Was PS2 maxed out? (or close to it)

[Seanspeed]

There are always developers who try and get everything they can out of a system.

But there's also generally lots of ways to exploit consoles, especially back in those days where the hardware was very customized and idiosyncratic. And developers always have to prioritize when it comes to their technical choices. You cant do it all. PS2 turned into a generation where 60fps was a very popular target, and so lots of devs could absolutely have decided to push some graphics/technical elements further if they wanted to sacrifice performance, but chose not to. Doesn't mean they weren't pushing the system, as performance is still a part of pushing hardware, obviously. But I think if you mean "Were PS2 graphics the absolute best they could have been?" then no, they probably weren't, due heavily to the prioritization of that 60fps target.

That said, if you were around at the time, I dont know how you wouldn't have been impressed with PS2's graphics, especially in relation to the previous generation. It was an enormous leap! Granted, if you started comparing PS2 titles to certain Gamecube or especially Xbox titles, then yea, it wasn't always as good, but it was still an incredibly capable machine for something that launched in 2000.

 

[sribo]

There are always developers who try and get everything they can out of a system.

But there's also generally lots of ways to exploit consoles, especially back in those days where the hardware was very customized and idiosyncratic. And developers always have to prioritize when it comes to their technical choices. You cant do it all. PS2 turned into a generation where 60fps was a very popular target, and so lots of devs could absolutely have decided to push some graphics/technical elements further if they wanted to sacrifice performance, but chose not to. Doesn't mean they weren't pushing the system, as performance is still a part of pushing hardware, obviously. But I think if you mean "Were PS2 graphics the absolute best they could have been?" then no, they probably weren't, due heavily to the prioritization of that 60fps target.

That said, if you were around at the time, I dont know how you wouldn't have been impressed with PS2's graphics, especially in relation to the previous generation. It was an enormous leap! Granted, if you started comparing PS2 titles to certain Gamecube or especially Xbox titles, then yea, it wasn't always as good, but it was still an incredibly capable machine for something that launched in 2000.

it's true that many PS2 games targeted 60 fps, besides I always found it a bit weird that 30 fps PS2 games were generally not particularly more impressive than the 60 fps ones (for example Shadow of Rome, one of best-looking PS2 games, a bit like the real RE4 on PS2, and at 60 fps)
yes I was around at the time, and the gap was the biggest in video games I think (if we exclude the transition to 3D but the first 3D games were far from looking better than 2D games), I would say that PS2 games have always impressed me more technically than visually compared to other consoles.

 

[Mobius1aic]

The PS2 is so fun because of how ambiguous the system’s capabilities truly were even though on paper it was rather limited in many ways. Didn’t mean you technically couldn’t do certain techniques but had find a way around it.

As someone mentioned earlier, later ports and multi platform games actually look quite competent, probably thanks to not just dev experience and licensed engines but the extensive libraries Sony had produced to ease developer frustrations. I imagine the system was held back by its memory more than the EE and GS as it lingered on to receive non-Wii related custom versions of multiplatform games like like Call of Duty Final Fronts and Toy Story 3.

 

[Color me Dan]

I really can't answer the question as such, I have a bad grasp of the PS2's technical inner workings and how they were leveraged, but even I noticed that a lot of developers found and increasingly played to the PS2's strengths. I was shocked by the leap in graphical fidelity on show towards the end of the consoles life. Final Fantasy XII and Dirge of Cerberus stood out to me, as did the Resident Evil 4 port from GameCube.

But then I suppose developers were using every trick in the book at that point. Careful use of color palettes and lighting to minimize visible aliasing, and lots of particle and blending effects - which the PS2 could just churn through with ease if I recall correctly - sort of drew attention away from (or hid) other technical limitations.

All that must have been a right hassle for multi-platform developers! But boy did devs manage some impressive feats as they went along.

 

[see colon]

All that must have been a right hassle for multi-platform developers! But boy did devs manage some impressive feats as they went along.

This is why the rise of middleware started this generation. Renderware was the game engine that was used in something like a 30% of all releases in that generation, powering everything from Grand Theft Auto, COD (the console ones), Battlefield (the console releases), King of Fighters, and Burnout to licensed titles like Barbie, Spongebob, Ghost Rider, and, who can forget, Piglet's Big Game. People pine for the days when every game didn't run on Unreal Engine, but the trend of a dominant game engine really started on PS2, and much of the reason was because the complexities of PS2 were mostly solved by Renderware and building your game for Renderware meant porting to Xbox, Gamecube, PC, iOS, Android, or Dreamcast was much easier.

This isn't to say that using a game engine like Renderware kept you from making a great looking PS2 game. The Burnout titles were always lookers, and are arguably nicer looking on PS2 than Xbox. I also think Cold Fear is a great looking PS2 game, and it ran on Renderware. It's still true today in many ways, but I think it was more true back then, that a games art was often more important than it's technical accomplishments when regarding how nice a game looks. Thus judging how "maxed out" PS2 was is kind of hard, because the most maxed game might not be the best looking.

 

[Color me Dan]

This isn't to say that using a game engine like Renderware kept you from making a great looking PS2 game. The Burnout titles were always lookers, and are arguably nicer looking on PS2 than Xbox. I also think Cold Fear is a great looking PS2 game, and it ran on Renderware.

I wonder if tools like Renderware couldn't customize builds for each console to some degree? I'm sure studios would prefer them to all look close, but if you could add a few more (or different) effects of one kind of another to play to the consoles strength I assume that was well within the realm of possibility?

 

[tuna]

This is why the rise of middleware started this generation. Renderware was the game engine that was used in something like a 30% of all releases in that generation, powering everything from Grand Theft Auto, COD (the console ones), Battlefield (the console releases)....

Hasn't Battlefield always used Frostbite?

 

[Nesh]

It's Interesting that these games that used renderware looked so different from each other. So I m curious what exactly renderware was doing and what modifications devs were making on the engine.

Still we had wildly different approaches in taking advantage of the hardware and we got gems that aged relatively well, like SH2 and 3, ZoE2, MGS2, TTT and T4 (which I consider more impressive than T5), GT4, Burnout 3, Primal, Cold Fear, Resi4, Ace Combat, and so many other games I can't remember right now. The PS2 was gaming heaven.

 

[see colon]

Hasn't Battlefield always used Frostbite?

No, frostbite wasn't a thing until Battlefield Bad Company. I don't know what they called the engine for the earlier Battlefield games, but it wasn't Frostbite because it didn't exist yet. The PS2/Xbox console port of the contemporaneous Battlefield game (Battlefield 2: Modern Combat) used Renderware. The Call of Duty games on PC were idTech, and the console ports used Renderware as well.

It's Interesting that these games that used renderware looked so different from each other. So I m curious what exactly renderware was doing and what modifications devs were making on the engine.

I think it helps when the feature set is limited enough that the art makes the biggest difference in the visuals.

 

[Nesh]

I think it helps when the feature set is limited enough that the art makes the biggest difference in the visuals.

That helps too and it awesome back in the day how they optimized art based on what they wanted to do. But games often looked vastly different technically as well.

 

[see colon]

That helps too and it awesome back in the day how they optimized art based on what they wanted to do. But games often looked vastly different technically as well.

Yeah, you could really tell when a game was ported haphazardly to PS2 based on the textures. Many of the early Dreamcast to PS2 ports, like Headhunter, suffered from textures with obviously lower quality, as if they simply lowered the color depth of all textures until they reached the desired size, instead of optimizing textures on a per texture basis to maintain some of their quality where it mattered.