PS3 Firmware 4.0

[tuna]

We will not know if games will not have extra warnings until games built with SDK 4.0 (or whatever it is called) is released. Which should be sometime next year I guess...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The game has the warning but not the platform holder. That's probably why Sony got hit successfully.

Has the verdict been awarded to the pilot? The manual explicitly states the warning, as does the game (it's mandated in every Sony manual, Health Warning on inside cover I believe). In this case one can argue that it's Bethesda's fault for choosing that particular pattern of images. But it's all crap. It's a medical condition brought on by random events that the media can't protect against. Everyone who knows they have photosensitive epilepsy knows to be wary. Everyone who doesn't will never know when the fall victim. There's no defence - if this warning had existed before the pilot's seizure, would it have changed his behaviour so he wouldn't have played Skyrim?! Of course not.

And if it's just a case of satisfying lawyer scum, the warning on PS3 startup isn't up long enough for anyone to read, so the same sort of case could be brought against Sony. "You may have a warning but it was never shown long enough for me to read it so you didn't adequately warn me (despite the manual saying so and the game manual saying so and a society well aware of photosensitive epilepsy having a common knowledge that it can be caused by flashing lights or certain patterns of images...).

As for the 4.0, it could have been in the works earlier and perhaps released as a security fix, but the naming is unfortunate. I still hold zero hopes that we'll see a significant, relevant update ever again for PS3. Rumors of a new, improved XMB or HTML5 browser etc. seem to be vapourware.

 

[patsu]

We will not know if games will not have extra warnings until games built with SDK 4.0 (or whatever it is called) is released. Which should be sometime next year I guess...

I am pretty sure the developers will need their own name in a warning, clear and center. They may get sued if only Sony present the warning.

As for the 4.0, it could have been in the works earlier and perhaps released as a security fix, but the naming is unfortunate. I still hold zero hopes that we'll see a significant, relevant update ever again for PS3. Rumors of a new, improved XMB or HTML5 browser etc. seem to be vapourware.

Well... we should see Playstation Suite for PS3 first. The system is essentially Mono + NetBSD ? ^_^

The problem is they left people who want CGC high and dry. Should come up with an alternate solution for these good folks. It's not a server issue because Vita will require a server infrastructure too. Personally, I just want a party system.

EDIT: And open up RemotePlay ! Vita's RemotePlay should be better than the rest by the mere fact that it has built-in dual sticks.

 

[Arwin]

EDIT: And open up RemotePlay ! Vita's RemotePlay should be better than the rest by the mere fact that it has built-in dual sticks.

Well yes. Hackers already showed that there were no actual limitations to using RemotePlay with PSP other than that it was locked down to games that had implemented support for PSP's limited control buttons. So this limitation will just go away. However, it looks like they can't quite as easily support higher resolutions without burdening existing games, so games that support Vita directly can use higher resolutions, for stuff like we've seen with LBP's remote screen use.

 

[patsu]

Yap, the supported clients are (or will be): Vaio, PSP and Vita. Won't help them much there. I remember people hacked the Vaio version so that it's usable on any PC now.

FWIW, Open RemotePlay, the community version is hosted here:
http://code.google.com/p/open-rp/

Quite a few people are asking about Tablet S and P RemotePlay too. So bringing it to Android seems inevitable.

EDIT: Allowing people to connect to PSN cross game chat via Vita or a SIP headset seems doable too, if they don't want to run the client in PS3 memory. They only need to sync the user id and session id between the PS3 and the voice client.

 

[embedded]

Well... we should see Playstation Suite for PS3 first. The system is essentially Mono + NetBSD ? ^_^

The problem is they left people who want CGC high and dry. Should come up with an alternate solution for these good folks. It's not a server issue because Vita will require a server infrastructure too. Personally, I just want a party system.

The PS3 appears to be FreeBSD with some routines from NetBSD.

PS3 remote play on Vita has to be built into the PS3 game by developers. Admitted problem by Sony for CGC was not enough memory reserved by the PS3 OS (taken from developers pool) to support CGC. Super_Secret mentioned it might come with Firmware 3.0 (2009) and it was declared dead with the 7.1 channel wireless headphone support (3.70). It's more likely that the added audio channels (7.1) in addition to wireless USB support killed CGC.

Sony may be waiting to release the disclosed in March 2011 GTKwebkit when webkit2 API support for the GTK toolkit is ready. The next Gnome cycle is March 2012 and Epiphany (Linux Gnome Desktop Shell browser) is supposed to be fully webkit 2 by then.

 

[Akumajou]

So my PS3 crashed again because the webbrowser is all kinds of shit. I switch off the console and restart it. Now it wants to do a check if it hasn't ruined it's own HDD. I can't opt out of this, and it says it'll take another 2 to 3 hours if it finds something. Thankfully it didn't.

