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Games Entertainment

Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? 246

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-can-it-do-pong? dept.
Emperor Palpatine writes "This article in Wired talks about the soon to be released Playstation 2 from Sony. Some pretty impressive talk. If they work it out so we can hook these up to a 10baseT, I may have to give it a try. "
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Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? More

Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything?

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  • That's the benchmark for flat polygons. Expect a significantly lower count for textured and shaded polygons, like the ones used in most games today. I can't recall the exact figures quoted before, but something like 15-20 millions polygons for textured, which is still pretty excellent.

    Daniel.
  • I have always been almost proud of nintendo's hard-rock systems. I have dropped my gameboy out of a car-window, dropped a chair on my NES, spilled soda on my SNES, and dropped my N64 off the coffee table. They all work perfectly fine (yes even the 10 year old NES!). The only thing that seems to break sometimes with N64 is the joystick control. Other than that, I'd say N64 was made pretty damn well.
  • 3.68 MHZ in the SNES and 7.1 something mega hertz in Genisis. For comparison 4 MHz Z80 in game boy, and a earth shattering 10 and 6 MHz in the TI-89 an TI-83 respectivly. My 3 MHz SNES still outperforms my 25 MHz 486 for games.
  • Doesn't matter what Hardware Nintendo has. Nintendo WILL come out later than PSX 2 (It is a Nintendo tradition SNES, N64, etc.) That worked fine when it's competition was Sega, but now, it's go Sony to deal with, and sony is no about to let Nintendo win, (PSX is a big money maker for sony)
  • Ever heard of a MULTI tap. BTW. The average age of a PSX gamer is something like 2-3 years higher than the average age of an N64 gamer, hmm, makes you wonder. Also, the lack of RPGs is what made N64 bomb in Japan.

  • Frotz (Score:1)

    by jammer ( 4062 )
    I use Frotz for my IF games under Linux. It's fairly advanced and powerful (as much as that is relevant to IF). The if-archive address has already been given, so I won't repeat it, but you might want to check out http://ifarchive.org. If you dig around on ftp.apple.asimov.net, you can find disk images of alot of old infocom games, if there are any you don't have. It takes some work, but you can make Z files from 'em which you can run right in Frotz. Or you can email me at infocom@devzero.org, and I'll hook you up. :)
  • Too bad that dreamcast has been a big turkey in Japan!
  • For example, the system could run interactive movies that blend Hollywood's expensive production systems with intricate story lines and characters who interact realistically with the user.

    Good Lord! Reminds me of the days when the introduction of the CD-Rom games meant crappy "choose a plot" "interactive" movies.

  • I really didn't want to post up a reply. I really, really didn't. But seeing how there is so much confusion over the Playstation 2, I felt forced to. Playstation 2 will be great, regardless of anyone's predictions. Sony has a loyal following worldwide, and Sega has consistently failed to deliver quality games or consoles since the Sega Genesis. The sales in Japan are dying quickly because everyone is waiting for the new Playstation. American gamers, typically the 'gotta have the newest now' market segment, are preordering at 'unprecedented rates'. 200,000 preorders is nothing compared to Japanese market numbers (low), which basically define a consoles success rate. If it doesn't sell like mad in Japan, it won't sell like mad here. About the price of the new Playstation, Sony will do whatever they feel is necessary when the time comes. They spent over a billion dollars constructing new facilities to build the specialized processors at the heart of the new PSX. What does this mean? Well, it basically says that Sony truly believes in the new system, and will do ANYTHING to ensure it's success. Remember when the original PSX debuted? It was $300 bucks, more expensive than other systems at the time, and sold like hotcakes. Keep in mind that Sony lost close to $100 per unit but made up the difference in software sales with an even 1/1 console/game sale ratio. Sony may be the M$ of the console world, but at least they deliver the goods. They made RPG's more available than ever for console gamers. They formed a brilliant alliance with Square. They even let some low-selling wacky games out (Irritating Stick? come on now)just because there were a few people that would buy it. At this point, Sony has little to worry about. Their console will sell millions, will be able to play older games and use older peripherals, and they'll retain their market share while providing kickass games. Nintendo and Sega will have their respective niches (Nintendo is typically for junior gamers) and will succeed in their own small ways. Hats off to them all, I love having a choice.
  • Let's cover those points one at a time, shall we?

    According to the tech specs, PSX2 has 32MB of main memory (in addition to the 4MB of memory on the GS, and a little bird tells me that there's also quite a bit associated with the IO chip). You won't be running Windows NT in it, especially once you've got the overhead of an emulator running on there, but it should be enough to play with.

    As for the hard disk option, there are plenty of expansion ports to plug it into. Take your pick. The same goes for keyboard and mouse: I don't know about you, but I already have a USB keyboard which should work fine with PSX2. Between USB and IEEE1394 there shouldn't be much need to emulate peripherals. Not to mention that PCMCIA slot for the modem.

    Yes, you'd be very hard pressed to emulate a PC on today's consoles, but believe it or not, things have advanced in the last five years.
  • m300 wrote:

    Re:Who cares about consoles
    by m3000 (m2999athotmaildotcom) on 18/08/99 6:42 EDT (#)
    (User Info) http://m3000.1wh.com
    Most of the stuff you are complaining about, are changing for this coming generation. They will have internet gaming. The now defunt (in the US anyway) 64DD was going to
    allow you to update cars, sports teams, or new tracks to your games. Maybe Nintendo will release a harddrive like device for the Dolphin that will write stuff like that, or
    download it off the internet. That would be neat. And the big reason I like console gaming, is it's cheap, and multiplayer with my friends. I can have a great time being
    together, playing Mario Golf or Smash Brothers, and don't have to be sitting alone staring at the computer by myself.


