Questions about PS2
- Thread starter Liandry
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I wouldn't talk PS4/Xbone because it's way too early.
However PBR was NOT a "checklist feature" of the Nv47 based RSX, nor was it from CellBE yet some of the later cycle PS3 games use that due to dev skills.
MLAA wasn't even on the radar until it was either rumored or officially demonstrated...hence the PlayStation 3 hasn't gotten a lot of credit for those "impossible features" and there's other reasons with that gen being split up by online multiplayer games versus the predominantly single player campaigns of the PS2 generation where imo computing cycles weren't spent on sharing space with network code...but that's my humble opinion...not a debate...I feel that could have been curved had they pre-determined (planned) for 2007/08 process nodes, GPUs and RAM increase...probably SATAII and 6X Blu Ray drives...for overall two to three times the power efficiency and thruput.
While it is true that PS1 to PS2 was a big jump...imho I feel that Ken Kutaragi was planning more but his hand was forced by Sega's jumping the shark with their not so tight lipped Black Belt, Dural, Katana projects...there's controversial problems with that generation because people forget what it was like when Sega leaked information.
Years earlier, in an interview with print magazine. Ken Kutaragi was projecting a potential "PlayStation next" in ten years (circa 1995) this is interpreted from the mind of an engineer and how he may have seen hardware coming.
Also the PS2 hardware board was practically engineering sample final by at least late 1998 because it was revealed in early 1999 by a company with no confidence that it was gonna be a hit because rival hardware was already out and might have built a base. Sony was basically waiting for a die shrink to have simplified cooling solution...otherwise it would have been PS3 loud in theory.
Different decisions could have been made if PS2 was instead prepped for a 2000 reveal an late that year launch or 2001...however despite the "flaws" in the PS2 hardware...most of the PS1 development was based on working with what they had...Namco even abandoned their expensive Arcade boards and games like SoulCalibur and Tech Romancer were actually developed on that PS1 based Arcade board.
The problem with Dreamcast (or one of the major ones) was that it was easier to dev for...while PS2 did have a rep for being complex (another thing people forget) that later on became fully documented.
Jumping to PS3 seemed at the time (from initial presentations and PC GPU presentations in the years preceding) that a huge list of capabilities, effects, etc were gonna be possible which they were but resolution resources, lighting systems, the lack of a higher number of nearly platform specific engine games and online multiplayer taking up resources just started taking up slices of the pie chart.
That and the dwindling number of Arcade board based games and multiplatform games which aim for "parity" or nearly platform agnostic "look" (no disrespect to devs and corporate interests) held back the overall potential of that generation.
There were still some major advances in PS3 but it's different than just thinking that "PS2 had better throuput..." the pervasive intention with CellBE was Sony wanted 65nm and that's engineering ideology not marketing and boardroom analyst demands. Even if CellBE didn't reach 4.0Ghz, at 65nm it would have been at least 3.8Ghz, cooler, less wattage and higher yields at the fab...less costly.
This is just one area where Microsoft didn't seem interested in technology instead of being first.
It's gonna be a matter of taste and understanding because these are videogames outside the western defined norms which usually means fps/tps with bald bland bad ass avatar.
Kidou Senshi Gundam The One Year War by the merger of Namco Bandai produced a game that had some advanced features for that type of game...during the space mission Sparkling Space some bloom like effects are displayed...I could be wrong but this is from playing with SVHS cables on a CRT TV... Ultraman Fighting Evolution Rebirth (the last two games) had some amazing looking lighting effects during special attacks. And there's others I can't recall right now but many were made specifically for the PS2 hardware and despite being related to an "anime franchise" which displeases gamers used to general audience videogames...games like the Sega-AM2 SDF Macross (which was made on System 246 aka Arcade version PS2 board.
