No response on this today - but that's probably for the best. I'm seeing the same sprite showing up in places that are totally palms and also in central europe where there are none for sure. The system obviously wasn't meant to have to rely on sprites the way it does - I'll probably get another cpu in a few months anyway and not have to worry about this crap any longer. It'd take someone who knew a lot more than I do at this point to fix it I think.

Thread closed.