PS2 EE question

vipa899

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How is transformers grass/jungle with unlimited draw distance done? Both VU's maxed or just VU0, reserving VU1 for gfx?
Would transformers been possible on the original xbox with the same graphics? If written for that machine from the ground up of course.
Played both on original hardware. Closest i could find was Far Cry Instincts but they seem different games to me, though both set in the amazones. Impressive feat on the PS2 i must say, resolution seems low though and the grass 'shimmers' but doesnt do that much bad to the overall impression.

PS2 Transformers

Xbox Far Cry Instincts

Which game you guys think looks more impressive, which is the best in technical terms?
 
Transformers is clearly in the top 10 best looking PS2 games discussion. No idea how they managed to pull it off, to be honest. Not that it does anything that other games didn't do, it's just the scale and view distance that's impressive. Also, I always loved the lighting on the characters. They almost have that dull plastic look.

Beyond the "looks great for a PS2 game" talk, it also looks and plays better than most games the developer made. These are the guys who made Back to the Future on the NES!
 
Its the only game on the PS2 that really impresses me, it has that PS2-feel to it though, low resolution/no AA/textures. But the vastness and draw distance are very well done for a machine with so limited memory. Jak and ratched are very nice too but nothing that really impresses me like transformers.
Wonder why the team didnt decide to develop it for the xbox, would the game have been even better? Maybe for small user-base...
 
I have a feeling iot being a PS2 exclusive has to do more with the publisher than anything else.
 
Its the only game on the PS2 that really impresses me, it has that PS2-feel to it though, low resolution/no AA/textures. But the vastness and draw distance are very well done for a machine with so limited memory. Jak and ratched are very nice too but nothing that really impresses me like transformers.
Wonder why the team didnt decide to develop it for the xbox, would the game have been even better? Maybe for small user-base...
How about MGS2, ZOE, DMC1 and 3, GT4, TTT, and especially Silent Hill 3?
 
How about MGS2, ZOE, DMC1 and 3, GT4, TTT, and especially Silent Hill 3?

MGS2 sure was impressive for its time but it didnt really impress me personally like Transformers did. Felt that MGS2 was much of the same colour-tone in generall, though nice effects. ZOE2 didnt do it for me but that could be personal, cause its a cel shaded game, or atleast looks like one. Only played GT3 demo which i think came with my PS2 some 17 years ago.Tekken Tag nice too but a game which i thought the PS2 should be capable off at the time.
Played SH3 on pc, thought it was quit nice yeah. God of War 2 had some nice graphics too. Never had a gamecube but had a xbox (still have), and xbox had the best graphics that generation, even accounting exclusives for both. You had to have a PS2 cause thats where most games/exclusives came thansk to user-base, everyone had one, felt like :p

Matrix wasnt anything special as i recall, normal/bump mapping or not.
Transformers suprised me because its so large, with so many trees and grass in the Amazon level, at what feels like 60fps without that much slowdown, and that with only 32mb main ram and 4mb edram. Only the amazon level and Deep amazon look nice, the others are barren. Loading is quit fast too as i have ripped all my games to the PS2 hdd.
Havent seen anything like it on the more powerfull xbox, better graphics yes but not the scale/draw distance without popups, even Far Cry has them, and that machine has 64mb.
 
I just didnt think it maxed the ps2, path of neo was something you would expect to see on the ps2. Ace Combat 6 had some massive draw distance aswell.
Like Transformers and a few others have big worlds on ps2, was having large scale maps an advantage ps2 had over the xbox?
 
Never played it but looked it up on youtube and it looks to be like RE4 on PS2, as you say great technically for a PS2. Wonder how last gen games would have looked like if xbox was the main/lead platform and biggest user base.
 
I just didnt think it maxed the ps2, path of neo was something you would expect to see on the ps2. Ace Combat 6 had some massive draw distance aswell.
Like Transformers and a few others have big worlds on ps2, was having large scale maps an advantage ps2 had over the xbox?
PS2 has about half the pixel fillrate and twice the bandwidth that PS3 has, and about two and a half times the pixel fillrate of the OG Xbox. I think that sort of flexibility would allow you to have huge, wide open spaces as long as you limited the feature set to avoid too many rendering passes.
 
If it's one thing PS2 apparently did really well, it was many rendering passes. From what some former PS2 dev reported, you could do several tens of full-screen passes per frame at 60FPS without bogging down the graphics processor.
 
So that means Transformers wasnt possible on the og xbox in the same form as the ps2 form?
Btw the game seems selectable 50/60hz even though im in pal region (sweden) guess it runs 60fps. A feat for the ps2, imagin it and some others being launch titles in 2000 for the system.
 
So that means Transformers wasnt possible on the og xbox in the same form as the ps2 form?
OG Box and PS2 were completely different hardware systems. The box was all-around powerful CPU and powerful, full-feature GPU (by contemporary console standards) on a unified memory bus where CPU, GPU and all other system devices all shared the same memory space and bandwidth. PS2 had a rather simplistic main CPU core paired with strong (but wonky) math co-processors, paired with a dumb but ludicrously overgunned graphics processor. System also had three major pools of memory (plus some additional small ones integrated into the CPU) and a separate I/O and sound CPU with its own memory space - which also ran original Playstation emulation related stuff btw...

Two vastly different schools of computer hardware design. Xbox was overall an easier beastie to program for, but due to its UMA memory design could quite easily get bogged down by too much memory activity, if you went to town using all the capabilities of the hardware at once. Successful games had to balance the use of the (on paper fairly large, but in reality significantly smaller) amount of memory bandwidth the system had.

Meanwhile, PS2's achilles heel was the really slow main CPU, and the quirky nature of the math coprocessors. Of course, having to abuse the simplistic nature of the graphics processor to produce advanced graphical effects did not make PS2 easier; it's no secret that the reason the much less powerful Dreamcast hardware was able to compete so well with PS2 early on was because of PS2's powerful but wacko hardware design. :p
 
Thanks for the spot on explanation, i have read many topics here on beyond3d but most are very old to no suprise. From what i have read from different developers they where on either side, either they thought PS2 had a better design for games or the Xbox. Ive always wondered what if the 'PS2 design' would have catched on, would games have been graphically better now? I see that the OG xbox hardware design was the future, as PS3 got a Nvidia GPU, 360 also went more PC-style, and now PS4, xbox one and Pro/scorpio went that route aswell, and something tells me PS5 wont be another PS2 either.

What did/do you think was the better system graphically, the OG xbox or the PS2? what about rendering vast worlds like Transformers did with all the grass/trees without popups, could the xbox do it? How much more powerfull was the xbox over the ps2 in general? Many questions about such an old generation i know.... Its the only generation that interests me tbh, was too you to understand the hardware aspects of them when the 6th gen was in full swing. Had/have both Xbox and PS2 and later a GC too. Actually have 3 xbox and at one time had 7 PS2s. People tend to give them away when the laser/dvd drive doesnt work... :p
 
Intresting read, xbox version running 60fps against ps2s 30 but with less advanced animation, couldnt they target 30 on og xbox and keep the same animation at ps2-level?
Or maybe use the gpu/vertex shader? On ps2 vu is used so less to graphics aswel there.

Also, GS was it better as a gpu then nv2a?
 
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