Who the hell thinks of this nonsense? They really are determined to be able to sell it as a PC. They are making just as user unfriendly. I wish I could downgrade it to an earlier firmware version because I can't think any improvements they've made to it over the last couple of year. But can think of several things they've made worse, and things that are still severely lacking.

I don't want to sound condecending but its a Hard Disc Drive, anything that uses such hardware has to conform to that hardware highs and lows. By PC I am assuming you are talking about a Windows PC right? (I mean there is also Mac OS, Linux, etc but they also need HDDs) the whole idea of the "console wanting to do a disc check" is not hardware specific or even original to the Sony Playstation 3. These things happen all the time on Windows based OSs.

As a matter of fact I have several memory stick drives aka flash drives, 2GB, 4GB,8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes I transfer and delete ALOT of files, large and small and every once in a while I am left with no choice but to do a disc check, even though its a flash drive (no moving parts) or a complete reformat to restore drive performance.

So far I have never had to reformat my PS3 even though I only have the 60GB HDD, though I am planning to and actually want to get a larger and faster drive.

I don't think its that hard to just buy a memory stick, back up your saves and then reformat the PS3 HDD and restore your backed up saves, that would save you alot of heart ache.

 

[Cornsnake]

It does this HDD check every time the webbrowser locks up. Which happens a few times a day, and never has there been anything wrong with the HDD. But have since discovered that I can just press it away with the circle button if it asks to do this check. I don't care if it has to do a check every now then, just not this frequently, and for it to stop asking for all the time when I already know there is nothing wrong with it.

And I really wish Sony would get of it's ass and fix that crap webbrowser, if only out of the sheer imbarassment of having something so incredibly broken on their hardware for such a long time.

 

[jonabbey]

The PS3 appears to be FreeBSD with some routines from NetBSD.

I don't believe this is the case. The current PS3 credits speak of ECOS, which is an embeddable operating system with support for the iTron API so commonly used in Japan.

I'm sure there are layers from FreeBSD/NetBSD, but I don't think Sony used a BSD kernel.

 

[orangpelupa]

about the disk checking.. Xbox 360 dont run disk check if shutdown improperly, they just mark the files as "CORRUTED" in the file browser (if there any corupted files).

dont know how MS able to achieve that without the need of doing checkdisk...
maybe sony can look at it and try figuting it out?

 

[TheD]

I don't want to sound condecending but its a Hard Disc Drive, anything that uses such hardware has to conform to that hardware highs and lows. By PC I am assuming you are talking about a Windows PC right? (I mean there is also Mac OS, Linux, etc but they also need HDDs) the whole idea of the "console wanting to do a disc check" is not hardware specific or even original to the Sony Playstation 3. These things happen all the time on Windows based OSs.

As a matter of fact I have several memory stick drives aka flash drives, 2GB, 4GB,8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes I transfer and delete ALOT of files, large and small and every once in a while I am left with no choice but to do a disc check, even though its a flash drive (no moving parts) or a complete reformat to restore drive performance.

So far I have never had to reformat my PS3 even though I only have the 60GB HDD, though I am planning to and actually want to get a larger and faster drive.

I don't think its that hard to just buy a memory stick, back up your saves and then reformat the PS3 HDD and restore your backed up saves, that would save you alot of heart ache.

On Windows you can skip checkdisk and even if it does find a problem it does not usually take 3 hours.
A system crash also does not usually make checkdisk run anyway.

Then we have the fact that in any modern OS, a browser crashing will not take down the whole system.

 

[patsu]

Apparently, 4.0 also enhanced HDMI-CEC in PS3. e.g., You can hold down a TV Remote key to auto-repeat the key now.

I don't believe this is the case. The current PS3 credits speak of ECOS, which is an embeddable operating system with support for the iTron API so commonly used in Japan.

I'm sure there are layers from FreeBSD/NetBSD, but I don't think Sony used a BSD kernel.

Yeah, looks like it that way. eCOS is a real-time OS, which would be appropriate for a game console too. I wonder if Vita and PS2 were built on similar kernel.

It does this HDD check every time the webbrowser locks up. Which happens a few times a day, and never has there been anything wrong with the HDD. But have since discovered that I can just press it away with the circle button if it asks to do this check. I don't care if it has to do a check every now then, just not this frequently, and for it to stop asking for all the time when I already know there is nothing wrong with it.

And I really wish Sony would get of it's ass and fix that crap webbrowser, if only out of the sheer imbarassment of having something so incredibly broken on their hardware for such a long time.

Haven't used the web browser for a while now since I have switched to YouTube on iPad. The web browser on PS3 uses the HDD for virtual memory and also keeping cached files. One of those things, especially the VM system file(s), may be "dirty" when the browser died unexpectedly. Would be great if they can work around it somehow.

EDIT:
The browser crashes mainly because of JavaScript engine failures. In my experience, it crashes much less if JS is turned off. It seems that the JS run-time runs on the PPU. If it's a SPU video decoder crash (e.g., Youtube video), the browser should be able to keep running.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

One of those things, especially the VM system file(s), may be "dirty" when the browser died unexpectedly. Would be great if they can work around it somehow.

