The Super FX is a coprocessor on the Graphics Support Unit (GSU) added to select Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) video game cartridges, primarily to facilitate advanced 2D and 3D graphics. The Super FX chip was designed by Argonaut Games, who also co-developed the 3D space rail shooter video game Star Fox with Nintendo to demonstrate the additional polygon rendering capabilities that the chip had introduced to the SNES. [1]
The Super FX chip design team included engineers Ben Cheese, Rob Macaulay, and James Hakewill. [2] While in development, the Super FX chip was codenamed "Super Mario FX" [3] and "MARIO". "MARIO", a backronym for "Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation, & Input/Output", is printed on the face of the final production chip. [4] The chip's name would lead to an urban legend that "Super Mario FX" was a video game in development for the SNES. [5]
Because of high manufacturing costs and increased development time, few Super FX based games were made compared to the rest of the SNES library. Due to these increased costs, Super FX games often retailed at a higher MSRP compared to other SNES games. [6]
According to Argonaut Games founder Jez San, Argonaut had initially intended to develop the Super FX chip for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The team programmed an NES version of the first-person combat flight simulator Starglider , which Argonaut had developed for the Atari ST and other home computers a few years earlier, and showed it to Nintendo in 1990. The prototype impressed the company, but they suggested that they develop games for the then-unreleased Super Famicom due to the NES's hardware becoming outdated in light of newer systems such as the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine. Shortly after the 1990 Consumer Electronics Show held in Chicago, Illinois, Argonaut ported the NES version of Starglider to the Super Famicom, a process which took roughly one week according to San. [7]
The Super FX chip is used to render 3D polygons and to assist the SNES in rendering advanced 2D effects. This custom-made RISC processor is typically programmed to act like a graphics accelerator chip that draws polygons to a frame buffer in the RAM that sits adjacent to it. The data in this frame buffer is periodically transferred to the main video memory inside of the console using DMA in order to show up on the television display.
The first version of the chip, commonly referred to as simply "Super FX", is clocked with a 21.4 MHz signal, but an internal clock speed divider halves it to 10.7 MHz. Later on, the design was revised to become the Super FX GSU (Graphics Support Unit); this, unlike the first Super FX chip revision, is 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. As a result of changing the package from 100 to 112 pins when creating the GSU-2, more external pins were available and assigned for addressing. As a result, a larger amount of external ROM or RAM can be accessed.
Star Fox uses the chip for the rendering of hundreds of simultaneous 3D polygons. It uses scaled 2D bitmaps for lasers, asteroids, and other obstacles, but other objects such as ships are rendered with 3D polygons. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island uses the chip for 2D graphics effects like sprite scaling and stretching.
Game cartridges that contain a Super FX chip have additional contacts at the bottom of the cartridge that connect to the extra slots in the cartridge port that are not otherwise typically used. Therefore, Super FX games cannot be plugged into cartridge adapters which predate the release of Super FX games. This includes cheat devices, such as the Game Genie.
| Title | Release date | SuperFX version | Frequency | μArch | ROM size | Work RAM size | Save RAM size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Star Fox (PAL: Starwing) [8] | February 1993 | Mario Chip [9] | 10.5 MHz (21 MHz / 2) [10] | 16 bit RISC CPU | 8 MBit | 256 KBit | None |
| Dirt Racer [11] | May 1995 | GSU-1 | 21 MHz [10] | 4 MBit | 256 KBit | None | |
| Dirt Trax FX [12] | June 1995 | 4 MBit | 512 KBit | None | |||
| Stunt Race FX (JP: Wild Trax) [13] | May 1994 | 8 MBit | 512 KBit | 64 KBit | |||
| Vortex [14] | September 1994 | 4 MBit | 256 KBit | None | |||
| Doom [15] | September 1995 | GSU-2 | 16 MBit | 512 KBit | None | ||
| Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island [16] | August 1995 | GSU-2-SP1 | 16 MBit | 256 KBit | 64 KBit | ||
| Winter Gold [17] | November 1996 | GSU-2 | 16 MBit | 512 KBit | 64 KBit |
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Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a 1995 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The player controls Yoshi, a friendly dinosaur, on a quest to reunite baby Mario with his brother Luigi, who has been kidnapped by Kamek. Yoshi runs and jumps to reach the end of the level while solving puzzles and collecting items with Mario's help.
Star Fox is an arcade style rail shooter, space flight simulator, and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto, developed and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic animals, led by chief protagonist Fox McCloud. Gameplay involves many adventures around the Lylat planetary system in the futuristic Arwing fighter aircraft, in other vehicles, and on foot. The original Star Fox (1993) is a forward-scrolling 3D rail shooter, but later games add more directional freedom.
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Stunt Race FX, known in Japan as Wild Trax, is a racing video game developed by Nintendo and Argonaut Software and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the second game to use the 3D-centric Super FX powered GSU-1.
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos is a 1997 platform game developed by Argonaut Software and published by Fox Interactive. It was released for PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Windows. Taking place in the fictional setting of the Gobbo Valley, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos follows a young crocodile named Croc, who sets out to rescue a group of furry creatures known as Gobbos from the evil magician Baron Dante.
FX Fighter is a 3D fighting game for MS-DOS. It was developed by Argonaut Software and published by GTE Entertainment in June 1995. It is an early realtime 3D fighter, originally meant for Super NES using the Super FX chip, on which Argonaut was collaborating together with Nintendo. OEM versions have support for 3D acceleration, bundled with 3D graphics accelerator cards such as the Diamond Monster 3D. A sequel, FX Fighter Turbo, was released in 1996.
Starglider is a 3D video game published in 1986 by Rainbird. It was developed by Jez San under his company name Argonaut Software. The game is a fast-moving, first-person combat flight simulator, rendered with colourful wireframe vector graphics inspired by San's love of the 1983 Atari coin-op Star Wars.
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We did most of the technology back in England with a relatively large engineering/tech team, which comprised of Carl Graham and Pete Warnes on the software-based 3D technology and Ben Cheese, Rob Macaulay and James Hakewill working on the hardware side of things
SNES Central: @dylancuthbert I'm researching unreleased SNES games, was a game called "Super Mario FX" ever in development?
Dylan Cuthbert: @snescentral no, that was the internal code name for the FX chip"
