4 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectFB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectFB

• pankajdoharey 2y ago
  How do these Nintendo handhelds work? i thought they use some kind of framebuffer for such great performance for the substandard quality hardware they use. Every generation of Nintendo chip is way behind Apple and Android systems yet they achieve remarkable performance.
  • pjmlp 2y ago
    Yes they use some kind of framebuffer, just like 8 and 16 bit home consoles. They also used plenty of Assembly programmer and special graphics units, the console percursors of GPUs. However since the N64 that they use graphics APIs like everyone else, GBI, GX, GX2 and nowadays NVN. For porting purposes, the Switch also supports GL 4.6 and Vulkan. Other than that, there is also a performance culture, and not using generic game engines.
    • wk_end 2y ago
      The 8 and 16 bit home consoles did not use a frame buffer. The NES had 2KB of VRAM and an output resolution of 256x240 - even if you only had 1bpp it wouldn’t fit. These consoles - along with everything handheld up until the 3DS - create images out of scrolling layers of background tiles and freely positionable sprites. You don’t have any kind of per pixel access, although you can manipulate the state of the hardware as the screen is being drawn to get unorthodox effects.
      • pezezin 2y ago
        The GBA had 6 videos modes: 4 of them were tile based, and the other 3 were framebuffer based. That's how games like Doom could run on the GBA.