ps2 tech demos

[Mefisutoferesu]

Not to be annoying, but since when were tech demos == videogames??

Do we expect PS3 games to look like alfred molina? I think not.

5 years ago most people and ALL news organizations couldn't tell the difference between what a tech demo is and a game is. As a result, everyone was running around saying the "old man" demo or the "ridge racer girl" demo was in game and from that spiraled out "SONY LIES!!!!" The GAMES they showed off back then looked the same as when they came out and have long been surpassed. Least, that's how I've always seen it, which doesn't mean much, since it's really the collective preception that counts in the ends.

 

[silhouette]

A question: Are those graphics in these demos produced by some code working on PS2 (even if -say- 5 fps/second) or are they pre-rendered videos produced by some 3d-package (but which developers believe that PS2 can achieve that quality)?

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

No, they actually run perfectly fine on the PS2. The PS2 used to come with a demo disc with some of the tech demos running in realtime and "ridge racer girl" was included in ridge racer, not surprisingly. So yes, they are completely achievable on the PS2 hardware, it's just not possible in game. Kinda in the same sense that in game engine cutscenes look better than normal gameplay because it ditches all the work going on in the background to simply push the graphics as much as possible.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There was much said/promised regarding the capabilities of the machine, but sadly, not much evidence of any of it -even 5 years later.

How much of that said actually came from Sony though? I wasn't around at PS2's launch and missed all the 'hype' that manya forum has slammed Sony for. But when I've gone searching a lot of what I uncover is comments from people NOT at Sony. eg. It was George Lucas, not Sony, that implied PS2 was rendering in realtime what ILM had taken years to produce. I haven't found very many ridiculous statements coming from Sony itself, to the point I no longer believe people who say 'Sony promised empty promises and fed us all lies'.

Irrelevant personal anecdote.

Irrelevant and disagreeable attitude problem

 

[Betamax]

Cheap tricks or not, the titles of today look tons better than those ps2 demos.

Not as much as would expect considering the time since the demos. Most PS2 games still show evidence of the machines weak design (directly, indirectly or both). The top developers have the cash and time to spend negating/overcoming most of the issues but the telltale signs almost always remain.

But sometimes thats what devs must do, to find little "walkarounds" and other ways to doing things on strange hardware to make the games more efficient, and in the end look better.

True, and PS2 games do look better for it, but the fact is that, in general, developers spend most of their time tinkering with the hardware/code in attepting to overcome the machines inherent flaws and not in extracting more raw performance.

We are talking about hype, so ofcourse its going to be a personal opinion on wether it lived up to it or not.

You were extrapolating your opinion onto another group of individuals, but it doesn't make a difference anyway: that group of individuals could all feel the same way and they'd still be wrong.

Irrelevant, no. But the numbers show that the hype wasnt all BS, as the ps2 still sells well 5 years later, all things considered.

Sales=irrelevant. See above.

How much of that said actually came from Sony though? I wasn't around at PS2's launch and missed all the 'hype' that manya forum has slammed Sony for. But when I've gone searching a lot of what I uncover is comments from people NOT at Sony. eg. It was George Lucas, not Sony, that implied PS2 was rendering in realtime what ILM had taken years to produce. I haven't found very many ridiculous statements coming from Sony itself, to the point I no longer believe people who say 'Sony promised empty promises and fed us all lies'.

How much of came from Sony is irrelevant. Hype is hype, and the PS2 £@nb0ys grabbed every morsel and ran with it. You had to be there to believe it. Not as bad as the worst absolute Nintendo hype (see Gamefan regarding the N64) but certainly the worst type of mass delusional hype.

Irrelevant and disagreeable attitude problem

Irrelevant personal sentiment.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Not as much as would expect considering the time since the demos.

what should one expect back in 2000? i dont think anybody expected ps2's graphics to get that much better. i dont recall any console that has done it before to the extent as the ps2 did. for example, the ps1's launch titles looked pretty much the same as the ps1 titles that came before the ps2 arrived.(some improvements but generally the same)... same could be said about the dreamcast, n64 and countless others. tekken 5 looks dramatically better than the tekken demo, i dont think anybody expected that tekken would look like that 4 years later on the same exact console.

True, and PS2 games do look better for it, but the fact is that, in general, developers spend most of their time tinkering with the hardware/code in attepting to overcome the machines inherent flaws and not in extracting more raw performance.

I cant speak on this as I have never developed for the ps2. But I can say I'm definately satisfied with the life my ps2 has had out regardless of flaws in the ps2 hardware. Games have amazed me on the system graphically even though I'm sure more power could have been squeezed out if the ps2 were designed better.

You were extrapolating your opinion onto another group of individuals, but it doesn't make a difference anyway: that group of individuals could all feel the same way and they'd still be wrong.

spare me, im not extrapolating my opinion on anyone, im just telling you mine as i said in the beginning. weather the ps2 lived up to the hype is pretty much a individual personal opinion. like you dont agree that it did, some do, some dont.

Sales=irrelevant. See above.

I dont see your point on sales being irrelevant. If the ps2 still sells pretty well all things considered 5 years later, and also came out on top out of the 4 consoles (including dreamcast) I'd say thats pretty impressive for a 'overhyped' console.

 

[Betamax]

what should one expect back in 2000? i dont think anybody expected ps2's graphics to get that much better.

No, part of the hype was speculation on how much more the graphics could 'improve' based on the fact that the demos were early and developers are expected to extract more performance from a console over time.

i dont recall any console that has done it before to the extent as the ps2 did. for example, the ps1's launch titles looked pretty much the same as the ps1 titles that came before the ps2 arrived.(some improvements but generally the same)... same could be said about the dreamcast, n64 and countless others. tekken 5 looks dramatically better than the tekken demo, i dont think anybody expected that tekken would look like that 4 years later on the same exact console.

