THE ART AND ENGINEERING OF SEGA CD SILPHEED

Summary from the TLDR Dev newsletter

The Sega CD Mega-CD add-on for the Genesis brought CD-ROM technology to gaming. Silpheed used a unique video format that cleverly reduced bandwidth through techniques like referencing color tiles, using an ASIC for graphics, and using tilemap compression, allowing it to deliver near-cinematic visuals despite the limitations of the hardware.