Hudson Soft HuC6270

Hudson Soft HuC6270 VDC

HuC6270 is a video display controller (VDC) developed by Hudson Soft and manufactured for Hudson Soft by Seiko Epson.[1][2] This VDC was used in the PC Engine game console series produced by NEC Corporation, and the upgraded PC Engine SuperGrafx.[3][4]

Technical specification

The HuC6270 generates a display signal composed a 9-bit stream pixel data with a color and palette indexes,[5] and indication of whether the pixel corresponds to background (with x y scrolling) or sprites. This data can be used by a colour encoder to output graphics.

It uses external VRAM via a 16-bit address bus. It can display up to 64 sprites on screen, with a maximum of 16 sprites per horizontal scan line.[6]

The minimum resolution is 256 × 224 pixels, with resolutions up to 512 × 240 being possible.[2]

Uses

The HuC6270 was used in consoles of the PC Engine, SuperGrafx and TurboGrafx-16 ranges.[3][4][7]

Additionally, the VDC was used in arcade games:[7]

The arcade version of Bloody Wolf ran on a custom version of the PC Engine. The arcade hardware is missing the second 16-bit graphic chip, the HuC6260 (鉄観音 - "TETSU") video color encoder,[8][9] that is in the PC Engine.[10] This means the VDC directly accesses palette RAM and builds out the display signals/timing. A rare Capcom quiz-type arcade game also ran on a modified version of the SuperGrafx hardware, which used two VDCs.

References

  1. ^ 日経クロステック（xTECH） (20 October 2022). "PCエンジンで動くソフトを自作しよう、SDKの関数を使いこなす". 日経クロステック（xTECH） (in Japanese). Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  2. ^ a b Copetti, Rodrigo (June 29, 2024). "PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 Architecture | A Practical Analysis". The Copetti site - Technical writings for hungry readers. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  3. ^ a b Aycock, John; Reinhard, Andrew; Therrien, Carl (2019-01-01). "A Tale of Two CDs: Archaeological Analysis of Full-Motion Video Formats in Two PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Games". Open Archaeology. 5 (1): 350–364. doi:10.1515/opar-2019-0022. ISSN 2300-6560.
  4. ^ a b History of Video Games - Four Decades of Video Entertainment (PDF). p. 14.
  5. ^ Pol, Wilbert. "NEC HuC6270 Video Display Controller". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  6. ^ "HuC6270 CMOS Video Display Controller MANUAL" (PDF).
  7. ^ a b "Machine: Hudson HuC6270 VDC (huc6270)". Vas the Man’s Arcade. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  8. ^ "HuC6260 CMOS MANUAL" (PDF).
  9. ^ "HuC6260". Archaic Pixels. 2018-09-07. Archived from the original on 2018-09-07. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  10. ^ "TurboGrafx-16 technical information". Archaic Pixels. Archived from the original on 2005-02-04. Retrieved 2014-05-02.