Pssst... PSP... psst... Pixel Shading... psst

[PC-Engine]

Chap you have to remember that SONY needs to hype the specs of PSP because they zero games for it. Nintendo OTOH already had a nice library when GBA was launched so they didn't need to hype the specs.

1) you can't hype what is currently non-existent.

2) hyping a backcatoloque, hell they got why not?

3) these aren't exactly stella specs

1) You can't hype using peak performance specs? Oh I disagree
SONY is known for hyping specs, Nintendo OTOH is not ie conservative realworld GCN specs.

2) Agree

3) The price/performance ratio for GBA was pretty good when it launched.

 

[notAFanB]

What conspiracy theory? Sony might just be advicing developers on how to maximise the potential of handheld PSP. Good for them, good for us, good for everyone! Again it is just some thought.

Well yeay, at least we accept that PSP might not reach its full specs in many games, unlike consoles. Just some points i wanted to add. Thats all.

seems like sony is advising against full performence

mean, from one developer at another forums, his gang was adviced by Sony to keep their PS2 games at some odd 5xx or so resolution, to save vram

this was more like an issue they 'had' to address tho.

1) You can't hype specs? Oh I disagree

course u can. but you can't hype non-existant specs
EDIT: ah right I am referring to Nintendo 'not' Hyping Specs here for GBNext. seem s we got our wires crossed a few posts back.

3) The price/performance ratio for GBA was pretty good when it launched.

maybe in the US it was typically in the UK we get shafted *mumbles something*.

 

[chaphack]

seems like sony is advising against full performence

this was more like an issue they 'had' to address tho.




You kinda like answered yourself.

Again, its just some thoughts.

 

[Panajev2001a]

MP3, MPEG4 playback vs nothing

Early 2001 vs late 2004/early 2005.

Sony are 4 years too late for all your little comparisons to matter

Oh no... it matters, read what you just said.

This goes well with what we were discussing ( about the PSP's Rendering Engine and a better featured Blending Engine [supporting DOT3] ).

 

[cybamerc]

Fafalada:

> Not any more misleading then listing "hardware" features like skinning,
> morphing, procedurals etc. when all of them are actually vertex shader
> programs (like NVidia did).

Well, Nvidia is hardly a benchmark for proper marketing practices but to their defense they do list those things specifically under "Programmable Vertex Shaders" in their own material. It's kinda confusing but not downright deceptive I'd argue.



Panajev2001a:

> You must be thinking at the Japanese one buddy

Yes. That thing proved useless so fast that Sony didn't even bother putting it in overseas units.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yes. That thing proved useless so fast that Sony didn't even bother putting it in overseas units.

Maybe, just maybe it was their intention to do that all along ?

Ever considered this eventuality ?

 

[Teasy]

Oh no... it matters, read what you just said.

I don't need to read what I said because I wrote it in the first place. PSP's challenge will be against Nintendo's next handheld, because its far to late to challenge GBA... so yes your comparisons are pointless AFAICS.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Teasy, my comparison had the famous "I know I am omitting something" because "so was he".

The main point was that judging the PSP GPU by the PSOne GPU or the PlayStation 2's Graphics Synthesizer is wrong.... companies do learn new tricks

Go back and read my original post, I said that I was making an unfair comparison as unfair as his was

 

[archie4oz]

1) You can't hype using peak performance specs? Oh I disagree
SONY is known for hyping specs, Nintendo OTOH is not ie conservative realworld GCN specs.

Sorry, you must be new to this planet... Did we forget about the years of "Project Reality?" Forget about all the Mode 7 hoopola? Sega is no sweetheart either... Besides, Sony hasn't published any performance specs so they really can't "hype" the PSP on it's performance now can they?

Also you might as well consider anybody who publishes a spec for their hardware as "hyping" it.. (as far as I'm concerned, it seems that the word "hype" has become the favourite buzzword of the f4nb01, critic/pundit these days as well)

 

[Teasy]

Panajev2001a

AFAICS what Cybamerc said was that there is no reason to assume PSP will be up with current features when Sony's last 2 GPU's (PSX and PS2 GPU) weren't up with current features at the time of thier launch. So Cybamerc wasn't really comparing PSX/PS2 and PSP, what he was doing is looking at a trend of Sony and feature incomplete GPU's. A more relivant counter argument would have been "Well then why should we expect GBA2 to be anything but 10 years behind current console power at launch when GBA was very similar to a 10 year old SNES when it was released".

Bottom line is I just don't see how your comparison of PSP and GBA specs was really relivant to Cybamerc's theory on feature incomplete Sony GPU's. Which is why I just took your comments as an actual opinion that PSP would be challenging GBA.

But its all cleared up now anyway.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Panajev2001a

AFAICS what Cybamerc said was that there is no reason to assume PSP will be up with current features when Sony's last 2 GPU's (PSX and PS2 GPU) weren't up with current features at the time of thier launch. So Cybamerc wasn't really comparing PSX/PS2 and PSP, what he was doing is looking at a trend of Sony and feature incomplete GPU's. A more relivant counter argument would have been "Well then why should we expect GBA2 to be anything but 10 years behind current console power at launch when GBA was very similar to a 10 year old SNES when it was released".

