Video modes

The basic TMS9918 features 3 video modes

Text mode

This mode, as its name says, is designed to display text on screen. It does not support sprites and each pattern is 6x8 pixels but requires little memory space. Up to 40 columns are displayed in this mode.

This mode is attractive for text adventures, text dialogs, messages, instructions, lists, menus, etc.

Graphics mode

This mode is designed to display 8x8 tile-based graphics like those found on 8-bit video game consoles. This mode can display up to 32 sprites on screen of which only 4 can be visible in each scanline. Each group of 8 patterns can have up to 2 colors from a palette of 16 colors (including transparency).

This mode is attractive for games, animations, drawings, etc.

Multicolor mode

This video mode is rarely used. With this mode you can display semi-graphics in a resolution of 32x24 pixels, where each pixel can have a unique color from the 16 color palette (including transparency). This mode supports sprites as in the graphics mode.

This mode is attractive for maps, statistical graphics, painting, pixel-art, etc.

Constants are always capitalized. These are some of them related to video modes: