Are NES games suppose to flicker (sprite flickers)?

[Mad_Hatter]

NES was before my time. But I like to try out those old games.

Anyway, I emulate these games using JNES 1.1. Some games flicker much more than others. Ninja Turtles 2 and 3 and Snow Bros flicker like crazy, opposed to Super Mario.

Is this natural? Do NES games on the actual console flicker? Or is this an emulator issue.

I play fulll screen, with vertical sync and triple buffering.

[AppleQueso]

It's a perfectly normal thing. It happens because of hardware limitations.

The reason why is because the NES's PPU will only display the first 8 8x8 pixel sprites it receives on a given line, others are just ignored. To get around this, programmers had to come up with an Object Attribute cycling routine that basically shuffles the order in which those sprites are drawn every frame. It's basically a tradeoff so sprites don't just disappear when there's too many on one line.

[Hatta]

Some emulators have an option to turn off the 8 sprite per scan line limitation. This could produce unpredictable side effects, but is usually an improvement.

[meat]

Try playing tecmo super bowl or dodge ball.

[Mad_Hatter]

What NES emulators allows for more sprites?

I use JNES, latest, but saw no option.

It's a perfectly normal thing. It happens because of hardware limitations.

The reason why is because the NES's PPU will only display the first 8 8x8 pixel sprites it receives on a given line, others are just ignored. To get around this, programmers had to come up with an Object Attribute cycling routine that basically shuffles the order in which those sprites are drawn every frame. It's basically a tradeoff so sprites don't just disappear when there's too many on one line.

Thanks for the info!

[MrPopo]

When Mega Man 9 was released Capcom even programmed in a "sprite flicker" option to give that original NES feeling.

[Hatta]

What NES emulators allows for more sprites?

Mednafen is one. Set 'nes.no8lim' to '1' in the config file.