    First, my qualifications: None. I haven't played more than an hour total on console games since I gave up (regular) NES' Super Mario Brothers.

    Next: my response to the post above is confusion. Yes, you can do multi-player with your friends. But are you really content with the proprietary gaming networks that it will require to do multi-player on the new Sony or the DreamCast? With PC-based gaming, you can do your multiplayer gaming over a local area network or over the Internet ... and you don't have to pay a special at-the-mercy-of-the-maker fee.

    Insight appreciated, this is somwhat of a random comment I know, but relying on the console makers for multi-play network capabilities seems a lot like WebTV or AOL for email service.

    Just a thought,

    timothy
  • - PlayStation has a much bigger following than Nintendo and Sega outside of North America

    That's debatable on earlier systems, and while clearer on the last gen (N64/Saturn or Dreamcast/Playstation), it's still debatable.

    - For a change, Sony has produced real quality with their Playstation, and hopefully with the sequel. How long has Playstation been around? Ages. Sega and Nintendo have inundated the market with various "revisions" of their machines, all trying (STILL!) to beat the old workhorse, the Playstation.

    Playstation is going on about 5 years at this point, IIRC. While Sega's machine release practices have been a bit less than stellar, Nintendo has had a pretty smooth path. I'd hardly call the N64 a "revision" of the Super Nintendo, or the SNES a "revision" of the NES 8-bit machine. By the same token, there is a pretty clear cut difference between Sega Master System, Genesis, and Saturn. Why is it ok if Sony wants to do this, but not the other guys?

    - Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.

    You know not of what you speak. Sony of America has to approve all games for release in America, though sometimes crap like Fantastic Four gets through. It may be easier to release games than Nintendo, but there are hurdles.

    That's my take, anyways... Not that I really _use_ consoles. :) long live interactive fiction!

    Obviously. Get yourself a subscription to Next Gen or check out their website at next-generation.com - they'll help you see the error of your ways. I myself am platform agnostic - I like pretty much any gaming system I've played with. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. In my house, we have a good chunk of the mainstream systems from 2600 on. My roommate has pre-ordered a Dreamcast (Sega Jesus) from 3 different places to make sure he can get one. He and I won't be living together when the Sony Jesus (PSX2) comes out, so I'm sure we'll both buy one. :) We don't have a Saturn right now, been looking for a good cheap one now that they're discontinued. We have never actually had an N64, but that's mostly due to lack of games.

    As far as Infocom goes, while I was never very good at them (or any RPG or similar game), I can't deny they were fun. Anyway, this is all about games. Good games are good games, right?

  • I think you mean UUDDLRLRBA start (or select start for two players). At least for Contra on the NES.
  • Does anyone know why they chose to use a Linux based workstation instead of using BeOS, NT or FreeBSD?

    I imagine it has something to do with the deal they (likely) cut with Cygnus to develop their tools:

    "Hi, we need gcc ported to this CPU."
    "No problem. Here's your Linux executable."
    "Uh, can we get a WIN32 binary?"
    *snicker* "Not easily. Besides, there's no decent make for Windoze."
    "Can't you integrate it with Visual C?"
    "No. Micros~1 won't tell us how to integrate it, and VisualC isn't Open Source. Their make syntax is completely non-standard, anyway."
    *sigh* "Okay, how much does this Linux thing cost?"
    "It's free."
    "...You're kidding."
    "Nope."
    "Well then the tools must cost extra."
    "Nope, it comes bundled with a compiler, industry-standard make, perl, bash, and EMACS."
    "...For free."
    "Yes."
    "You're not bullsh*tting us?"
    "No."
    "Why didn't we know about this before?"
    "We wonder that ourselves a lot..."

    I suspect a *BSD port is a simple matter of a recompile...

    Schwab

  • It makes all of the hardware used for rendering for movies look like a waste, doesn't it?! (Makes 3dfx and the rest look pretty bad as well!)Playstation 2 could probably do a fairly convincing job rendering something along the lines of Toy Story in real time (and well beyond what's needed for shows like South Park, which also uses some pretty serious hardware). This may be one of the most significant electronic products ever. I want to figure out how to set their chips up in parallel (like you can do with TNT2 chips) to render a real movie in real time.
  • Sound like the Street Fighter 2 crack to me ;)

    UUDDLRLRBABA

    Only for Player 2 though...
  • Well, there is the built-in USB and FireWire (or I-Port) stuff. I'm sure that if you can use the USB subsystem on a PC for networking (not sure how well it works, but I've seen solutions for it), then I'm sure some wizard will find a way to network these puppies.
    The only problem that I see with them is that I can't find any hard specs on the processor, so all that I'm hearing sounds like a lot of hype, and the fact that the bus and the IO are likely slow (oh, and don't forget that it won't have all that much memory, from what I've heard).
    So, in my opinion, things could go either way, but I'm really doubtful about this one. If sony has invented the be all and end all of graphics chips, then why don't I see the big rendering machine folks beating down their doors? When I hear of a partnership between SGi and Sony Electronics, then I'll start to credit the hype a bit more.
  • I bet what they mean is that it will run on a linux based OS, but the complier and a visual programming tools will be proprietary. Also the hardware is going to be proprietary, so while the OS that they build for this special hardware can't legally be proprietary, it won't do you much good if you don't have the hardware which will likly be kept under lock and key from non developers
  • "The other major constraint is total memory of 32 MBytes with no hard disk for swap space..."


    Why would this be an issue? The advantage to having a set top unit like a video game system is that the programmer can program for one set of hardware specs and that is it and not worry if certain boot time programs are using space or not. If 32 Meg is it, I would guess this would be an advantage since one would not have to worry about every little configuration on each desktop.

    Bryan R.
  • Sega's Dreamcast is due for release in the US next month. It's been out in Japan since early this year (or even late last year?) It's lot's more powerful than the current playstation, but about the same as a high end pc/3d accelerator (costing 1/10 as much of course). It runs a version of Windows CE of all things. Not a bad system otherwise, if you really need a new console to tide you over until PS2 comes out.

    Nintendo has announced a system named "Dolphin" but hadn't given any dates the last I heard. 2001 seems likely. They say it will use a PowerPC. I don't remember any other details. And of course the N64 has been around for a couple of years.

    Color gameboys are kind of fun too, but not exactly the same thing.
  • Furthermore, real-life polygons aren't only 3 pixels, and they're not solid colour. They're larger, and they're textured.
    -----

    Real life tends to use splines and fractals--the advantage of which is infinite resolution with high (effectively infinite, eh?) compression;)
  • I certainly hope they can produce a decent racing game.
  • How much is the NV10 supposed to cost? I haven't seen any projections on it.

    Kintanon
  • being slightly out of this playsataion business (more of the computer-only games) i've been wondering if there were any other alternatives to playstation out there...
  • No, actually the code I mentioned is the stage select, 9 lives code. It works great... I cheated through TMNT2 many times with it.
  • Anyone have a sploit for this Playstation yet? Or should I old school it and left right left right up up down down left right left B A it?
  • Um...I have it and it works fine. What exactly is your problem?
  • They mentioned Linux, will these things run some sort of linux...
    ----

    I noticed an interesting entry in the the POV-Ray benchmarks, recently:

    http://www.haveland.com/cgi-b in/getpovb.pl?search=psx [haveland.com]
  • Erm... but what does this have to do with developing Playstation games? I can see where it'd be useful for rendering motion-JPEG sequences for inclusion on the DVD-ROM, but other than that??????
  • Dolphin= better overall
    Dolphin= cheaper
    Dolphin= best choice

  • Even though this reads like a press release, if it actually lives up to the hype I envision the 3D Net of cyberpunk fame starting out as networked PS2's.
    They mentioned Linux, will these things run some sort of linux or will the development kit be linux based? Free?
  • oh yeah, what about copying those game cds (uh.. backup purposes.. yeah) and what about pc emulators for those playstation games?

  • Actually, Sega's Saturn had quite a few "quality" games - including the bulk of their arcade titles and superior ports of Capcom's fighters (due largely to the Saturn's specialized 2D hardware), not to mention all the Sega in-house games.

    Also, both Saturn and PSX retailed at $300 at the time of PSX's release (the Saturn debuted at $400 and dropped in time to compete with Sony). Price wasn't a major factor since the only other "next generation" consoles at the time (3D0 and Jaguar) were going downhill at that point and never recovered.

    The PSX's success is due largely to its ease of development, which attracted new developers in droves. Once it became a success, the cheapness of CD media for gaming meant a lot less needed to be sold to break even - which lets "fringe" titles onto store shelves without driving anyone into bankruptcy. n64's expensive cartridges, for example, have a much lower profit margin per cart and less margin for lousy titles.

    The real battle will be one of attracting developers early on. Once all the software makers take sides, the consumer's follow. It should be an interesting fight for the "next-next generation" consoles :)

  • of course consumers can get DVD burners ($425 last time i checked) , but of course the media is almost as expensive as the games.

    $30 -- 5.2 gig

    www.pricewatch.com


  • ...It didn't come out in time enough to stem the record setting 200,000+ pre-orders for the Sega Dreamcast...

    (http://www.infiniteplanes.net/segaworld/news/ne ws429.htm)


    ...It's going to cost the US equivalent of $391 dollars to $199 for the Dreamcast (which looks awesome!)...

    (http://psx.ign.com/news/9498.html)

    (http://headline.gamespot.com/news/99_08/17_vg_n fl/index.html)

    ...It'll hit more than a year after the Dreamcast starts out, and with the above mentioned advantages...


  • I don't care how good it is, I still prefer playing quake 3 with some serious hardware acceleration at 1024x768. Which runs above 30 fps. Until televisions become that high resolution (even HDTV can't compare to monitors) playstation will suck.
  • uhm... yeah, but which one will I have Linux running on with compilers and doing my work on for non PS2 people and be able to upgrade without invalidating the warrantee - *and* be able to play games on.

    --
  • "Why will they have to release the source?"

    At the very least, they will have to release the architecture-specific mods they've done to the kernel - this is a radically different architecture from most out there, so this will probably be a fair bit. I suspect there will be more than this available, though. Why would they re-invent the USB and Firewire drivers that are already out there, for instance? No, I think they will modify/improve and release. It could only help them.

    Cheers,
    Bun

  • WooHoo! (Score:1)

    by ToOn ( 56014 )
    Fresh meet for the emulator community. I want in on this project. Now we get to hear how bitchy sony will be when they find out that someone wants to make an emu of it(not just me)
  • BZZZT. Wrong. up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b-a-start. or, if you're playing Gradius Gaiden, u-u-(left top)-(right top)(left top)(right top)-x-o I believe.
  • I know there's a program out there that will let you play playstation games on a PC if that's the kind of thing you're reffering to. I forget what it's called, but I saw it at a computer store a couple days ago for $30, not a bad price considering a playstation goes for $120 (last time I checked)
  • The development system will be linux based. See This old slashdot story. [slashdot.org] Or a number of other old stories. Or go search some gaming sites.

    It won't be free.

  • Oops. That's not right. Further reading and pondering enlightened to the fact that there's 80 million polygons in a *still* life-like image. Soo.. to do 60 fps in life-like detail would require 4.8 trillion fps. Damn.
  • Intersting that you'd say Starcraft and Alpha Centauri are impossible on a console. Warcraft, Command and Conquer, and Civilization II all exist in Playstation versions. I haven't even seen Warcraft or C&C in action, I can't imagine how they did the controls. Civ2 I've seen but not played, it looks like it works pretty well. I don't see any reason SMAC couldn't be done in a console format too. I wouldn't want to do it on today's PSX though, 2MB of memory is a LITTLE cramped.
  • Although you are probably right, I think PlayStation 2 will probably beat out Sega in the long run. Why?

    - PlayStation has a much bigger following than Nintendo and Sega outside of North America

    - For a change, Sony has produced real quality with their Playstation, and hopefully with the sequel. How long has Playstation been around? Ages. Sega and Nintendo have inundated the market with various "revisions" of their machines, all trying (STILL!) to beat the old workhorse, the Playstation.

    - Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.

    That's my take, anyways... Not that I really _use_ consoles. :) long live interactive fiction!

    BTW, I've got some CDs of infocom games around here... Anyone know of a good infocom interpreter for Linux??
  • www.cfug.org/infocom/

    has some information (just a site i found in a search) about linux and infocom games.

    I really dig the atmosphere you get with text-based games, though I've never actually gotten very far in any of them.
  • "A go-kart is still a go-kart even if powered by a formula 1 engine."

    That sounds like one very fast go-kart. It would definitely beat the other go-karts. Your point?
  • AFAIK not quite that much.

    You get to look at a still picture for ages and examine all the detail. A frame in a 60 fps video is gone in 1/60th of a second, you don't need anywhere near 80 million polygons per frame.

    *After* a new shot has started, where you have objects which have been in view for a while (half a second) you need to be up to nearer the full 80 million polygons per frame. When a complex object is new in the scene, you need far fewer polygons for it, so you can average out the rendering.

    I would *guestimate* that depending on the sequence, you'll only need to render about 2 trillion polygons per frame. Still big, but much more acheivable, of course some scenes will need hardware capable of near the full 4.8 trilion.

    A good mpeg encoder will make use of this to reduce the size of an I-frame and the next couple of frames - adding detail in a few select places as the eye needs it.

    --
  • january of next year
  • N64 blew away the current PCs when it came out. (P166 with Voodoo 1) The dreamcast was much more powerful than PCs a year ago (when it came out) and is still a match for current PCs. PSX 2 will blow away an Athlon/NV 10 combo becuase of its specialization.

    Blew away? No. Superior? Depends. But with the consol market you get a big advance every few years - and in between those advances you get stagnation.

    Even if the PSX2 does leave top-of-the-line PC's in the dust, in two years it will look like cheap crap next to a 2 gigahertz K7 with a 256 video card.

    Which brings me to another point: the Playstation 2 is vaporware. It is silly to compare future consols to current PC's without factoring in the rabid pace of PC hardware and software development.

    Then their is ease of use, quality of games (when was the last time you saw a PSX game with a patch? How many times has Mario 64 crashed on you.)and a broader gaming library.

    And when was the last time you downloaded a new level for Mario 64? A mod for Madden 98? Designed your own map for Final Fantasy 7? Create a new physics model for Tekken 3?

    Consols will never come close to PC's for speed of development or flexibility of using mods. To do that, they'd have to become computers.
  • I would have consider myself at one time but, Sega has made too many mistakes for me to get behind anything they do. I bought the SMS,Genesis,SegaCD,32X,GameGear,Nomad, & a Saturn. I feel like I have been screwed over on all but the SMS, Genesis & the Nomad. I've seen a Dreamcast and yes it looks sweeet but, I'll never plop out the ducats for one. I like my playstation but, I think I'll just be content with my computer.

    stealth

    BTW The Phantasy Star series is what made me loyal to sega for so long so if they make a sequel on the dreamcast I'll probably eat my words.:p
  • SGI canned Ferenheit a couple of weeks ago.
  • I agree that this is not going to replace the primary machine that any real geek uses. But there is a huge market for consoles because their is a huge section of the population that doesn't want compilers and text editors because it confuses them. They want to plug in a cartridge or pop in a cd, hit the on button, and start playing.

  • Re:eh (Score:2)

    by scrytch ( 9198 )
    > Why would a machine designed to play games need a text editor? It doesn't. COnsoles are for games, and only for games.

    And only for games with the most primitive of input methods I might add. I can't see myself playing TAK on a console. Lessee, all the number keys are used, as well as ctrl, shift, alt, pause, several fkeys, and several keys on the keyboard. Arrow keys scroll the screen so you don't have to whip the mouse (or in a console's case, the stick) around to do it.

    Heck, a game like Longbow 2 probably uses every single key on the keyboard.

