Let's talk... PSP graphics + Design
- Thread starter Paul
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zidane1strife
Banned
As many've previously said psp specs slightly resemble cube's specs, and we all know cube sp@nks dc.
I believe you're hugely exaggerating the amount of overdraw Shenmue has. I'm a huge Shenmue fan and have been following it since it was called Project Berkley and I don't recall anything of the sort, nor do I see anything in the game that would require 20x overdraw. Not to mention that Yu Suzuki, when talking about the Shenmue 2 engine he talked about checking to see if an object is visible before transforming it.
If Shenmue did have 20x overdraw, then the Xbox version of Shenmue 2 would have ran slower than the Dreamcast version, but it actually had a more stable framerate.
Keep in mind that overdraw means that there are polygons hidden behind other polygons. If you had 20x overdraw that means, on average, only 1/20th of the polygons you're transforming are visible. That's a huge waste of polygon power. TBDRs need to get rid of overdraw just like IMRs for that reason. It's important to reduce overdraw so there can be more visible objects on screen with higher polygon counts.
If Shenmue did have 20x overdraw, then the Xbox version of Shenmue 2 would have ran slower than the Dreamcast version, but it actually had a more stable framerate.
Keep in mind that overdraw means that there are polygons hidden behind other polygons. If you had 20x overdraw that means, on average, only 1/20th of the polygons you're transforming are visible. That's a huge waste of polygon power. TBDRs need to get rid of overdraw just like IMRs for that reason. It's important to reduce overdraw so there can be more visible objects on screen with higher polygon counts.
zidane1strife said:
LOL...question is do you think it's even relevent?
If I hooked up a DC to a 4.5" widescreen LCD and popped in a game like Shenmue or Soul Calibur do you think you can spot significant differences from a PSP hooked up to the same little screen???
BTW GCN has 24MB of main RAM not 8MB and also supports S3TC
BTW I have both a DC and a GCN and have hooked both up to a 5" LCD so I know what it looks like...do YOU?
Here's a quiz for you.
Joe Blow has his cassette player hooked up to his rinky dinky Labtec PC speakers. He also has a CD player hooked up to the same speakers.
Q: Can Joe Blow hear any significant sound quality advantage from his CD compared to his cassette?
What was PSP max polygons again? 12m? From another topic, DC is something like, 10m max SH2 can do, limited by 7m PVR2DC, 3-4m in game.
Chap's grandiose predictions?
I am with Paul, Bleemcast quality with somemore of a polygons and particles. I have a feeling that developers might be "advised" to, more often, use the variable PSP clockspeeds than full blast ahead.
TADA!
Chap's grandiose predictions?
I am with Paul, Bleemcast quality with somemore of a polygons and particles. I have a feeling that developers might be "advised" to, more often, use the variable PSP clockspeeds than full blast ahead.
TADA!
uhmm, just a thought, but is it possible for Sony to have some power saving options in PSP games? Like a notebook, you can choose between A)Full Speed B)Normal C)Power Saving, with the graphics/sound adjusting itself based on the choices.
Maybe A = Bleemcast++(more-more polygons/lighting/effects/AA/48khz/24bpp/etc), B = Bleemcast+(more polygons/effects/22khz/16bpp/etc) , C = PSX++(smoother polygons/filtering/effects/16khz/etc)?
Just some random thoughts, dont shoot me...
Though, more importantly, I would like to see Sony, finally, start cranking out good crisp IQ with PSP.
Maybe A = Bleemcast++(more-more polygons/lighting/effects/AA/48khz/24bpp/etc), B = Bleemcast+(more polygons/effects/22khz/16bpp/etc) , C = PSX++(smoother polygons/filtering/effects/16khz/etc)?
Just some random thoughts, dont shoot me...
Though, more importantly, I would like to see Sony, finally, start cranking out good crisp IQ with PSP.
32M.Chap said:
Which I suppose strongly supports theories it will draw <500k per second you are predicting eh? :?
Speaking of which, why reduce PSP to PSOne levels only? Why not predict it will draw "somemore" then GBA only, I people already keep saying GBA is PSOne level graphics anyway.
Anyway to add my stupid 2cents to the banter of this thread
The thing is basically rated 1/2PS2 drawing-rate, with a screen that's 1/4 the size. In other words, it's potentially faster.
Memory will be the big limit yes, but nonetheless, the first and most obvious target here would be PS2 ports.
