PS2 EE question

[vipa899]

@Grall
Okej well that explains alot. Everyone allways says the PS2 is a complex machine, but i dont know, xbox's P3 and in special the nvidia gpu seem very complex to me, even more so then the PS2 CPU/GPU. Now i know the PS2 was harder to code for

On that, do you guys think the radeon 8500 was the better gpu if compared to the GF3? All i remember is that the nvidia gpus where more popular, but also more expensive if i remember correctly. Never had ATI until 2003/4, then after that only Nvidia again.
Wasnt the 8500 more advanced, but didnt have as good driver support as Nvidia did? Wonder what if MS had gone with the 8500.

I understand the proprietary nature and purpose of the register combiners, but how are the PS2's "pixel pipes" different in comparison when it comes to architecture?

I also wonder this, in starting this topic i thought knowing more about nvidia gpus, but now i dont know anymore

We've come so far............but I long for the days when I really didn't no poop about the hardware, not because I didn't know poop, but there still was a place and purpose to each console. They each had their own proprietary hardware philosophy.

So true, i have the exact same opionion as expressed before. The 6th gen was very intresting, didnt know anything about the hardware when the PS2 launched, was just 10 years old by that time, thought PS2's 128 bits meant colour-dept, as in 128bit colours. This cause of the PC's back then you could select 16/24/32 bit modes, quit many people thought PS2 could do 128bit graphics and hyped about it, crazy thinking of that now but i believed it
First game on PS2 was the first SSX and i was impressed by the graphics, still one of my favorite games, like it more then all the other SSX that came after.
By the time i got an xbox and shortly after a gamecube, the next-gen graphics had toned down abit, but all consoles had their own style of games/graphics. For sure the Xbox was on top, followed by GC then PS2 when it came down to graphics/sound. PS2 had the most games and most game -hours went there (after PC).

Yeah some GameCube love here i see I really liked the console aswell, had mario sunshine and galaxy, and offcourse both metroids. The hardware was really capable of nice graphics when pushed, which didnt happen that often. PS2 seemed the most pushed by really talented teams, some devs can really do magic.

 

[vipa899]

Im reading about the Radeon 8500, that card supposedly has a seperate T&L hardware unit that can work in parralel with the twin vertex shaders / pixel shaders. It also had support for pixel shader 1.4, which are more advanced then the GF3 or GF4. The 8500 as someone said here, could do the many textures from doom 3 in a single pass. GPU had a core clock @ 275mhz which is pretty high too. Later in its lifespan when drivers got better it trade blowed with the Ti4200.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/836

Would this gpu have done better in a console-environment, in the xbox? It has superior specs in almost all regards, and in a console developers can utilize all its power.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Of course. But it cost more and released after the XBox, so MS would have had to release later and more expensive or losing more money per box. You have to draw the line somewhere!

 

[vipa899]

Oh ok didnt know that it would be too late, saw reviews of the 8500 allready in august 2001, but Geforce 3 probally came way before that
How would a shadow of the collossus look on xbox if the team had build it from the ground up for that console, how to get SH-lighting done and all the other effects.

 

[see colon]

@Grall
On that, do you guys think the radeon 8500 was the better gpu if compared to the GF3? All i remember is that the nvidia gpus where more popular, but also more expensive if i remember correctly. Never had ATI until 2003/4, then after that only Nvidia again.
Wasnt the 8500 more advanced, but didnt have as good driver support as Nvidia did?.

I "upgraded" from a Geforce 3 to a Radeon 8500 back in the day. I moved the Geforce 3 to my wife's rig. She got all of my hand me downs so her CPU was slower and she had a bit less or slower ram. I remember it not being a huge performance boost at the time, with many games running slightly faster or sometimes slightly slower. I do remember liking the image quality better. Colors looked better and anisotropic filtering was faster, although technically not as accurate, it was more usable because there was little to no performance hit. FSAA was a mostly unused feature for me at the time because the CRT monitors I had at the time supported something like 1600*1200 so I would always run games at higher resolutions instead of using AA. It was really a lateral move performance wise, but I didn't regret it at the time because my wife had a rather old graphics card at the time. Phil's Computer Lab on youtube has benched many classic video cards using more modern drivers with good showings for the Radeon 8500 series, but I don't remember the difference being that great at the time.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Oh ok didnt know that it would be too late, saw reviews of the 8500 allready in august 2001, but Geforce 3 probally came way before that
How would a shadow of the collossus look on xbox if the team had build it from the ground up for that console, how to get SH-lighting done and all the other effects.