The DC had a very limited development life, so the comparison is invalid. Future Tekken games were hyped as having hundreds of spectators based on comments made by Namco at the time of the early demos. There are plenty of consoles that have shown much better improvement over their lifetimes than PS2.

I cant speak on this as I have never developed for the ps2. But I can say I'm definately satisfied with the life my ps2 has had out regardless of flaws in the ps2 hardware. Games have amazed me on the system graphically even though I'm sure more power could have been squeezed out if the ps2 were designed better.

Irrelevant personal anecdote.

spare me, im not extrapolating my opinion on anyone, im just telling you mine as i said in the beginning. wether the ps2 lived up to the hype is pretty much a individual personal opinion. like you dont agree that it did, some do, some dont.

The overall level at hype at the time of the demos was much higher than what has been delivered on PS2. It's a matteerr of fact, not opinion.

I dont see your point on sales being irrelevant. If the ps2 still sells pretty well all things considered 5 years later, and also came out on top out of the 4 consoles (including dreamcast) I'd say thats pretty impressive for a 'overhyped' console.

Hype tends to lead to sales -in case you hadn't noticed. Many PS2's were sold on the basis of irrational hype. This irrationality allowed Sony to establish themselves in the market place and whether or not they could ultimately deliver on the original hype became largely irrelevant.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Irrelevant personal anecdote.

Oh, shut up! 'Irrelevant personal anecdote'? Are you trying to be a Borg or somethng? Bad-boy has expressed his personal opinion as he's perfectly just to do. You've done the same. You've said things like...

Many PS2's were sold on the basis of irrational hype. This irrationality allowed Sony to establish themselves in the market place and whether or not they could ultimately deliver on the original hype became largely irrelevant.

but you've absolutely no hard evidence to support that. Unless you have somewhere a qestionaire filled out by PS2 owners from the first year on what reasons they bought PS2, and also some advanced statistics methodology that can actually measure a subjective concept like hype and whether hardware meets that subjective level or not. Fact is, it's your personal opinion that PS2's were sold on hype, and to be frank, Bad-boy's personal opinion that he feels PS2 matched his expectations has a lot more real worth than a personal opinion that generalizes to excess without any real facts from an arrogant twit who dislikes people expressing contrary opinions to their own.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Thanks Shifty Geezer, really couldnt have said it better myself.

No, part of the hype was speculation on how much more the graphics could 'improve' based on the fact that the demos were early and developers are expected to extract more performance from a console over time.

Do you have a link or article of some sort?(dated before ps2 launch ofcourse) I purchased my ps2 on launch day and I dont remember anyone at all basing their purchases off the fact that the ps2 would improve drasticly over the years.

The DC had a very limited development life, so the comparison is invalid. Future Tekken games were hyped as having hundreds of spectators based on comments made by Namco at the time of the early demos.

DC still had an development life so im giving an example, and you still cannot discredit the other consoles i named so i dont see your point. I was also giving an example when i said Tekken because it was one of the tech demos, it would be stupid for me to say a game like ICO or God of War when there was no tech demo to compare it off. You cannot deny that tekken 5 is graphically better by far then the tech demo. But yes, many games today look way better than those tech demos displayed years ago. (thank you for proving my point)

There are plenty of consoles that have shown much better improvement over their lifetimes than PS2.

I would love to see some comparisons of the consoles you are talking about. I dont think any console grew graphically as much the ps2 did, to this day.

Irrelevant personal anecdote.

Spare me once again.

Hype tends to lead to sales -in case you hadn't noticed. Many PS2's were sold on the basis of irrational hype.

I'm talking about 4-5 years AFTER the system launched, If you still think people buy the ps2 just off hype and hysteria today you need to rethink your arguments.


I honestly dont think this argument should even go on, everything is irrelevent to you.

 

[CIN]

DC still had an development life so im giving an example, and you still cannot discredit the other consoles i named so i dont see your point. I was also giving an example when i said Tekken because it was one of the tech demos, it would be stupid for me to say a game like ICO or God of War when there was no tech demo to compare it off. You cannot deny that tekken 5 is graphically better by far then the tech demo. But yes, many games today look way better than those tech demos displayed years ago. (thank you for proving my point)

Todays games look better than the tech demos but IMO TTT looks better than Tekken 5 in some ways. Characters are better in TTT than T5 IMO. T5 chars seem to have less polygons than the old TTT. >.<

 

[Shifty Geezer]

BTW : I would attribute much of PS2's graphical improvements over time as much to the lousy development tools. It's not so much that it grew further, but that it's first games were diabolical because the devs had such a hard time developing for it. Given a decent toolkit more would have been attained in the first years so the discrepency between first and last gen games wouldn't be what it is now (though I'm still getting gobsmacked at recent PS2 releases that are very impressive. The recently linked Black trailer is pretty awesome for a PS2!)

 

[mckmas8808]

BTW : I would attribute much of PS2's graphical improvements over time as much to the lousy development tools. It's not so much that it grew further, but that it's first games were diabolical because the devs had such a hard time developing for it. Given a decent toolkit more would have been attained in the first years so the discrepency between first and last gen games wouldn't be what it is now (though I'm still getting gobsmacked at recent PS2 releases that are very impressive. The recently linked Black trailer is pretty awesome for a PS2!)

Shifty, you have hit the nail on the head. Is it true that alot of NA and European devs didn't even have intructions (whatever they are called) in their native language? I heard that alot of devs received them in Japanese.

 

[LunchBox]

the crash demo with the penguins...

i thought it was cute.