SpritesMind.Net

If I'm doing a split scroll background with line scroll, do I absolutely have to fill out the entire horizontal scroll RAM per line?
It seems pretty wasteful to have to fill it out for every single line when most of the values are duplicated. Especially when I have 2 or 3 "row" splits (VDP's in line scroll mode the whole time) and 32-64 actual scrolling lines.

Can the mode reg be set at hblank? So I could have like

line 0 - > full scroll
line x(-1?) -> cell scroll
line y(-1?) -> line scroll

and just fill out the relevant values in the scroll table?

Obviously this would effect both planes, so I don't know how useful it would be in practice, but can it be done?

I believe the horizontal scroll mode setting takes effect once per line since that's how often the scroll values are read. I don't see any reason why your scheme wouldn't work in principle. Another option is to just use full screen mode and then update the scroll value with horizontal interrupts. Which is preferable probably depends on what you're trying to optimize for.

I ended up splitting my line scroll buffer in RAM into two contiguous buffers for each plane which are then interleaved into VRAM through a couple of offset DMAs. Speed isn't a problem so far because my game logic isn't that complex yet, but I like the idea of using the full plane scroll in hblank too. Either way, you got me thinking about how to solve a problem, which is the most important thing. Thanks!

a little late on the subject but you also could use reg 10 and set hint to occurs less than every line
In theory you could also change reg 10 while on hint ....bu never tried

You can but the counter has already been loaded, so it won't take effect for the next interrupt but the one after that =/ (making it kind of pointless)