I like to think SotC was the one game that really maxed out the PS2 or at least used it's complete hardware to it's fullest. This article from 2006 highlights quite a bit of the work done.

Some of the obvious is directly mentioned as being done on the vector unit, almost guaranteed VU1 since they're graphics processes. The article also mentions the vector unit having difficulty with complex collision detection and colossi deformation which hints at VU0 being used since we can assume VU1 would be tied up with graphics processes most likely. And I very much don't expect the rinky dink 32 bit FPU to handle that on it's own.

 

[dogen]

I like to think SotC was the one game that really maxed out the PS2 or at least used it's complete hardware to it's fullest. This article from 2006 highlights quite a bit of the work done.

Some of the obvious is directly mentioned as being done on the vector unit, almost guaranteed VU1 since they're graphics processes. The article also mentions the vector unit having difficulty with complex collision detection and colossi deformation which hints at VU0 being used since we can assume VU1 would be tied up with graphics processes most likely. And I very much don't expect the rinky dink 32 bit FPU to handle that on it's own.

I've never seen the profiler output myself (if only I had one of those massive ps2 devkits ).. but I hear sotc doesn't actually do the best job of exploiting the EE.

 

[Nesh]

I've never seen the profiler output myself (if only I had one of those massive ps2 devkits ).. but I hear sotc doesn't actually do the best job of exploiting the EE.

So which game did it?

 

[dogen]

So which game did it?

I'd guess... metal gear solid, gran turismo, god of war, anything by naughty dog .

Actually someone mentioned jak and daxter in the same conversation.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/409887020840787968

 

[vipa899]

@see colon
Yeah thanks informative video, Nvidias drivers for sure where better back then. Didnt have a 8500, had a GF3 Ti200, and moving to a Ti4200 didnt see much gain for me, atleast not worth the upgrade. But i needed two pc's like your situation then its justified

Phil's Computer Lab on youtube has benched many classic video cards using more modern drivers with good showings for the Radeon 8500 series, but I don't remember the difference being that great at the time.

I remember many saying the 8500 was equal to the Ti4200 but that its drivers and game support werent that great.

@Mobius1aic
Maxing the PS2 or not, the framerate was really bad, i remember getting low fps for no reason (just looking towards the huge building you start in from a distance). But then not lagging quit as much upon seeing a collosi.

but I hear sotc doesn't actually do the best job of exploiting the EE.

In PCSX2 its possible to get a smooth frame-rate by overclocking the EE cpu speed which results in a much better fps, if the pc cpu is powerfull enough.

Actually someone mentioned jak and daxter in the same conversation.

I thought jak and daxter looks very nice with its big open areas and much of NPC's moving about, wonder how close Melbourn House where to perfectly utilising the PS2 too 100%?
Transformers doesnt look good, but its scale and framerate/view distance are impressive to say the least.

 

[dogen]

In PCSX2 its possible to get a smooth frame-rate by overclocking the EE cpu speed which results in a much better fps, if the pc cpu is powerfull enough.

Yes, you can. But my pc (pentium at 4.3GHz) can't quite sustain it all the time.

 

[Mobius1aic]

@Mobius1aic
Maxing the PS2 or not, the framerate was really bad, i remember getting low fps for no reason (just looking towards the huge building you start in from a distance). But then not lagging quit as much upon seeing a collosi.
.

Yes, but it was quite the technical achievement. Team Ico was doing some inventive things, and of course most importantly the game itself was good. Looking back on the experience, it's hard to recommend what should've been left out of the game to boost the framerate. You could argue the pseudo HDR was least important, but hardcore fans would miss it too much.

It's only a shame it would take 12+ years to fully iron out the experience and present it in a pretty much flawless form. Probably the best remaster/rebuild ever made.

 

[OCASM]

Yes, but it was quite the technical achievement. Team Ico was doing some inventive things, and of course most importantly the game itself was good. Looking back on the experience, it's hard to recommend what should've been left out of the game to boost the framerate. You could argue the pseudo HDR was least important, but hardcore fans would miss it too much.

It's only a shame it would take 12+ years to fully iron out the experience and present it in a pretty much flawless form. Probably the best remaster/rebuild ever made.

That would be the RE remake for the Gamecube. SotC's remake is technologically competent but a total failure aesthetics wise.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

SotC's remake is technologically competent but a total failure aesthetics wise.

