The SNES, in its lifetime, had three different chips added to some of its games to produce effects that the SNES hardware alone was not capable of. These three chips are, in order of appearance on the market, are the DSP, the Super FX, and the C4. All of these chips are built onto the circuit board inside the Game Paks, and are controlled by the software program, not the SNES hardware. The first two were developed by Nintendo, and the third was probably developed by Capcom for their Mega Man X series of games. Before getting into the detail of these chips, a little history is necessary.
In its heyday, the SNES was a powerful game machine. But, one of the first roadblocks programmers found with the SNES was lack of certain graphics hardware that would allow good pseudo 3D gameplay. Thus, the DSP chip was developed by Nintendo, and put into such games as Pilotwings, Yoshi's Island, and most notably, the phenominally popular Super Mario Kart.
But, it was not long after the SNES's release, gamers saw some of the new, exciting power of the next generation of game machines. Much of the hype over the "next generation" was the ability to produce lifelike 3D polygon games. SNES games started to look primitave compared to what was on the horizon, and it was not long before gamers started to demand 3D games for the SNES, which, even with a DSP chip inside the cart, the SNES could not physically handle. It was also around this time that word of a CD-ROM accessory was being planned for the SNES. But, plans for the release of the SNES CD-ROM were far in the future, and Nintendo needed something to appease the appetites of players hungry for polygon games. So, Nintendo developed another chip to provide more realistic, polygon based 3D gaming to the SNES, for the interm period between then and the release of the SNES CD-ROM, which would have built-in 3D polygon rendering hardware. This chip was known as the Super FX chip. The Super FX chip was placed in only a few games, and the only one which made any significant impact with the gaming public was Star Fox.
This game achieved superstar status very quickly, and even today remains a favorite with players. The game would certainly not have been possible without the Super FX chip, but there is some question as to how much role the then new "3D polygon" graphics had to do with it. The 3D polygon graphics were not very good, and at points very blocky. The Sega CD, with built-in 3D polygon hardware, boasted a shooter named Thexder which featured what seemed to be radically more realistic polygon rendering, and when it came to the numbers, the Super FX chip was beaten hands-down. But, it is not Thexder that will go down in the video game record books, it will be Star Fox. Why? Terrific gameplay. Star Fox is a blast to play. Thexder, according to reviews, blew big time. So, what does all this mean? It illustarates that the just because something has the newest technology, it does not necessarily make it fun; quality gameplay is what really matters, and Star Fox proves this; its 3D polygons were not the latest and best, but the gameplay makes up more than enought for it. It also shows Nintendo's dedication to providing quality gameplay along with new technology, which was Nintendo's defense for the long waiting period for the SNES CD-ROM and the later N64 (Nintendo disregarded this policy when they released the Virtual Boy, I guess :)
Around 1994, when Nintendo decided to scrap the SNES CD-ROM altogether, they planned to release a new Super FX chip, called the Super FX 2. This new chip was to go into one of the most anticipated sequels in Nintendo's history; Star Fox 2. Unfortunately, the game ever made it to consumers; the game was close to completion, too, based on reports and marvelous screen pics released from Nintendo to the gaming press. What a loss this was. Anybody know why it got the axe?
Another chip, which is not too well known, is the C4 chip. It was developed by Capcom, I assume, for use in Mega Man X 2 and 3 games. Basically, the chip allows for a special graphic rain effect. These are the only games that use the chip. Information on the C4 is hard to find, if not impossible; does anybody have any specs on this chip?
The most obscure chip I have come across is SA 1. Only one game uses this, the Japanese game, Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius: Forever With Me, from Konami. It is a speech synthesizer chip, which was developed by them, most likely. Thanks to jacob.poon@utoronto.ca for the info. Anybody know more about it?
According to EGM, costs of games with the DSP and FX chips
from Nintendo do not cost more; however, third part developers had to pay
about $10 for the chips, and that cost was passed onto us, the consumers.
Super FX Chip specs Architecture: RISC Clock Speed 10.74Mhz Peripheral ROM 16Mbits max Peripheral RAM 1Mbit max Internal Data Bus 16 bits External Data Bus 8 bits Internal Registers 16 bit x 16 Instruction Cache 512 Bytes Processing Advantages: Polygon Processing; Software Sprite Processing DSP Chip Architecture: ? Chip Type: NEC muPD77c25 Clock Speed: 10MhzGames that use the DSP chip:
Games that use the FX 2 chip: