psp launch titles impressions

[darkblu]

now that the psp is in the hands of plenty of people frequenting these boards, we can start discussing some stuff Faf and others may or may not have to break their NDAs to talk about.. here's my input while my psp is recharging peacefully after a prolonged session of RR.

that game is straight-forward a DC-level visuals. to be more precise, upper-average level DC visuals. both geometrically and texture-wise. i.e. definitely not as good as TD24, and definitely without aniso on the track and/or side boards. furthermore, the resolution of some of the textures seems to be on the lower side (the reflection maps in particular), and the asphalt texures seem to be of less-that-32bit fidelity (either that or they're s3tc'ed) which raises the question - what are the tex-bandwidth-limiting factors/bottleneck(s) in the PSP graphics pipeline? what are the TCL limitations? under the 222mhz setup, that is, as i assume RR is running at it. does the psp allow for or is it unfriendly toward texture-streaming techniques ala ps2? please note that those questions are more qualitatively than quantitatively, i.e. not as much about numbers as about do's and dont's.

ok, pardon me if that sounded like a pile of rant-ish babble w/o much sense. just needed to vent my quriosity and to clear my mind before some coding.

 

[Farid]

both geometrically and texture-wise. i.e. definitely not as good as TD24, and definitely without aniso on the track and/or side boards.

Le Mans 24 was running at 30fps, RR runs at 60fps.

the resolution of some of the textures seems to be on the lower side (the reflection maps in particular), and the asphalt texures seem to be of less-that-32bit fidelity (either that or they're s3tc'ed) which raises the question

Yep, the reflection maps are bad, it really stands out like a sore thumb.
And yes, the road textures seem to be compressed, like all the other textures. At least they should be.

does the psp allow for or is it unfriendly toward texture-streaming techniques ala ps2?

Technically speaking, data streaming is, of course, possible on the PSP. But Sony want the developers to avoid using streaming as much as possible, since it's really heavy on the disc and by extension on the battery.
Note that future games will use streaming, it's a sure bet (I'm thinking about GTA, or The Getaway).

we can start discussing some stuff Faf and others may or may not have to break their NDAs to talk about..

Talking about that, can someone, now that the machine is released and all, spill the codename of the CPU and the GPU of the PSP?

 

[hey69]

i believe Ridge racers uses a 16bit color palet instead of 32 (as did RR V for ps2)

i'm wrong? correct me please

 

[Blade]

Lumines is the only launch title I got, so far. Good.

 

[Simon F]

i believe Ridge racers uses a 16bit color palet instead of 32 (as did RR V for ps2)

I also don't think they had hardware shading, as the textures contained multiple versions with different lighting.

 

[jvd]

Le Mans 24 was running at 30fps, RR runs at 60fps.

Le mans 24 was running at 640x480 what is rr running at ?

 

[Farid]

I also don't think they had hardware shading, as the textures contained multiple versions with different lighting.

I think hey69 was talking about RR PSP, not the arcade version.

Le mans 24 was running at 640x480 what is rr running at ?

Yeah, and Le Mans 24 was a DC launch title too.

BTW, Darkblu wasn't comparing the DC hardware and the PSP hardware. Like you do. No, he was comparing the games and their respective engines, in the given situation.

And in the given situation, Le Mans with its models, textures, ran at 30fps @640x480 while RR with its models and textures runs at 60fps @480x272.

Now, if you want to compare the engines, the texture quality for instance, in the given situation, you have to compare the texels/pixels ratio in both engine; and for the polygon performance you have to determine the # of polygons rendered per frames and multply this by the number of frames rendered per seconds.

But let me say that, personaly, I won't compare RR to Le Mans 24, nor to any DC games, because this is old hat stuff, really. And I seriously don't care to know how favorably or unfavorably a PSP launch game compares to a DC game.
Because we'll all know how this kind of useless discussions (full of IF, MIGHT, WOULD and so on) do finish.

 

[darkblu]

guys, before we turn this one into another dead sector on the harddrives of the boards server, let me clarify i used LeMans DC merely as a reference point, no less no more. whether i've had any reason to compare RR/psp to an AAA DC title is a subject to debate, of course, but let that not be in this thread.

now, as my personal expectations of RR were a tad higher, i got curious as what could the trade-offs and bottlenecks be within the psp graphics pipeline, from the perspective of first gen titles.

btw, by texture streaming i meant main mem-> vram streaming, not streaming from the medium. excuse me for the lack of clarity on my part.

 

[Fox5]

Yeah, and Le Mans 24 was a DC launch title too.

What? No it wasn't... it was released over a year after the launch of the dreamcast, which is probably why it got ported to PS2.

BTW, why did it do so well in reviews on DC, but bombed in reviews on PS2 and PC?

 

[Farid]

What? No it wasn't... it was released over a year after the launch of the dreamcast, which is probably why it got ported to PS2.

I was being sarcastic.