Release a proper friggin' browser! I kinda feel they're past that though. As you say, you use iPad. I saw an advert the other day for a £70 7" Android tablet. As a convenience, like looking up game walkthroughs while playing, it's almost worth getting one, especially over the coming year when they might be down to £50. If the browser isn't needed for services like iPlayer, perhaps Sony ahve just given up on it? Although they did create a new PS website to be viewed on PS3. Maybe that's just an experiment for Vita/next-gen?

 

[patsu]

If they already have basic WebKit running on PS3 and Vita, it should be "easy" to create a C# UI layer on top. There is an open source C# WebKit bindings.

I have no idea what Sony wants to do at this point.

 

[Cornsnake]

The browser crashes mainly because of JavaScript engine failures. In my experience, it crashes much less if JS is turned off. It seems that the JS run-time runs on the PPU. If it's a SPU video decoder crash (e.g., Youtube video), the browser should be able to keep running.

Yeah, I've noticed it runs some sites better without JavaScript. But other sites still need it to work properly.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If they already have basic WebKit running on PS3 and Vita, it should be "easy" to create a C# UI layer on top. There is an open source C# WebKit bindings.

I have no idea what Sony wants to do at this point.

I'm not sure they know! Growth of tablets, smartphones and internet TVs are all making a browser on the console pretty redundant. A console browser makes considerable sense for online manuals and the like, but PS3 can't multitask browser and game so there's no point pursuing that. I wouldn't be surprised if management had asked for a browser upgrade, and then changed their mind despite components being in place.

 

[patsu]

May be a good bundled app for PS Move !

 

[Akumajou]

about the disk checking.. Xbox 360 dont run disk check if shutdown improperly, they just mark the files as "CORRUTED" in the file browser (if there any corupted files).

dont know how MS able to achieve that without the need of doing checkdisk...
maybe sony can look at it and try figuting it out?

I have several friends with Xbox 360s, one in particular had the Halo 3 X360 edition, he had to reformat a currupted HDD at least once before the console RROD on him, next he had to reformat his X360 120GB Elite drive TWICE!! and even purchased a memory card as a temporary measure (he is a supremely die hard Xbox Live fan/player and does not play or barely play PS3, he does not even own one) anyways this last summer 2011 his Xbox 360 Elite RROD on him and a month later he got the 250GB XBox 360 S which is working fine for him for the last 3 or 4 months he has had it running.

On Windows you can skip checkdisk and even if it does find a problem it does not usually take 3 hours.
A system crash also does not usually make checkdisk run anyway.

Then we have the fact that in any modern OS, a browser crashing will not take down the whole system.

Like you say, the browser is whats causing this and it makes me wonder how? Now I personally do not use a PS3 for a web browser, btw I used to find it really annoying to have to use a Sega Saturn+Net Link in the 90s and later the Dreamcast as web browsing tools, but thats my personal preference I understand if people like to try other devices but I feel mobile smart phones, laptops and regular computers are just much more efficient at it (I get annoyed at not being able to use a mouse)

So if it is as you say then sure, Sony needs to try to invest in updating that web browser, however with all the money bleeding from the last two years (and since launch) of constant lawsuits, patent lawsuits, hacker/pirate lawsuits, etc somehow I am guessing the money that should be going back into re-investment of Research and Development is bleeding out and hence why things like CGC and other features are just not really a priority right now with the constant attacks of this past year specially.

I'm not going to bother making an analogy but its like someone breaking your windows and putting rats into your pizza parlor only to sue you for possible bad pizza.

As for checkdisc taking three hours??, like I said I never did anything other than lose power a couple of times due to power outages while the PS3 was turned on and the console reported inapropriate shut off so I am worried about wanting to do a reformat but I only have the launch era 60GB and I want a bigger, faster drive after doing the access time research on GT5.

One thing I did do this last January was completely disassemble the PS3, air can dust cleaned it, alcohol cleaned the heatsink contacts and applied Artic Silver 5 and then cured it by running the console for 20 hours straight using GT5 Ferrari races (since all the cars are premium).

Other than that what besides videogames I use the console as a music player (the Blue Orb with the recent solar enhancements is awesome), video playback and blu ray player. So I guess if you are having a problem with the browser, you must be right about it.

 

[patsu]

Ok, received a note from jeff_rigsby about this link:
http://www.ecoscentric.com/ecos/examples.shtml

Sony, Playstation 3, next generation games console. The Playstation 3 integrates a formidable set of multimedia technologies including Cell multiprocessor, RSX 3D graphics, Blu-Ray disc, hard drive, Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and more. eCos is used to provide the Playstation's Wi-Fi support based on the Marvell 88W8580 WLAN chip.

So perhaps PS3 kernel is based on something else ?

 

[BoardBonobo]

I thought the kernel was based on BSD\NetBSD?