Editing MOS Technology VIC-II (section)

===Sprites===
VIC-II sprites are either 24x21 monochrome or 12x21 multicolor. Similar to character graphics, the latter have one individual color for each sprite and two global ones. VIC-II has eight sprites, each of which uses 64 bytes of memory to store but, with certain limitations, it can display many more. Sprite multiplexing is a common method of getting more than eight on screen (although there still is a maximum of eight per scan line). The VIC-II scanline counter can be polled until the desired point is reached on screen, or a raster interrupt can be programmed to trigger at a certain scanline, after which the program quickly changes the sprite coordinates. This method can result in many additional sprites onscreen at once, often for a total of 16 to 24 or more. For a demo, though, the limit is considerably more flexible.

In theory the maximum number of different sprites visible at the same time is 256 (assuming the VIC-II's entire 16k page was filled). They are addressed by using a block number to refer to each sprite pattern in memory beginning with 0 and going to 255 ($FF) depending on their position in the video page. (if the second video bank (numbered as 0 1 2 and 3) is used, Block 0 would refer to the sprite stored at {{mono|$4000}} and Block 255 would be at {{mono|$7FC0}}).

Each sprite may be double-sized vertically, horizontally or both. This does not increase the sprite resolution (it is still 24 pixels wide and 21 tall) but each pixel will be twice as wide and/or twice as tall.

Because the horizontal position register for each sprite is one byte and limited to a maximum value of 255, it alone cannot cover the entire 320 pixels of the VIC-II's screen area, so an additional register called the Most Significant Byte Flag provides a 9th position bit for all sprites.

{{mono|$D01E}} and {{mono|$D01F}} contain the Background and Sprite-to-Sprite Collision registers. The former is rarely used because it cannot provide information on the specific background object the sprite is touching.

{{mono|$D01B}} contains the Sprite To Background priority register, which is used to govern whether a sprite moves behind or in front of background graphics. When a sprite enters the same space as another sprite, the lower-numbered ones will always pass over the higher numbered ones.