What's the most common background mode?

I was trying to find this information elsewhere but couldn't.

What is the most common background mode used in SNES games that don't use special FX (e.g. mode 7 perspective projection)? I assume all 8 modes are not equally popular so I was curious.

Here is what I believe is the most to least used modes:

Mode 1
Mode 7
Mode 2
Mode 3
Mode 0
Mode 4
Mode 5
Mode 6

Mode 1 is certainly the most common given its offerings. I believe mode 3 and mode 7 are close follow-ups. You can safely put modes 5 and 6 at the bottom of the list.

Other than 1 and 7, what are some of the most notable uses of each mode in commercial Super NES games?

256-color modes (mostly 3, I think):
Title screens. Lots of title screens.
Playfield in Zoop (because it uses 12x14 pixel cells)

Offset-per-tile modes (e.g. 2):
Floor warping in "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy" in Yoshi's Island and the final boss in Aladdin
Faux background rotation in Star Fox
Scrolling playfields in Tetris Attack
Some RPGs' menu screens to make text lines of intermediate height between 8 and 16 scanlines

Hi-res modes (only 5 appears to be actually used):
Text in some RPGs and menus, such as Secret of Mana and MUFASA firmware for SNES PowerPak
RPM Racing

Fullsnes doesn't list anything that uses mode 6 (hi-res + OPT) except for test carts. What uses mode 0 (2bpp) or 4 (8bpp + OPT)?

Mode 2 is also used in Contra 3 for the boss at the end of level 1.

I think Bart's Nightmare uses Mode 0 in a couple levels.

I just wanted to say thank you all for the great responses (as usual). But I like where this conversation is going (i.e. tepple's question) so please don't let me stop you!

I think most of the games that use Mode 5 are Japan-only RPGs.

It does. There's this crappy Thomas the Tank Engine game that also uses it during a racing minigame.


Rendering Ranger R2 uses it in the last level for a wavy floor type thing like in Yoshi's Island, and it also used in level 6 (combined with row scrolling) for an (admittedly cool) evil horned Mumbo Jumbo ghost thing:



Can anyone thing of an instance where Mode 3 was used not for a title screen? (I guess aside from Zoop)

The Sidmania demo from Censor uses a multitude of modes. The main intro portion (text + Censor logo) uses mode 4, while the SID player portion itself uses what appears to be a combination of mode 7 (for the rotating/scaling Star Wars-like text) and mode 0 (for the top/bottom areas, until you hit Start, then I believe the entire screen uses mode 0, or possibly the centre portion uses mode 1). I'm still not sure why they went with mode 4 for the intro portion unless they're using offset change mode (haven't verified -- and it's a feature I've never spent any time with).

The opening screen does use it to make the text pages move up/down one column at a time.

Good to know -- I had always figured they did that with HDMA. In this case, the issue (to me) looks like the wrong base addresses are being used for BG1 (Censor logo) and BG2 (text). What bsnes-plus claims they are massively differs from SNES9x (and based on PPU RAM review, bsnes-plus absolutely has the right values). I won't hijack this thread to discuss the subject (it'd be off-topic), I'll make a new one once I figure out what the hell is actually going on.

Mode 2 offset per tile is used in Super Double Dragon in the elevator scene right after the begining of the game. I it used in Chrono Trigger for the title screen waving and at other times too.


I doubt this has anything to do with Mode 2, though. Final Fantasy games does this with HDMA and vertical scrolling changes in mode 1.

Mode 0 is used by the menu in Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V, Romancing SaGa2, Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean. I do not know if it had any other uses, ever.

Mode 5 is used in Secret of Mana only in full-screen menu, while in Seiken Densetsu 3 it is used everywhere where dialog boxes appears, changing screen mode midrame with HDMA. Romancing Saga 3 and Rudra no Hiho also uses it for their menu, despite them not being part of the Mana series.

The Dragon Ball Z fighting games use Mode 0 for that horizontal split screen thing that they do. Each side of the split uses two of the four BGs.

Shin Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-tachi no Banka uses mode 2 in a couple of stages. One of them is where you're fighting inside (and eventually on the roof of) a gradually collapsing school, another is on a rope bridge.

I can't actually name any commercial games that make legitimate uses of mode 6 w/OPT (so just use mode 3), or mode 7 w/EXTBG. And only one of the Super James Pond games uses OAM interlacing, for no apparent reason on a boot credits screen to make the letters half as tall (it looks better without it.)

There is definitely a game that uses mode 4 w/OPT, because I remember having to fix a bug in it before. I thought it was Chrono Trigger's title screen, but above it says it's mode 2. Hmm ...

Nintendo had a bad habit of throwing the kitchen sink at their custom ICs. See the prime example, the SA-1.

I could swear Super Mario Kart used Mode 7 with EXTBG to show pillars below the track in the Ghost Valley tileset.


[Corrected track name]

SMK's Ghost Valley tracks don't use EXTBG, the pillars are just sprites with priority 0.

Mohawk & Headphone Jack, the absolutely nausea-inducing Mode 7 platform, does use it.

The pillars are sprites.

I was aware of that. I was just confused as to whether Ghost Valley used color 0 or EXTBG to put the pillar sprites behind the track.