    Yes perhaps the PSX2 can theoretically use the keyboard. But the average console game will never use one. Thus most are joystick jigglers where complexity is in these ridiculously hard to sequence "combos"
  • Think about this. That many polygons, at a TV resolution, you could probably do much of the texturing with polygons Now that's 3d :)
  • From a link in the article:

    "Software developers looking to write games for Sony's next-generation PlayStation console will do
    their work on a proprietary, Linux-based workstation built by Sony, the company said Friday."

    I took that to mean that Sony was going to build workstations using the new cpu/architecture. I see now that it was probably wishful thinking.

    Cheers,
    Bun
  • >I really didn't want to post up a reply. I really, really didn't. But seeing how there is so much confusion over the Playstation 2, I felt forced to. Playstation 2 will be great, regardless of anyone's predictions.

    How do you know?? At this point, it is still vapourware. You give lots of good reasons why Playstation 1 was a hit, but there are LOTS of things that can go wrong with PSX2. I mean, a lot of companies try to do ANYTHING to ensure the success of their products, but sometimes the product just isn't good enough.

    Some serious pitfalls Sony have to avoid:

    1) They fail to do the promised 128 bit .18 micron chip. All others have failed so far - Intel, AMD, 3Dfx, NVidia, Ericsson (Bluetooth)...

    2) The PC or other consoles beat it before it comes out. When Playstaion 1 came out, it beat the PC hands down in graphics, no argument. 3Dfx released something called the Voodoo 1 around then, but it took quite a while for it to catch on...two or three years while Sony could consolidate their position. Now, the 3D cards race is going at insane speeds on the PC. The fourth generation of 3d cards will be out for the PC THIS year. Sony will not go into a virgin market, and even if they beat the others they can not count on being safe 2-4 years this time.

    3) It will be too expensive. The NEO-GEO was great for its time, but no one wanted to pay the price (what was it...$100-200?) per game. Same thing here. They are doing the Emotion Engine which will not be cheap. DVD player. They will have to pay for using USB and Firewire. This time they will add a keyboard and other peripherals. Good quality comes with a price...gamers will not be happy if Sony choses low quality.

    4) Marketing wise, it will "fall between two chairs", it won't have a clearly defined market. There have been machines before that have been undecided if they are gaming consoles, computers or "home entertainment centers". Philips CD-I, Commodore's CD-TV, and what was its name....3DO? They tried to do everything and consequently they did nothing really good. They all crashed and burned on the market so fast you hardly had time to blink.

    5) Difficulty and cost of developing=fewer games. Sony sold the hardware for the PSX1 for a lot less than they actually cost, and made up for it by licensing the rights to make games. A brilliant move. But this time, the hardware cost will be a lot higher, and the developers fewer since developing games will be more difficult and expensive. Sure, Square is good, but can their games alone support all the gamers and Sony?

    6) Sony has underestimated the time and difficulties of development. I have seen the attitude from some console makers that being in the console market is the hardest thing you can do with all the cutthroat competition and all. Computers is actually seen as being easier to develop. But "Will this work on my PSX2 if it has an Apple USB mouse, a no-name Firewire modem and no keyboard?" is a question Sony have never had to answer before. This time they will have to do an entire operating system. Think not? Remember that they have promised that this will be a email and web client extraordinaire. They have talked about making Everquest available! If you are going to surf the net or play Everquest, you need a keyboard. You need a harddrive. You probably need a mouse. So its not just new hardware, they have to develop and test software as well, like a secure web browser, an email client, a chat program, something to show the nice picures you take with the included digital camera, probably an ICQ client, and so on and so on....

    7) Game programmers will have same problem they have with PCs now - different hardware and software configurations. There goes the BIGGEST console advantage.
  • By that time, it will be Sony vs. Intenga, or is that SetendoCE.

    Cy
  • It really isn't a terrible port other then being
    for windows and using directX. When I first
    started playing it, I found it unusable due to
    extensive loading times which were fixed by
    replacing my broken cdrom drive (full install
    would have worked if my hd wasn't full, and if
    the AVI's weren't loaded from cd)

    Also, my Voodoo2 was bought for one reason...
    FFVII and it spead it up considerably.
    The biggest drawback I found was the sound which
    was horrible without that yamaha synth that
    killed my system resources, that could have been
    fixed by a sb64 or better.

    These days you can probally get:
    $100 - Voodoo3 (or find a tnt)
    $60 - SB64
    $40 - 50x cdrom drive
    $30 - FFVII
    :$230
    # I paid $200 for my 8 meg voodoo2,
    # $80 for my sb128, and $30 for my 40x cdrom drive
    # and $50 for FFVII.. and no longer even run
    # windows so you got a good deal ;)

    --
    Eric Windisch
  • It will be using the IBM 400MHz copper PPC chip (actually a subset of the PPC arch) and an ArtX (companmy formed by old SGI workers) chipset, using a Matsushita DVD drive, but wont play DVDs. the Matsushita version of the drive will (because the DVD alliance people want $20 for each system that plays DVDs, idiots) so just to clarify a few things (and it WONT have a cartridge port to play yer old n64 games)
  • To start with, it is quite obvious that you haven't been hanging around the graphics arena all that long. Goemetry accelaration has been something that is a feature of all high-end (read non-consumer level) cards and architectures for at least the last 7 years. If you want to be really picky about this, the reason the scene graph was invented around 30 years ago on the old vector displays was for dealing with hardware geometry accelaration - and this was 2D, not 3D.

