Text=textures?

[selfrun]

I've noticed that text in a lot of PS1 games seems to be textures displayed on screen(or sprites?). Is this some type of hardware limitation or design choice?

[Administrator]

Yes, text is always a sprite sheet. The PSX has a built-in text sheet in the ROM, but it's very plain and it's only used really for debugging. It too however is also a texture which is placed in the frame buffer and rendered on screen.