VDP2 (Saturn)

The VDP 2 serves as the Sega Saturn's background processor. Certain special effects such as texture transparency and playfield rotation and scrolling (up to five fields at any given time) are handled here.

Both the VDP2 and VDP1 32-bit video display processor have direct access to the both SH2s, as well as direct memory access (DMA) to both the main and video RAM.

• Background engine
• Four simultaneous scrolling backgrounds
• Uses 8x8 or 16x16 tiles or bitmap display per background
• Programmable memory access controller for VDP2 VRAM
• Two simultaneous rotating playfields
• VDP2 can rotate VDP1 framebuffer position while scanning out to display for rotation effects
• Color RAM supports 15-bit (32768 colors) and 24-bit (16.7 million colors) display modes
• Programmable priority at the per-background / per-tile / per-pixel levels
• Background color tinting/fading, and transparency effects
• Background blur effect (gradation) to simulate distance

Programmable display resolution:

• Horizontal sizes of 320, 352, 640, 704 pixels
• Vertical sizes of 224, 240, 256 scanlines, non-interlaced
• Vertical sizes of 448, 480, 512 scanlines, interlaced

(Only PAL consoles support 256 and 512 scanline displays)

• Hi-Vision (EDTV) and 31KHz (VGA) display support:
• 31KHz: 320x480 or 640x480, non-interlaced (progressive scan)
• Hi-Vision: 352x480 or 704x480, non-interlaced (progressive scan)

(Requires compatible monitor and video cable)