[Retro] Playstation pushed to the limit

[Simon82]

Hi,
I would share a thing discovered today trying one of the best PSX emulator around the web. I'm talking about "psX" a really good "all in one" emulator that make use of dynamic recompiler to achieve an average CPU occupation of 30% on most games on my Athlon 64 3500+.
Well.. today I've run the tech demo disc 1 of original 1994 release where you could try the famous Dinosaur real time rendered model showed at the original presentation conference (I'd love to see this on video but it was lot of time ago) and I've found that with this tech demo my CPU is working at 65%!!
Now I understand why editors told that it seems it was impossible that dinosaur was running in real time on the final production plactform.. just more one polygon and this console would probably explode.

Did you remember this? And what about the sprite tech demo I don't find.. ?

 

[rounin]

This is certainly interesting. Could you post a video of it or is it really just a static image anyway.

 

[Simon82]

This is certainly interesting. Could you post a video of it or is it really just a static image anyway.

This is a image static taken from emulator. I don't know if with Fraps I can take a video of this... I've to try.

 

[Crayon]

I remember it all to well. In fact, I still have that disc somewhere....

I believe the Dinosaur used some sort of animation technology .... "mime"? Early on it was supposed to be a big deal on PS1. It could deform models smoothly and looked cool. Polyphony used it for Motortoon GP. After awhile the technique was abandoned for some reason.

 

[Simon82]

I remember it all to well. In fact, I still have that disc somewhere....

I believe the Dinosaur used some sort of animation technology .... "mime"? Early on it was supposed to be a big deal on PS1. It could deform models smoothly and looked cool. Polyphony used it for Motortoon GP. After awhile the technique was abandoned for some reason.

Cool fact, thanx, I didn't remember it.

 

[hey69]

oh yes that demo. remember it very good on the demo stand in the local gamestore at launch. i had the disc but probably is now flying in heavanspace

 

[BoardBonobo]

Somewhere in the attic I have my original PS1 (bought two days after launch), along with the demo disc and a few games like destruction derby and battle arena toshinden. The T-Rex animation was astounding at the time. I think the Amiga was the most graphically impressive home computer then.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

By 1995, Amiga was well out of date. The AGA update came in 1992 and was behind the curve even then. The best PCs offered the best home computer graphics.

 

[idsn6]

Rex on YouTube.

 

[Crayon]

By 1995, Amiga was well out of date. The AGA update came in 1992 and was behind the curve even then. The best PCs offered the best home computer graphics.

But the Diaosaur was still before "VooDoo". =D

It was very impressive at the time. The PS1 threw polys around faster than any other home hardware at the time.

 

[hey69]

S3 VIRGE comes to mind ... 3d Deaccelerator?

 

[rounin]

This reminds me of a question. Are there technical demos available for the PS3 to download?

 

[Bigus Dickus]

I watched the youtube link thinking "man, that looks pretty sucky... I thought the PS2 had better animation and more polygons than that..." and then came back to the thread and realized this was the original Playstation.

Very impressive! Looks a lot better than Twisted Metal or Jet Moto.

 

[BoardBonobo]

By 1995, Amiga was well out of date. The AGA update came in 1992 and was behind the curve even then. The best PCs offered the best home computer graphics.

They may have done, but the prospect of forking out a few thousand for a Pentium 233 with MCGA made the PS1 look very good indeed!

 

[swaaye]

They may have done, but the prospect of forking out a few thousand for a Pentium 233 with MCGA made the PS1 look very good indeed!

That's an awfully narrow view. Sure, if you are in DOS, a Pentium 233 system is going to look like a ultra fast 386. But, PCs obviously have so many levels of operation. That same system transforms if you load up Win95 with DirectX, say. Even back in the P233's day, the video cards had some video acceleration and 3D acceleration was becoming competent. The 2D GUI cores were reaching the "null driver" theoretical speed limit.

 

[Simon82]

Surely we have to think that all the polygon capabilities of this console has been used to move a single, on black flat background, model that used also that kind of modelling named before.
Impressive indeed... while Manta demo has not got this kind of complexity but lot of sprite moving around the fish model with cool effect.

 

[archie4oz]

The amusing thing is people are talking about 1995... This demo was first shown off on Playstation hardware back in 1993... 3dfx didn't exist (as a company), Matrox hadn't released *any* of it's consumer cards with 3D acceleration yet (they were the first), and the fastest piece of x86 you could lay your hands on was a 66MHz P5 (which typically ranged between $5K-$8K for a machine with one).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But the Diaosaur was still before "VooDoo". =D

It was very impressive at the time. The PS1 threw polys around faster than any other home hardware at the time.

Definitely. PS1 really was something special and I wasn't suggesting otherwise - merely correcting BordBonobo on the idea the Amiga was the most powerful computer competition to PS1. Amiga's 3D was extra sucky. When PCs were running DOOM or Duke Nukem 3D, the Amiga had it's incredible thumbnail-sized 3D games likes Alien Breed 3D, with resolution akin to a ZX81!

 

[Simon82]

The amusing thing is people are talking about 1995... This demo was first shown off on Playstation hardware back in 1993... 3dfx didn't exist (as a company), Matrox hadn't released *any* of it's consumer cards with 3D acceleration yet (they were the first), and the fastest piece of x86 you could lay your hands on was a 66MHz P5 (which typically ranged between $5K-$8K for a machine with one).

Did you rememebr when it was showed and in what conference? Any videos of this conference?

I agree with the capabilities that really used the 2D-3D era as a Troy horse to enter in every consumers house.

 

[Urian]

You have to remember how Playstation made the other vendors nervous about the 3D capabilities of the system, only Nintendo was saved but I ever believed that SGI pact was a consequence of the 3D Playstation.

Atari (sadly for them without no money) started Jaguar 2 with 3D acceleration and a powerful CPU, Sega started to find a good 3D chip and 3DO was working on M2, all them as a result of Playstation existance.