My game design calls for 18x18 pixel tiles. I can do this using s single tile-set and all 4 playfields. Tile 1 is on playfield 0, Tile 2 on playfield 1, Tile 3 on playfield 2 & Tile 4 on playfield 3. Since 18x4 is 72, it's wrapped around to a character boundry. The problem is that overlaying game images requires an entire playfield made from sprites. Now, I intend to use 64x32 sprites, 16 colours and semi-transparent. That would use 20 sprites. That's 20K. Now, can I double-buffer these sprites? I have to draw lines in any direction so it has to be unique. For the DS, I will uss 64x64 sprites. This will use 4x3 sprites but will use 24K. I also need to draw some text and graphics into those sprites. My palette is Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and white. I think I need 2 shades of each, making 14 colours. The 15th I will make a gray to anti-alias the white text. Should I draw into the sprite array, or use 256 coloured sprites. It's more data to transfer, but it will most likely only be 16 pixels high and 128 pixels across (well, I think 1 sprite on the left, one on the right) Will the VDMA download that much or will I need to do a VDMA and finish it with HDMA. Also, since I'm drawing into these sprites in RAM, I'm thinking of putting the graphics in the scrath-pad leaving me with 8K for code. The Audio driver places it's streams in that RAM and the code to draw into sprites in that fast RAM. Has anyone used multiple overlays in the fast RAM? I don't think I have a real problem, but any input would be welcome. Thanks, Sean PS with semi-transparent sprites, can I set the transparency amount. If not, I think I need to place another semi-transparent sprite behind them to make them stand out clearly.... PPS I will fade the levels in an out using that transparency field. If I remember on the SNES that they produced some cool fades using this method. I've written a HDMA emulator for the GBA and I'm sure it's a minor matter to alter if for the DS. PPPS The DS has more vertical lines, so is the VBlank shorter?