Bottom line is I just don't see how your comparison of PSP and GBA specs was really relivant to Cybamerc's theory on feature incomplete Sony GPU's. Which is why I just took your comments as an actual opinion that PSP would be challenging GBA.

But its all cleared up now anyway.

Your counter-argument was quite to the point, I think what I did wrong was going for a kind of weirdly indirect way route ( and not doing very good at it ) more than the witty and logical one...

 

[DeanoC]

I think alot of people are forgetting how powerful the PS1 was when it was first annouced. A the time 3DFX Voodoo didn't exist, PC were using software rasterisation where transparency was virtually unknown.

PS1 had multiple transparency modes, massive fillrate, hardware assisted sorting and hardware assisted transform and lighting. At the time it kicked everything elses arse.

How quickly history has been revised, I remember this bit of history well as it was the time I started in the games business. My first paycheck bought me a 3DFX and I spent my lunch-break playing with a SEGA Saturn devkit. The reason I could play with the devkit was because NMS have already given up producing Saturn software as the PS1 had already won. (Now I'm starting to feel like an old-timer...)

Sony were WAY ahead of the curve back then, thats why the Saturn was such a weird machine and N64 would take so long to appear (They struggled to meet the PS1's performance). Its true that it quickly lost its visual edge when 3DFX were at there height, but that was several years after the first demo's were shown. It was released in 1994, so the hardware and first demo's were in 1993. Thats around the time of Doom!

 

[archie4oz]

I think alot of people are forgetting how powerful the PS1 was when it was first annouced. A the time 3DFX Voodoo didn't exist, PC were using software rasterisation where transparency was virtually unknown.

Indeed! I can remember back in late '93 when they showed the hardware off to Namco (privately, before the more publically known dino demo), and my roommate's brother (working for Namco) in a rather excited manner telling us all about how Sony was showing off hardware that was blowing away their System 21 boards, and showing off stuff that their new System 22 board could do, and yet they were going to be selling it in a $400 home system... It was quite a big deal...

In fact they were ready to go hardware wise, but pretty much had to sit on it for more than a year while they worked on the SDK and tried to garner developer support...

(Now I'm starting to feel like an old-timer...)

Nah, could be worse... You could be really old and reminice about reading jokes in the comments in Super Famicom code then following the address jumps to the SPU code to get the answer/punchline...

 

[Grall]

Now, if only PS1 had had proper triangle clipping, Z-buffering and perspective-correct texturemapping it would have been way cooler. Mipmapping would have been nice too... Then again, it's likely that skimping on things like these is what gave the hardware such great price/performance ratio.

*G*

 

[akira888]

Now, if only PS1 had had proper triangle clipping, Z-buffering and perspective-correct texturemapping it would have been way cooler. Mipmapping would have been nice too... Then again, it's likely that skimping on things like these is what gave the hardware such great price/performance ratio.

*G*

Actually, from what I can understand Z-buffering on PSOne would have required much more video RAM (512*384*16bpp = 384KB) as well as a much more high-performance memory system from the rasterizer in order to undertake z-writes and z-reads. The PS1 uses something called the "painter's algorithm" which is basically a hack to get around this issue, it simply paints the screen from back to front with no help from a depth buffer. This is why Soul Calibur could not be put on PS1 since the detailed models which could be two characters with a wrap-around whip and a sword each as well as a complex background would cause wierd random effects.

 

[archie4oz]

Now, if only PS1 had had proper triangle clipping, Z-buffering and perspective-correct texturemapping it would have been way cooler. Mipmapping would have been nice too... Then again, it's likely that skimping on things like these is what gave the hardware such great price/performance ratio.

While we're at it why not just release it in '84 instead of '94...

This is why Soul Calibur could not be put on PS1 since the detailed models which could be two characters with a wrap-around whip and a sword each as well as a complex background would cause wierd random effects.

The problem with this statement is that Soul Calibur originally a Model 12 game which is basically souped up Playstation board (clocked higher with more memory).

 

[notAFanB]

The PS1 uses something called the "painter's algorithm" which is basically a hack to get around this issue, it simply paints the screen from back to front with no help from a depth buffer

a hack? in what ay exactly? I always thought it was jsut an older/ineffient HSR type algorithm.

 

[Josiah]

HSR? you give PS1 too much credit...

 

[MfA]

In general polygons cant be unambigiously sorted back to front, there are some restrictions on the scene. These correspond to the splitting criteria you need to build a BSP by chance. Building a BSP for each frame including all the dynamic stuff is not conducive to performance though, so most of the time the painters algorithm is used as a hack and relies on a hope and a prayer that things go right (which they mostly do).

 

[Vince]

HSR? you give PS1 too much credit...

HSR is an umbrella type term that encompassed alot more than the region-based and other early fragment rejection schemes you hear talked about today.