What is the possibility of PS3 specs changing over time?

[Fox5]

Maybe i'm ill informed. How N64s had the memory ugrades and how many titles took advantage of it?

Eventually all started shipping with it.
And, like the rumble pack, it was shipped with a multi-million seller game at no extra cost.
It was also a low priced add on that a few major games (and on a system with releases as slow as the n64, that's pretty much all of them) would barely even be functional without.

Strangely enough though, Conker's Bad Fur Day, quite possibly the best looking and sounding game on the n64, didn't even utilize the expansion pack optionally, let alone require it. And it even ran in a fairly crisp (for n64) 640x480 res.

BTW, I think an HD upgrade would have made sense for this gen. Make a cheap, baseline console with less vram and a weaker graphics chip, and then make a high end model whose extra power could only be utilized to provide hd resolutions. Why you're at it, you could include dolby digital sound and dts in the high end model. The high end model could also include non-game console functionality.
Or perhaps make 30 fps a minimum spec for the games, and then make 60 fps an option for the upgraded console, though I think high res would be easier to implement.
Basically create a revolution esque powered base console, then double or triple the clock speeds for the hd model.

 

[pc999]

The more mass market (less informed consumers) and costly dev cost the, less dev will like or suport it.
Plus all the other reasons that had been said I think that the chance of that is really slim, to be very nice.

BTW, I think an HD upgrade would have made sense for this gen. Make a cheap, baseline console with less vram and a weaker graphics chip, and then make a high end model whose extra power could only be utilized to provide hd resolutions. Why you're at it, you could include dolby digital sound and dts in the high end model. The high end model could also include non-game console functionality.
Or perhaps make 30 fps a minimum spec for the games, and then make 60 fps an option for the upgraded console, though I think high res would be easier to implement.
Basically create a revolution esque powered base console, then double or triple the clock speeds for the hd model.

That is interesting, but I dont know if it is easy to find a balance that do that (it is more or less what happens in a PC with a X16/900, but dont know it is that easy to do in a console that resemble todays consoles), plus it may be very hard to make devs take advatage etc...

 

[swaaye]

The N64 upgrade was basically required for Perfect Dark, but that game ran horrible so I wouldn't say there was any tangible benefit to having it. There are quite a few games that use it somehow, but it never did anything stunning whatsoever.

Upgradeable consoles would be a terrible business decision, like Shifty said. Also it would break the manufacturers models of dropping console build costs as they age. MS screwed up on this for Xbox, and fixed that for Xbox 360 by owning the parts themselves. Dropping manufacturing costs has always been a major part of the console lifespan.

 

[Fox5]

The N64 upgrade was basically required for Perfect Dark, but that game ran horrible so I wouldn't say there was any tangible benefit to having it. There are quite a few games that use it somehow, but it never did anything stunning whatsoever.

Upgradeable consoles would be a terrible business decision, like Shifty said. Also it would break the manufacturers models of dropping console build costs as they age. MS screwed up on this for Xbox, and fixed that for Xbox 360 by owning the parts themselves. Dropping manufacturing costs has always been a major part of the console lifespan.

Mainly, all it ever did was enable higher resolution OR smoother gameplay.
Perfect Dark barely had gameplay without it though, but I don't think the n64 was quite up to the fillrate and bandwidth requirements brought about by doubling the resolution. Perfect Dark could almost be brought up to nominal framerates at low res cinema screen mode. Turok 2 actually could be brought up to playable framerates by doing the same.
I'm not sure if Majora's Mask ran at high res, or just had more effects and more models/textures on screen at once.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's also worth mentioning that if you're going to upgrade anything, RAM is the easiest upgrade. Upgrading processors or other components between platforms is just asking for trouble. Look how new PS2's aren't totally compatible with old PS2's, and that's with minimalistic differences!

 

[superguy]

Didn't there used to also be various chips in certain later SNES and NES carts? That actually were inside the game cartridge, but helped with certain graphics? I know there as, forget the names.

Also I think Zelda SHIPPED with the RAM expansion at basically the same price as a normal game (maybe $10 more). That's one relatively painless way to do it, but you dont want to do that with more than one game I guess, or people end up owning multiple RAM packs or whatever for no good reason.

 

[ERP]

Didn't there used to also be various chips in certain later SNES and NES carts? That actually were inside the game cartridge, but helped with certain graphics? I know there as, forget the names.

Also I think Zelda SHIPPED with the RAM expansion at basically the same price as a normal game (maybe $10 more). That's one relatively painless way to do it, but you dont want to do that with more than one game I guess, or people end up owning multiple RAM packs or whatever for no good reason.

NES and SNES both had add in chips in the cart.

But it was unusual to use them outside of first part y product, because of the addtional expense. Margins were tight on carts and an additional $5 or so COG was pretty much not viable for most publishers.

 

[Jov]

... Perhaps GT5 will have support for dual monitors, but it will likely appeal to a quite small market. I wonder how many independent developers who will think its worthwhile?

Given the cost of TFT monitors dropping dramatically over the past couple of years, I will not be surprised if similar price drops might happen for HD TVs. Thus 2 monitors or screens are not difficult to imagine.

 

[Crossbar]

Given the cost of TFT monitors dropping dramatically over the past couple of years, I will not be surprised if similar price drops might happen for HD TVs. Thus 2 monitors or screens are not difficult to imagine.