    According to a number of different, collated sources and things I saw at Siggraph, the reason the PSII is so fast is because the CPU is devoted almost entirely to the needs of graphics. This includes things like vector and matrix mul-add instructions (just like a DSP chip) and putting the entire thing on a single chip. Internally, the bus width is either 2560 or 4960 bits (can't remember exactly now). The real specs are around 66 million textured and lit polys per second. That is, texturing and lighting make almost no speed difference due to the huge bus width.

    Considering that the top of the line IR2 does around 10-12M polys a second the Nvidia chip is still going to fall far behind. Why? Well the IR2 does almost the entire GTXSR pipeline on separate hardware. Consumer level cards don't do that. Although the TNT2 et al claim to do 5-6M polys/sec that is only if nothing else needs to be done. Add in some lighting calcs, alpha blended textures and partially obscured polygons that a real world app uses and watch those figures plummet (due usually to bus bandwidth or CPU limitations). The current cards are raster only. Geometry accelaration will help, but it won't go all the way to beating an SGI pipeline. Besides, if I need more graphics grunt for my SGI, I just add another card or two and I instantly double/triple/etc my polygon performance.

    At Siggraph, there was a really interesting panel about large scale data visualisation. This was run by the people from Los Alamos, NCSA etc. They were talking about the PS performance wrt other architectures. They had some really interesting things to say about it - ie, expect to see (or not see, depending on your security clearance) Blue Mountain and the other ASCI computers using PSIIs and other similar boxes doing some of the real time interactive rendering of the data sets. That I find really amazing.

  • As some others have already commented, the numbers are just there so clueless reporters can gush about them. And they have, in Wired, New York Times, The Economist... "The future of entertainment is here. It will be 100 000 times faster than a PC, come with a DVD player, a ADSL line, a HDTV and a built in washing machine! And it will only cost $100! The PC will be dead come winter."

    I am sure the demos such as the famous dancing couple, or the dinosaur, or this new bathtub demo are gorgeous, but again...a demo is not a real game. A current PC can do some pretty impressive demos too if you dedicate it only to do graphics without bothering about stuff like AI. We have not seen what the NV10 and Voodoo 4 can do yet together with an Athlon. And they will be out THIS year.

    This is the first time that you will be able to add stuff like (possibly) harddrives, modems, different gaming units to a Playstation via USB, Firewire and what have you. This time they will have to do a complete OS for their gaming console, and "Will this game work on my Playstation 2 if I have X connected through USB, Y through Firewire but no Z connected?" is a question Sony have never had to answer before. Perhaps they underestimate the difficulties involved. As for their claim of the .18 micron 128 bit processor...is it finished yet? I would be really impressed if they managed, but considering all the other chip manufacturers having great difficulties getting .18 micron technology to work I am sceptical. Also, the Playstation 2 is going to load all these wonderful textures from a CD each time the scenery changes if I have understood correctly? Wow. It will be like the opening doors sequences in Resident Evil...times 10!

    Here is an interesting article from Next-Generation Online. They have been covering the Playstation 2 from the start.

    >Perhaps it was the comparison PlayStation 2's
    >demos drew to other games on the show floor --
    >whereas all prior public appearances had been
    >the demos by themselves. Perhaps it was the
    >quality of the demos. Perhaps it was the dying
    >down of the initial post-announcement hype of
    >Sony's new machine.
    >
    >Whatever it was, PlayStation 2 was not the end
    >all be all at last week's E3. More than one show
    >attendee we spoke to mentioned that the demos,
    >which looked quite pretty, were not as exciting
    >as they had hoped.
    [...]
    >For a system being touted as superior to the PC,
    >or any PCs coming down the line soon, the
    >PlayStation 2's demos did not graphically
    >lambaste the gorgeous Black & White or
    >Freelancer for PC, nor did the demos' graphics
    >look significantly superior to those of many
    >Dreamcast titles, such as Shenmue and NBA 2000.

    Read the article here [next-generation.com].
    There are some more sceptical voices here [next-generation.com]. The articles are from March, but I think the criticism is still valid.
  • To the people who are making sense here, I've heard too much "It can do Toy Story" and "It can do x more polys than Y". (although I've haven't heard any PSX2 Beowulfs yet!) ;)

    And I'm sick of it. FYI, I have all four games machines under my TV : Saturn, Playstation, N64 and an import Dreamcast. I doubt I'll get an import PSX2, I just don't like enough playstation games.

    People need to remember that Sony are the M$ of the videogame world, they came in late, looked at what the other companies were doing and said "us too!"

    I prefer a company that is willing to take chances with games, not just pump out another tired Tomb Raider.

    [EOF]
  • >Why would this be an issue? The advantage to having a set top unit like a video game system is that the programmer can program for one set of hardware specs

    That is the thing with the PSX2. It will have USB and Firewire. Sony has mentioned that a harddrive would be a good peripheral to have, and I believe one is being developed. But not all will buy it. So the programmers will have to program one version where you can cache textures and save game to the HD, and one without. And then some people will have additional memory cards, and some not.
    Sony, welcome to the messy world of the PC...
  • I remember reading somewhere that sony hired cygnus to make a playstation 2 emulator so that developers could run the games (while developing) on high end mations. It emulated the 128 bit core and such, but I wonder what the actual requirements would be.
  • To my experience, the normal reaction of a big company's purchasing rep. would be: It's free? No thanks, then we don't take it (thinking: free ==> crap).
  • >PSX allows for 4 controllers with the Tap add-on.
    >And since most people don't have 4
    > controllers or always 3 or 4 friends
    >to play with, it seems a waste to include the 4
    >player ability
    > by default which would increase the
    >cost of the system.

