Planar (computer graphics)

The memory chips of this era can not supply data fast enough on their own to generate a picture on a TV screen or monitor from a large framebuffer.

These chips can then be read in parallel at a slower rate, allowing graphical display on modest hardware, like game consoles of the third and fourth generations and home computers of the 80s.

The EGA video adapter on early IBM PC computers uses planar arrangement in color graphical modes for this reason.

The 16-bit Atari ST and Amiga platforms from the 80s and 90s were exclusively based on a planar graphics configuration alongside a powerful blitter.

For the Sinclair (Amstrad) ZX Spectrum computer family and compatible systems, a graphics expansion named HGFX was developed in 2019.

Planar arrangements allow for faster bit depth switching: planes are added or discarded and (if colors are indexed) the palette is extended or truncated.