Super FX 2 chip in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Super FX

Super FX-rendered 3D polygon graphics in the SNES game Star Fox

In addition to rendering polygons, the chip was also used to assist the SNES in rendering advanced 2D effects. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island used it for advanced graphics effects like sprite scaling and stretching, huge sprites that allowed for boss characters to take up the whole screen, and multiple foreground and background parallax layers to give a greater illusion of depth.

This chip went through three revisions, first starting out as a chip-on-board epoxy glob-top in the earliest Star Fox cartridges, labeled as Mario Chip-1 (Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation & I/O). Within a year, the chip was given a more conventional surface-mount package with the designation GSU-1, commonly called the Super FX. Both versions are clocked with a 21 MHz signal, but an internal clock speed divider halved it to 10.5 MHz. Later on, the design was revised to become the GSU-2, known as the Super FX 2. Unlike the earlier Super FX chips, this version was able to reach 21 MHz. All versions of the Super FX chip are functionally compatible in terms of their instruction set. The differences arise in how they are packaged, their pinout, and their internal clock speed.^[3]

CX4

The CX4 coprocessor chip in Mega Man X2

CX4 wireframe test screen

The Cx4 chip has been accurately emulated in several popular SNES emulators, such as ZSNES and Snes9x, allowing both games to be fully compatible with those emulators given that the user has their ROM images.

DSP

DSP-1 chip in Pilotwings

DSP-1

The DSP-1 is the most varied and widely-used of the SNES DSPs, appearing in over 15 separate titles. It is used as a math coprocessor in games such as Super Mario Kart and Pilotwings that require more advanced Mode 7 scaling and rotation. It also provides fast support for the floating point and trigonometric calculations needed by 3D math algorithms. The later DSP-1A and DSP-1B serve the same purpose as the DSP-1, however, several bugs were corrected in these later chips.

DSP-2

The DSP-2 can only be found in the SNES port of Dungeon Master. Its primary purpose is to convert Atari ST bitmap image data into the SNES bitplane format. It also provides dynamic scaling capability and transparency effects.

DSP-3

An assistant chip used only in one turn-based strategy game for the Super Famicom in Japan titled SD Gundam GX. The chip assisted with tasks like calculating the next AI move, Shannon-Fano bitstream decompression, and bitplane conversion of graphics.

DSP-4

A DSP used in only one game cartridge, Top Gear 3000. It primarily helped out with drawing the race track, especially during the times that the track branched into multiple paths, which was a unique feature of this type of game at the time.

GB-Z80

The chip used inside the Super Game Boy peripheral possessed a core identical to the Z80-derived CPU in the handheld Game Boy Color. Because the Super NES was not powerful enough for software emulation of the Game Boy, circuitry equivalent to an entire handheld console had to sit inside of the cartridge.^[7]

MX15001TFC

This chip was made by MegaChips exclusively for Nintendo Power cartridges. The cartridges were equipped with flash ROMs instead of mask ROMs, and were designed to hold games downloaded from specialized kiosks for a fee. The chip managed communication with the kiosks to download ROM images, and provided an initial menu to select which of the downloaded games would be played. Some titles were available both in cartridge and download form, while others were download only. The service was closed on February 8, 2007.^[8]

OBC-1

A sprite manipulation chip used exclusively in the Super Scope game Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, the sequel to Battle Clash.^[2]

S-DD1

The S-DD1 chip is a powerful ASIC decompressor made by Nintendo for use in some Super Nintendo Entertainment System Game Paks.^[2] Designed to handle data compressed by ABS Lossless Entropy Algorithm, a form of arithmetic coding developed by Ricoh, its use was necessary in games where massive amounts of sprite data had to be compressed with a 32 or 48 megabit data limit in mind. This data is decompressed on-the-fly by the S-DD1 and given directly to the picture processing unit.

The S-DD1 mediates between the Super NES's core CPU (the Ricoh 5A22) and the game's ROM via two buses. However, the controlling 5A22 processor may still request normal, uncompressed data from the game's ROM even if the S-DD1 is already busy with a decompression operation. This form of parallelism allows sprite data to be decompressed while other types of data are quickly passed to the main CPU.

Star Ocean and Street Fighter Alpha 2 were the only games that used this chip. It also served as a de facto copy protection that made these titles extremely difficult to emulate.

S-RTC

A real-time clock chip used in one game, Dai Kaiju Monogatari 2.^[2]

SA-1

SA-1 chip

Similar to the 5A22 CPU in the SNES console, the SA-1 contains a processor core based on the 65C816 with several programmable timers.^[2] The SA-1 does not function as a slave CPU for the 5A22; both can interrupt each other independently.

The SA-1 also features a range of enhancements over the standard 65C816:

• Upgraded 10 MHz clock speed, up from a max of 3.58 MHz
• Faster RAM
• Memory mapping capabilities
• Limited data storage and compression
• New DMA modes such as bitmap to bitplane transfer
• Built-in CIC lockout, for piracy protection and regional marketing control

SPC7110

A data decompression chip designed by Epson that was used in a few games by Hudson. Far East of Eden Zero also contains a real-time clock chip accessed via the SPC7110.^[2]

ST

ST010 chip in Exhaust Heat II

ST010

Used for general functions and handling the AI of opponent cars in F1 ROC II: Race of Champions.^[10]

ST011

Used for AI functionality in the Shogi board game Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi. Likely based on the same microcontroller core as the ST010.^[7]

ST018

Used for AI functionality in Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2.^[7]

List of Super NES games that use enhancement chips

References

External links

• SNES/FC Cart Enhancement Chips by Gamers Graveyard
• SNES and Super Famicom Tech specs and Hardware by Nintendo Land
• SNES Central