    The 4 controllers built in was one of my favorite
    features of the N64, and I have used it numerious
    times. Back when N64 was still project reality,
    I was bored and started making concept designs
    and sure enough I put 4 controller ports on it.
    The addition of 2 controller ports is cheaper in
    the long run, as the "taps" are usually expensive
    however cheap to manufacture.. just more money
    to the company and less to you.

    With the use of "taps", I found that 3rd parties
    were less willing to write games that made use of
    the 3rd and 4th players as many did not own the
    multi-player "taps".

  • >>3) Rent a game first to try it.
    >
    >Fine. But 2 big problems. First, it is hard to find places to rent PC games

    Gee, have you wondered why that might be the case?
  • Exactly my thoughts.. anyone remember sega vs nintendo when the genesis and supernes were going at it? I was an avid sega fan, blinded by the numbers. Sega's was faster, when you spoke of MHZ (wasn't it 2-3 times as fast?) But then I played a SuperNES... let me tell ya, it played better than the genesis.. better sound, gfx, etc. I think Sony knows what they're doing, and although I think Nintendo still has a good fight left, I hope Sony comes out the winner yet again...
  • That's a different code for stage select and 9 guys, the one he is talking about is an April Fools joke that was printed in EGM back when they where cool and wheren't owned by Ziff Davis.
  • This same logic could also be used for the DC. The PS2 is coming after the DC, so it does that mean the DC will automatically win? No. Same thing then.
  • You disregard the true economics of the situation. Sony (Nintendo, etc.) doesn't make money off the hardware. In the console industry, the hardware is generally a loss leader for the first few years of its life and a break-even proposition thereafter. The real money is in the software. Therefore, Sony in no way wants people to buy hardware but not software. I think the PSX is more popular because it is both cheaper (even if you don't pirate) than the N64 and has a much larger selection of games.
  • Not every programmer gets reimbursed by salary alone.

    Have you ever heard of STOCK OPTIONS, PROFIT SHARING, etc.??

    You are just a drag on the entire industry. You steal things that you don't need. Unless you start jonesing when you can't play the latest game you have absolutly no need to take this.

    I'll tell you what. Why don't you try going out and mowing a few lawns this summer to PAY for those games. Oh wait. You can't do that. That would require you to get off of your lazy/fat/cheap ass and do some real work.

    Ingrate.

  • what? I would have to believe if they programmed a game to not use the hard drive, they just wouldn't use it. Kind of like the analog controllers -- hmmmm, analog doesn't work on all games....

    Now, you could use the hard disk as a big memory card for all games -- just have the programmers call a "memory save" and redirect to the hard disk.... same for loads...
  • Shenmue is like a graphically brillant incarnation of Dragon's Lair. You know, watch the pretty movie and when the light flashes, hit the button. If you don't, you die otherwise you go to the next movie. Yippee. I saw this at E3 and was NOT impressed.
  • with what, the Hal 9000?

    Just looking at the hardware alone sets me to drooling, but cmon, what home pc/ppc/etc could support emulation of something like this?



    The extra vid chips alone.. sheesh.

    Awfully spendy though, so I think I'll wait to see some good games first. (though w/ the entire line of old psx games to run on it.. well it's a nice headstart hmm?)


    What I want to know is, does the thing suuport DVD playback? Or is that just rumour.

    If the PSII capable of playing DVD's $400 would be well worth it.


    ~WDM

    What we wish, that we readily believe.
    -- Demosthenes

  • One method I heard about talked about introducing small pinholes into the DVD layer, much like the old Apple II bad sector copy protection.

    Well, I don't really think that will matter, if I understand what you mean.

    You might know that Playstation CDs have some kind of information on them that cannot be written by a CDR. So what people have done is copied the CDs and "modchipped" their playstations. A simple soldering job of a $10 chip onto the mobo of your PSX can accomplish this.

    Moral: ANY copy protection scheme can and will be defeated. As long as DVD-copying hardware is available at the consumer level, people will rent games from blockbuster and copy them.

    -Furious

  • HAVI? (Score:1)

    by oren ( 78897 )
    Does anyone know whether the Ps2 will support the HAVI [havi.org] standard? Now that would be a PC killer. The moment some brave soul wrote a Linux "game" to "play" on it, I'll never look at a PC again.
  • IF games have the best graphics possible, just like books
  • Since the OS for the development stations will be Linux, they will have to release the source for the port to this new hardware. Everything will be available to the Linux community. No doubt, there is no doubt going to be some VERY interesting code in there.
    Cheers,
    Bun
  • Bullshit! The TV doesn't "know" anything about the number of polygons --- it just writes out each line of the display.
  • so I think I'll wait to see some good games first. (though w/ the entire line of old psx games to run on it.. well it's a nice headstart hmm?)

    Yeah, but it could also be a hinderance, why buy a cutting edge machine, that has say, 10 games for it abd the ability to play all the PSX games. Or wait until there's enough PSX2 games and just stick to your playstation. New machines need early adopters.

    I also hear that Sony are undecided about the DVD movie playback thing.
  • Last April 1 Cringely had some interesting remarks [pbs.org] about this thing's future.

  • Proof that it's not so easy to develop with may lie in the fact that the demos reported in this article are the same ones that have been showing for many, many months ... I saw them in mid-April, same Sony exec, same city. (And the chips had individual fans ...)