But I'll let you know if I changed my mind about it when/if I get to see the devkit specs.
Well one can be an ass and answer "all T&L processing" - after all you tagged "in hardware" to it yourself.jvd said:
As for fillrate, you said it yourself. At 1/4 the resolution PSP fillrate is equivalent to 2.4GPix
Megadrive1988
Veteran
Yes, DC has overdraw thanks to its tile besed renderer, but PSP still has more fillrate because DC's "effective" fillrate is still only 200M pixels.
exactly.
DC's raw fillrate is 100M pixels. the effective rate is 200M pixels. even if we gave the DC a generous 300M pixels effective rate, the PSP still outperforms it by 2x. plus, the PSP has less screen to fill than DC.
Even NAOMI 2, which has 200M pixel raw fillrate and 400M pixel effective fillrate because it has 2 rendering chips, is still beaten by PSP.
Of course, numbers arent everything. one particular spec does not tell the whole story, but it's still an overall indicator at roughly what kind of performance the new format will have. PSP looks to be Dreamcast level at the very least. we should see dramatically enhanced PS1 ports in the first generation of software. then, scaled down PS2 games, perhaps.
What's mindblowing to me is, with PSP, we have more power than the System 22 Ridge Racer or Model 2 Daytona USA arcade games. these are games that would EASILY fit inside PSP's memory with no comprimise!
I would be crushed if Namco and Sega just ported over the PS1/Saturn versions of those games and not bring us the original code.
Here's a quiz for you.
Joe Blow has his cassette player hooked up to his rinky dinky Labtec PC speakers. He also has a CD player hooked up to the same speakers.
Q: Can Joe Blow hear any significant sound quality advantage from his CD compared to his cassette?
YES OFF COURSE
Joe Blow has his cassette player hooked up to his rinky dinky Labtec PC speakers. He also has a CD player hooked up to the same speakers.
Q: Can Joe Blow hear any significant sound quality advantage from his CD compared to his cassette?
YES OFF COURSE
This is kinda rediculous when people bring up DCs piddly fillrate in comparison with PSP. For starters, NO game has 20x overdraw ANYWHERE unless it's programmed by like, monkeys or something.
To even get overdraw to begin with means you're drawing stuff in back to front order. If you draw front to back, the Z-buffer will automatically cull unseen pixels! DC advantage goes poof like so much smoke in the wind.
SECOND, if you draw transparent pixels, DCs deferred rendering won't help one bit, it will quickly start to suck with its piddly 100mpix fillrate after a few decent-sized transparent surfaces.
*G*
To even get overdraw to begin with means you're drawing stuff in back to front order. If you draw front to back, the Z-buffer will automatically cull unseen pixels! DC advantage goes poof like so much smoke in the wind.
SECOND, if you draw transparent pixels, DCs deferred rendering won't help one bit, it will quickly start to suck with its piddly 100mpix fillrate after a few decent-sized transparent surfaces.
*G*
I seem to not see the problem. If the pixel fillrate is not a problem and the bus is fast enough then: does memory take a big importance in the whole thing ? I think it doesn't since you can update very fast the tiny memory you destinate to video.
But talking about the games you seem to very optimistic. I don't see how companies like CAPCOM, Konami, Namco, Square, Enix (add more if you want) would refuse the oportunity to milk all the 32 bit classics the have on their offices.
If Sony doesn't allow them to put these games, just because they consider the machine needs to be pulled most, then I would understand these companies if they got angry...Easy Money from ports >>> Everything.
But talking about the games you seem to very optimistic. I don't see how companies like CAPCOM, Konami, Namco, Square, Enix (add more if you want) would refuse the oportunity to milk all the 32 bit classics the have on their offices.
If Sony doesn't allow them to put these games, just because they consider the machine needs to be pulled most, then I would understand these companies if they got angry...Easy Money from ports >>> Everything.
There's two things that are different in this case.
PSP is a generation ahead of 32bit hardware, GBA is essentially still SNES class.
GBA was a successor to monopoly, PSP has yet to make a market presence of any kind, and I would imagine they want to make the strongest showing possible with launch software in relation to that.
It also sounds counterproductive for Sony first to go through almost extreme lenghts on the hardware spec side, and then look for developers to underutilize it with straight ports of software that could run on PSP CPU alone, without ever touching the GPU.