This is probably true, but I wonder if it will become a check box function for many games, how much extra appeal it adds to a game?

It depends of course also on how much extra work it may involve for the developers. Perhaps offloading stuff like inventory lists and chatboxes to a separete screen doesn't add that much extra implementation work, but still it's one more configuration that has to go through the test procedures.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Didn't there used to also be various chips in certain later SNES and NES carts? That actually were inside the game cartridge, but helped with certain graphics? I know there as, forget the names.

Yes there were, like the 3D chip in StarFox. But that's not really applicable to upgradeable PS3s, is it? Unless Sony can build 4 extras SPE's and a half dozen pixel pipes into a BRD Rom and connect it to the inner workings, you're not going to be getting hardware upgrades with games. Any game with upgrades will be in the storage or interfacing department. EyeToy, dance mats, HDD, and the like, are all hardware that has come supplied with a game, that sees use that's beyond the original specs of the machine as it were, but they're not upgrades to the hardware improving performance.

 

[London Geezer]

They could stick an SPE or two in the Eyetoy, a couple in each controller, one in the HDMI cable... The possibilities are endless!!


/sarcasm

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Actually, if the PS3's EyeToy is over the Gigabit connection, there is scope for SPE's being present for image work and using the wonderful Cell scalability that's been talked about...

 

[Fox5]

Actually, if the PS3's EyeToy is over the Gigabit connection, there is scope for SPE's being present for image work and using the wonderful Cell scalability that's been talked about...

A 1 SPE 1 PPE configuration? Somehow, that doesn't sound as economically as using just 1 slightly more powerful Power core of some type.

 

[Npl]

A 1 SPE 1 PPE configuration? Somehow, that doesn't sound as economically as using just 1 slightly more powerful Power core of some type.

For matching tasks, the SPE has a way higher performance/Watt Ratio than PPC (1 SPE draws just 2-3 Watts and beats the PPE in performance for certain tasks). In fact the current PPE is what keeping Cell for fitting into low-power applications. So using a scaled down PPE with little to no L2-Cache & 1 or 2 SPEs would make sense.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A 1 SPE 1 PPE configuration? Somehow, that doesn't sound as economically as using just 1 slightly more powerful Power core of some type.

I don't know that you'd need the PPE. Using the PPE in the PS3, you could send code to the 7 SPE's in the EyeToy (might as well put a good few in there...) and get them working. Not sure. Maybe they're not addressable to kickstart unless directly wirde to a PPE?

 

[Npl]

I don't know that you'd need the PPE. Using the PPE in the PS3, you could send code to the 7 SPE's in the EyeToy (might as well put a good few in there...) and get them working. Not sure. Maybe they're not addressable to kickstart unless directly wirde to a PPE?

Id assume there must be "enough PPE" in there to support the Cell-Specifications. Of course they could place anything there, including an adopted SPE or something complete different, but thats not a "Cell" by definition.

Seeing as they want to get Cell in a vast number of Consumer devices, I guess we will see a "minimum-PPE" approach someday.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

To class as a Cell processor it might need a PPE, but can SPE's be accessed from an external PPE? You wouldn't necessarily want an entire Cell in there. Well, you wouldn't have any processing in there, but theoretically speaking, could a SPE or more be accessible and useable in a non-Cell configuration?

 

[Npl]

To class as a Cell processor it might need a PPE, but can SPE's be accessed from an external PPE? You wouldn't necessarily want an entire Cell in there.

I dont know what you constitute as "Cell", but to be on spec it needs 1 64bit PowerPC Core and 1 SPE atleast.

To talk to external SPEs, you need something to run an OS on top of it, handling the Cell Protocoll ( still undisclosed AFAIK ) between processors. SPEs arent really suited for privileged operation, or running even multiple threads, so you would need to add something seperate for this anyway (running TCP/IP stack and handling requests). This 'something' beeing another Processor, which additionally has to talk to a SPE according to Spec. If a minimal PPE could get small enough, I dont think its worth the hassle to use anything else.

Well, you wouldn't have any processing in there, but theoretically speaking, could a SPE or more be accessible and useable in a non-Cell configuration?

SPEs have two ways to communicate, the Ringbus and a few messageports. That hardly constitutes a full processor. you`d need to tye those loose ends to a Memory-Controller and add some glue logic to make it work. You could use the result as CPU then, though one without privileged instructions. It cant preempt running code, means the SPE will have a hard time managing itself for anything nontrivial.
Running remote code would be dangerous as theres no way to stop it.

 

[Crossbar]

I find the debate of putting some cell-like processing power inside the eyetoy very academic for a couple of reasons.

- There is no requirement of GP processing power in the eyetoy (mind the ethernet stack), I doubt they would even support some kind of video compression as the artefacts would screw up the motion detection algorithms in the games.

- Sony wants to make the peripherals as cheap as possible to get some good margins on them, to make up for the subsidised main unit, just look at the PS2 eyetoy, which I believe is a single chip design by Omnivision with just a lens added, very cheap, it was basically included in the eyetoy game. (a couple of years down the road the cell technology may have come down in price and the situation may look different, though I doubt there will be incentives to integrate it in the detector, besides the PS3 eyetoy will likely be available at launch or shortly thereafter).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, it's all academic, theorizing what could be done. There's no way it will!