There is a curious theory about time too because although initially many PS2 games didn't match huge budget Shenmue and Code Veronica the problem is that Shenmue was made by top dev team at the time...lots of pre-planning on Saturn then shifting to DC...lots of $$ to dev...there may have been a diminishing returns backlash where devs felt the "gamer media apathy" and gamer apathy along with buying practices of the time.
There was at least four versions of Virtua Fighter on PlayStation 2. SEGA-AM2 IIRC reprogrammed Virtua Fighter 4 on a CD-Rom and early Sega effort tools...although the game had the gameplay...it suffered in the visual effort when compared to Tekken.
There was a Virtua Fighter 1 Anniversary Edition which I felt could have been better even for flat shaded polygons compared to the Arcade original. There was a Sega Ages Virtua Fighter 2 which was a different port team iirc and suffered...was not a good look to Sega's people being aware of how many PS2s sold in Asia but there's other things like perhaps not wanting a perfect version for fear of losing attendance (allegations made by yours truly) which was a bad move for the time.
Then Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution which iirc sold at full price in Japan and was somehow sold as a greatest hits in the U.S./North America region.
Having played all Sega Virtua Fighter at the arcades...I was/am a graphics snob...while VF4 was a crap visually, VF4Evo was like magic...like holy crap they nearly got so close visually.
Sega suffered from not prioritizing all their games on PS2 at the time based on (Japanese install base) where they could have rapidly rivaled Namco in home-Arcade versions which Namco was king of.
The Pixar movie comparison thing was an ambitious dream goal...I can't recall who concocted that goal because I get the feeling that Nvidia may have "implied" that GeForce 3 shaders could (make the smoke and mirrors) and I feel that Blinx 2 got pretty damn close but it was a platformer type and not an Army Men type which had ass-graphics visuals on xbox 1.
The multiplatform Toy story game...was...kinda sorta...nearly there but (arcade to home version conspiracy theories...) what games last gen attempted imaginative shrunk down giant scale graphics? PS2 had Mr Mosquito...
When I bought my PS3 in 2007 I rented Ratchet and Clank having never bothered with those games...I was aware of the devs modestly stating that they weren't even close to Pixar CGi but playing back then I felt it was an impressive compromise which resulted in making the purchase and not returning the PS3 (was waiting for stable Xbox)
Games aren't really about accuracy but delivering the smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of the experience...Toy story 1 is far too simplistic although still complex if you want accuracy and their render tools and workstations have gotten more powerful.
I feel that a dedicated first party single player campaign like development effort could have delivered a "Toy Story like visuals based videogame" problem is devs may be intimidated or just interested in something else...unlike in the 90s where even Sega had Clockwork Knight.
Computational power was part of the presentation of the PS3 hardware...with the whole theoretical 2Teraflops... in 2008 if PS3 was launched using an Nvidia GT200 or ATI RV770/790XT GPU...just on the GPU alone there would have been nearly 1Teraflop.
PS4 budget reasons has the GPU alone at 1.8Teraflops...with the unlocked seventh core and most presentations on FPS based on six core-threads we will see a slight bump...
Currently Nvidia/AMD top GPUs at 28nm are over the 4, 5 and 6Teraflops. The 14nm FinFet might make such a thing possible for console GPUs...but to catch up to that 2005 presentation we need 10 Teraflops on GPU alone.
Engineering process and design decisions will dictate what happens...not sure how devs would react by then and no point wondering...because we don't know what's truly possible currently.
I'll say if all PS2 launch games were reprogrammed using the last years cycle dev tools then those games would have been much more impressive.
Same with PS3 launch games...
Problem now is that some classic game styles (with current graphics) seem to tend to be overlooked even by retro-gamers.
PS3 showed great graphics in Uncharted after a year from PS3's release.
That's right, some games. But all this is offtop.
I compleetely understand you. I some years PS4 will show it's true power. But I mean that on PS2 you saw great improvements over PS1 after a year after PS2 released. Same for PS3, but less greatnes.