    On the other hand, maybe they're just having the game developers do that stuff and there will be some way cool things to show sometime next month? Hmm.

    One smart thing Sony's doing is getting a third party market of graphics engines going. I understand that didn't exist with the PS-1; but we know the model works with Quake, Doom, and so on. After all, you only need a few good engines that can work with those parallel vector engines. And Sony doesn't need to be demonstrating more than a basic one, so long as someone else is working on that ...

    - Jojo

  • it's contra!!! as a matter of fact, a few weeks ago i go the nintendo emu for contra and broke the flood gate for some really old memories. I recommend anyone who played contra to give it a try....

    now, to this new playstation...i'll beleive it when i see it...
  • > Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.

    Not strictly true. Sony will reject games for 'aesthetic' reasons. Their recquirements are long, complicated, and easy to break.

    As to why more PS games than Nintendo, or Sega. Numbers, pure and simple numbers.
  • It's the only way of debugging all those extra bits of silicon you have to program. This beast is complicated. Really complicated. Makes 80x86 look like a toy...;)

    ...or so I've been told...
  • The spec's say it will have a Firewire connection.
    --
    "All that is visible must grow and extend itself into the realm of the invisible."
  • Your TV is limited to displaying
    (num_of_pixels / sizeof(polygon)) * refresh_rate
    polygons per second. Since the original poster stated that the size of a polygon in a typical benchmark is 3 pixels, it becomes a simple calculation to solve.
  • Thats why I got FF7 for Winblows
  • The refresh rate should be 1/2 of the one stated by the TV since TV's are interlaced.
  • I believe that backwards compadibility with old Play Station Games is there too
  • The last I heard, Sega was saying that any Internet connection would work for Dreamcast. Sony hasn't said anything, yet.
  • >hiking costs for us, the gamers. If you're an >addict like me, they can break your bank.

    Interesting that you refer to gaming as an addiction, making the social significance of stealing to support your habit even more apparent. Do you think other addictions should be enabled in this fashion? We should force the liquor and tobacco producers to reduce their prices, then. Capitalism be damned, it is imperative that we make it as easy as possible for people with impulse-control problems to indulge in their preferred vices.

    Yeah, right. What you're doing is theft, in part from your fellow programmers...assuming you're a programmer yourself. Get a life/clue/whatever.
  • Umm, are you asking me why the linux OS can't be proprietary? Well the kernal itself can't be proprietary as long as they use any of the linux code that has been currently developed. The only way you could make a proprietary linux would be to make a completly cleanroom kernal only based upon the current kernal specs. But I doupt sony cares to create its own kernal, and they definatly wouldn't be calling it linux cause callig it that would pretty much define it to be linux, which is under the GPL and can't be proprietary
  • Well Nintendo has several very good reasons to keep with cartridges for the N64. Oviously in hinesight they were wrong, but while everyone wants to say Nintendo picked cartidges just to be greedy, that isn't the whole story. The space available on a single normal old system cd wasn't enough for much growth in games. Saturn and Playstation both have several games that require 2 cds. Nintendo oviously didn't understand that such oddities were acceptable to the average gamer. Its a combination of stupid desisions and not understanding that the gamer audience had grown up. But I'm not willing to assume anything about Nintendo till I see the dolphin.
  • Let us pause for a moment and reflect on life during the days of the Atari 2600.
    ------------------------------------------- -----------------
  • More benchmarketing again... Benchmarks for polygons / sec are typically based on the simplest polygon possible -- a 3 pixel solid "triangle". At 60Hz, a standard television isn't capable of displaying more than 12 million or so polygons per second anyway. For a high resolution monitor at 100Hz, this rises to about 50-60 million, so the 75 million number is pretty meaningless.

    Furthermore, real-life polygons aren't only 3 pixels, and they're not solid colour. They're larger, and they're textured. Also, although your scene could theoretically contain more than 75 million polygons, you're relying on your application to be able to calculate which ones are visible, and pass their coordinates to the renderer at a rate fast enough to keep up. Although possible, I'd guess this is unlikely to be the case with PSX2.

  • Do your homework ... (Score:3)

    by LL ( 20038 ) on Tuesday August 17, 1999 @07:52PM (#1741701)
    If people take the time to actually look up the technical details (see Microprocessor Report April 19, v15 i5) they'll probably get a more realistic idea of the capabilities instead of third-hand info from marketing flacks (not that I've got anything against salesdroids but slashdot is suppose to be targetted at a technical audience).

    You can think (very broadly speaking) of the EmotionEngine as a R5K (like in SGI O2) coupled with 2 vector and 1 image unit. I wish people luck in developing partly asynchronous parallel/threaded algorithms that can get anywhere near the "peak" 6.2 Gflops. Also the I/O processor (ie the old Sony chip) only has space for 1 PCMCIA card on a 32 bit I/O bus. The other major constraint is total memory of 32 MBytes with no hard disk for swap space unless some bright spark can do some magic with an IEEE-1394 peripheral. As one wag noted, its easy to create a fast chip when you don't need to worry about memory hierarchies. At least it will have a lot of graphic functions built in (fog, sprites, particles, etc) so you can dazzle people with gee-whiz effects.

    A go-kart is still a go-kart even if powered by a formula 1 engine. It will be a very useful and amusing console toy but don't expect it fufill your fantasties of having a supercomputer in your bedroom.

    LL

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