That discussion is really old now. Don't let it spill into every thread where SotC is mentioned.

I've left the comment in as I'm not sure what people are saying (What's the RE remake, of what?), but if the topic wanders, I'll remove it.

 

[Karamazov]

RE= Resident Evil remake on Gamecube i guess.

 

[vipa899]

Yes, but it was quite the technical achievement.

Yes it sure is, the low framerate wasnt that much of a problem as the games areas werent that populated, just open deserts for the most, it didnt really affect the gameplay, and i can understand the framerate problems seeing what they where achieving on aged hardware (by the time it came).

You could argue the pseudo HDR was least important, but hardcore fans would miss it too much.

Dont know really either, i think the game as it is on the ps2 is like it should be, taking away the HDR wouldnt give the same athmosphere. In ICO the HDR was a must, it really gave that dreamy feel. Personally liked ICO more as a game, solid 30fps for the most aswell, and it sure didnt have bad graphics, mostly thanks to the art style.
For people that had bought the ps2 version back then and want to replay it i can recommend using the latest PCSX2 (1.5 builds). With some fine-tuning i think you get a real nice experience again, in higher res/fps if one has the capable machine for it.

Yes, you can. But my pc (pentium at 4.3GHz) can't quite sustain it all the time.

My old i7 cant cope with high internal res and oced EE either I think you need atleast a i7 7700 or something even faster for 60fps. Im statisfied if i can have 30fps for the most with maybe 2x internal resolution and some AA. Those people with 4k 60fps youtube videos must have some capable pcs to get it that smooth with those settings.


But back to PS2 hardware, ive learnt here that the PS2 was better then a GF1/2 in many areas, but where did GPU's surpass the PS2 on all, or should i say, most fronts? Was it the GF2 Pro/ultra, or was it the GF3? Or was it even something more powerfull, the Radeon 8500 with its twin vertex shaders, pixel shader 1.4, seperate T&L engine and massive bandwith and its high clock speed? Where do i place the PS2, i mean its hard to do that, but somewhere like say it was comparable to 'about Geforce 256 but better or worse in' as an example. If the PS2 was ahead of its time, then how long did it take for tech to catch up?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Where do i place the PS2, i mean its hard to do that...

It's impossible and you shouldn't try. PS2 was different. What you're trying to do is look at the evolution from sabre toothed tiger to house-cat and wonder where the Springer Spaniel fits in.

...but somewhere like say it was comparable to 'about Geforce 256 but better or worse in' as an example. If the PS2 was ahead of its time, then how long did it take for tech to catch up?

In some areas it hasn't. There's nothing yet that can match PS2's bandwidth per pixel. It's a different architecture and not comparable in terms of hardware. I mean, the datapoints are (vertices transformed per second, pixels drawn per second) but the results on screen from those datapoints are completely different from different hardwares. The best you can do is look at lots of games and subjectively place PS2 wherever you feel it fits, but seeing as PS2 was a console and PC's suffered from loads of overhead back then, it's not at all a fair comparison of the PC hardware's potential versus what it produced on screen.

If you want to continue a technical discussion, please limit comparisons to measurable data points such as, "what GPUs could T&L the same number of polygons as EE?"

 

[idsn6]

If the PS2 was ahead of its time, then how long did it take for tech to catch up?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/657345899861970944

 

[vipa899]

@Shifty Geezer
Okej allready thought it wouldnt be easy to point a GPU and say 'that one is closest', though wasnt my real intent as i know the ps2 has a complete different architecture/render tech but the outcome isnt as radically different as the hardware is. Both gamecube and ps2 for example both can do RE4 but the rendering tech behind it is different.
Anyway looking at the xbox/NV2A, closest to GPUs in pcs back then, in a console environment, its below the GF3 hybrid in most ways but better then GF1/2 (worse in some ways, better in others for GF1/2), GF2 Ultra with a fast CPU to compensate perhaps, giving ps2 the edge in areas and giving up on others. In my eyes what i can think off

There's nothing yet that can match PS2's bandwidth per pixel.

And there most likely never will, as i understood from others here explaining that hardware went into another direction.

 

[vipa899]

How much does PS2's 4MB edram equal to DDR/normal ram terms? Thought because its faster (48gb/s), it can copy/read so fast that it equals more memory for textures etc? Dont you need less if its faster ram?
As i understand, VU0 was best used to help out the main CPU, and not assist in graphics related work?

I cant seem to edit my posts since the last one.