Rehashing old hits I can see - but I would expect big names would do it more in the vein of TwinSnakes then say... Spiderman DC...
Panajev2001a
Veteran
33.2 MVertices/s ( this seems using the Hardwired T&L unit in the GPU, 5 cycles per basic transform which is the same speed Flipper does transforms ) .
Flipper = 162.5 / 5 = 32.5 MVertices/s
PSP's VFPU + FPU = 2.6 GFLOPS
Gekko's 64 bits SIMD FPU = 1.9 GFLOPS
Dreamcast SH-4's 128 bits SIMD FPU = 1.4 GFLOPS
Emotion Engine = 6.2 GFLOPS
Main RAM for the PSP is 8 MB and the bandwidth, 2.6 GB/s, is about the same GCN has to offer and the latency is similar.
PSP's use of HOS, supported by the GPU in Hardware, will help reduce the memory foot-print for high polygon models and compared to the PlayStation 2 Texture Compression support has been highlighted.
A patent, not long time ago, also showed a potential implementation of a Primitive Buffer which would make the PSP's GPU more efficient in multi-pass rendering than Dreamcast's PVR2 CLX and Flipper as doing multiple-rendering passes would not cost any additional T&L cycles which means that you would not need to re-T&L the geometry which needs multiple rendering passes ( on Dreamcast for multi-texturing, like on PlayStation 2, you need to re-transform most of the times the multi-textured geometry ).
The P-buffer would also help with occluded geometry detection as it does only render visible geometry after two passes: Z-buffer pass and a Test Pass ( similarly to what DOOM III does in software ).
Flipper = 162.5 / 5 = 32.5 MVertices/s
PSP's VFPU + FPU = 2.6 GFLOPS
Gekko's 64 bits SIMD FPU = 1.9 GFLOPS
Dreamcast SH-4's 128 bits SIMD FPU = 1.4 GFLOPS
Emotion Engine = 6.2 GFLOPS
Main RAM for the PSP is 8 MB and the bandwidth, 2.6 GB/s, is about the same GCN has to offer and the latency is similar.
PSP's use of HOS, supported by the GPU in Hardware, will help reduce the memory foot-print for high polygon models and compared to the PlayStation 2 Texture Compression support has been highlighted.
A patent, not long time ago, also showed a potential implementation of a Primitive Buffer which would make the PSP's GPU more efficient in multi-pass rendering than Dreamcast's PVR2 CLX and Flipper as doing multiple-rendering passes would not cost any additional T&L cycles which means that you would not need to re-T&L the geometry which needs multiple rendering passes ( on Dreamcast for multi-texturing, like on PlayStation 2, you need to re-transform most of the times the multi-textured geometry ).
The P-buffer would also help with occluded geometry detection as it does only render visible geometry after two passes: Z-buffer pass and a Test Pass ( similarly to what DOOM III does in software ).
Fafalada:
Actually, the hardware specs seem underwhelming. By the time PSP comes out, how many years will have passed since Dreamcast tech was shrunk to a System-on-Chip solution and made available as a low power-consumption, low cost mobile platform? Not to mention how that SuperH/PowerVR architecture wasn't even created specifically for a mobile solution and was only adapted for it.
zidane1strife
Banned
Depending on the extent of ps, this might give about 60-70%perf of a low-end modern desktop gpu, with similar features.
Underwhelming?
Fill rate/Geometry wise this is similar to cube, feature wise we're not clear how primitive/advanced the ps is, but we do know that it has vs, sound wise this is even more powerful than the xbox... all in a single chip and with 12MB of embbd ram...
edv
Not to mention in a really small portable with a far smaller battery than your average laptop... which has to power a relatively large(compared to competing products) backlit lcd, and a umd drive...
PS while on another board, it was funny reading the comments about psp specs that went something like these:"Is this for real...", "Maybe in a stark trek fanboy's wet dream...", "That must be fake, 7.1?!?..." "there could always be a downgrade"... and the like...
Lazy8s said:
No one is contesting possibilities, Lazy8s. They're simply making performance comparisons off what actually exists.
Meanwhile trying to judge handheld specs on a console scale is pretty silly. Looking at it compared to the handheld systems we've seen thus far, the PSP is rather staggering. It's just now we're mitigated a bit by having high-end PDA's out there to think about too, but even THEN it still looks good. "Underwhelming" indeed...
