Pixel

Pixel is a contraction of Picture Element. A single, indivisible unit that makes up an image when used in conjunction with many (perhaps thousands or millions) other pixels.

Units

• 1 megapixel (MPixel) = 1 million pixels
• 1 gigapixel (GPixel) = 1 billion pixels (1000 MPixels)

Resolution

The resolution or display resolution is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.

Typically, the visible part of the Mega Drive screen consists of 71,680 pixels (i.e. it has a resolution of 320x224).

Resolutions used by various Sega consoles and arcade systems:

• 256×192 = 49,152 pixels
• 256×224 = 57,344 pixels
• 256×240 = 61,440 pixels
• 320×224 = 71,680 pixels
• 320×240 = 76,800 pixels
• 320×448 = 143,360 pixels
• 320×480 = 153,600 pixels
• 640×448 = 286,720 pixels
• 640×480 = 307,200 pixels
• 720×480 = 345,600 pixels
• 800×600 = 480,000 pixels
• 800×608 = 486,400 pixels
• 1280×480 = 614,400 pixels
• 1440×480 = 691,200 pixels
• 1280×720 = 921,600 pixels
• 1600×600 = 960,000 pixels
• 1600×608 = 972,800 pixels
• 1024×1024 = 1.048576 MPixels
• 1920×1080 = 2.048576 MPixels
• 2048×1024 = 2.097152 MPixels
• 1968×1080 = 2.12544 MPixels
• 2048×2048 = 4.194304 MPixels

Fillrate

The term fillrate refers to the number of pixels a video card or graphics chipset can render in a second. This is also known as the rendering fillrate.

The units used to measure fillrate:

• 1 megapixel/sec (MPixel/s) = 1 million pixels per second
• 1 gigapixel/sec (GPixel/s) = 1 billion pixels per second (1000 MPixels/s)

The fillrates for Sega consoles:

• Sega Master System - 5.369317 MPixels/s (NTSC), 5.320342 MPixels/s (PAL)
• Sega Mega Drive - 13.3 MPixels/s
• Sega Saturn - 57.2728 MPixels/sec (NTSC), 56.875 MPixels/sec (PAL)
• Sega Dreamcast - 3.2 GPixels/s (opaque polygons), 100–500 MPixels/s (translucent polygons)

For the fillrates of Sega arcade systems, see List of Sega arcade systems.

Texel

A texel (texture element or texture pixel) is the fundamental unit of texture space. Textures are represented by arrays of texels, just as pictures are represented by arrays of pixels.

• Units
  • 1 megatexel (MTexel) = 1 million texels
  • 1 gigatexel (GTexel) = 1 billion texels (1000 MTexels)

• Fillrate (texture fillrate or texturing fillrate)
  • 1 megatexel/sec (MTexel/s) = 1 million texels per second
  • 1 gigatexel/sec (GTExel/s) = 1 billion texels per second (1000 MTexels/s)

The texture fillrate was the same as the rendering fillrate for Sega consoles up until the Sega Saturn. The Sega Dreamcast has differing fillrates for rendering and texturing. For Sega arcade systems, it varies depending on the hardware.