On PS4 situation not good, console is two and a half years old, and I only yesterday saw first real next gen game, Ratchet & Clank. That was great, realy realy great! Amazing graphics!Thank you! I'll check those games!
Also thank you for great explanation about PS2 and PS3.Inteesting. I'll check them too.
That's true. But yesterday after I saw Ratchet & Clank on PS4 I start to think that only on PS4 you can see almost animated movie graphics quality!
You should play that game.Same with all consoles!
I compleetely understand you. I some years PS4 will show it's true power. But I mean that on PS2 you saw great improvements over PS1 after a year after PS2 released. Same for PS3, but less greatnes.
PS4 has different set up...just because I has more hardware features it doesn't mean it's gonna be immediately apparent.
Killzone Shadow Fall still has amazing graphics that had us debating if it was in game graphics and gameplay.
On PS3 even the crucified (albeit early launch title) Gundam Crossfire (aka Target in Sight) featured some subtle physics and did have good enemy A.I. that actually flanks you if they do.
There was a type of shadowing and iillumination system but it was an early launch title meant to give "Otaku" a launch title...again if they had reprogrammed the game using dev tools after Gundam Side Stories which also had some experimental systems...the Gundam Crossfire would have been highly improved.
On PS2 first year games like Tekken Tag delivered impressive character models and Ridge Racer V was doing some interesting PS2 limited physics into the steering gameplay
There were a couple PS2 games that got a 1.5 version or major revisions
Memory fails me but I think that was one of the reasons the PS2 could push so much geometry and particles, relatively speaking. 8 pipes for textured polygons and the other 8 were free for all sorts of untextured geometry/particles and it did that very fast for the time.
But I might be completely wrong here.
But I might be completely wrong here.
Interesting. But it's known that 16 pixel pipelines is 2,4 Gpixel/s, and 8 pixel pipelines with texturing 1,2 Gpixel/s, but if other 8 work without texturing, isn' there should be all 2,4 Gpixel/s?
That, I really don't know.
The remaining 8 are not unused; they are used when drawing untextured polygons. The GS in PS2 seems to be an evolution/massive extension of the graphics hardware in the original Playstation in a way, which could do 2 untextured pixels/clock or 1 textured, IIRC. There might even be some degree of register compatibility between the two, seeing as PS2 ran PS games, and even used original PS CPU as I/O processor in pre-slim PS2 editions...
I was right? Wow. I can't even remember what I did last night.
WOW. Great explanation! Thank you! Can you please give me some examples of untextured stuff. What it is exactly. Because I just don't understand. In games I see environments, character, enemies etc. But all that is textured. What is untextured?
Great!
I don't know exactly. Maybe someone else can tell, but if you can, please send me copy o my email.
Question to other people. Help me understand next thing. On first Xbox, as I understand that, Vertex processors calculate polygons, Pixel processors effects like bump mapping, glow mapping, cube mapping, specular mapping etc., Texture units do texturing and ROP blocks do rasterization. But what about PS2. As I understand VU1 calculates polygons, VU0 also if it don't calculate physics, AI etc., then this information goes to GS and when what?
What kind of blocks in PS2 do effects like specular mapping, bump mapping, glow mapping, cube mapping etc. ? Is it 16 pixel pipelines? Or they just do rasterization and 8 of them do also texturing?
PS2 just draws pixel, one texture per pass, and blends them with previous pixels via a simple ALU operation. If using a texture you'd be limited to the 8 texture capable pipes.
Found an interesting tech discussion on PS2 fillrate here:
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/ps2-vs-ps3-vs-ps4-fillrate.55200/page-2
But that operation done on pixel pipelines?
Thanks, I'll read it! And yes, Champions Reurn to Arms is great. I play it now and just cant belive that this is PS2 and 60fps. Absolutely amazing polygon count, textures, bump mapping, specular mapping, 3D water, particles!
IIRC, Spyro the Dragon (PS1) was one of the first games to do a good use of untextured polygons, in order to achieve better draw distances.
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