🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <wyman.713577083@opal8> wyman@rtsg.mot.com (Mark S. Wyman) writes:
>
>I kinda like the split screen idea if flickering can be kept to a minimum.

Updating the static portion only during the vertical blank should
eliminate all flicker. Most updates to a status area are small (e.g. a
digit or two of a score), and should be easy to accomplish during one
vertical retrace period. If you have a lot of stuff to write, break it
up into chunks sized so that one chunk can be written during each
vertical blank, and then write the chunks out during successive vertical
blank periods. Even if it takes 3 or 4 VBs to write everything, that's
still only 1/15th of a second or so.

It's a little extra work to code your drawing routines to check the
vertical retrace flag in the CTR controller's registers, but it buys you
space for a sprite cache in video memory on certain platforms unendowed
with a hardware blitter chip.