up with any practical creative way to abuse the feature. Is it explicitly stated somewhere? It seems like it's used quite a bit. I see a lot of games with end codes enabled.

		antime	Jan 12, 2015
		Piratero said: Is it explicitly stated somewhere? I don't remember if it's spelled out more explicitly anywhere than in the VDP1 manual ("If a second end code is read in the horizontal direction during drawing of a character ... drawing of that row is terminated"). Since end codes don't cost anything I guess it's not too surprising they're used.