Why are handhelds so.......weak?

[zurich]

What you posted Tag doesn´t even begin to come near to PSX´s graphics IMO of course.

Nod.

 

[Almasy]

What you posted Tag doesn´t even begin to come near to PSX´s graphics IMO of course.

Nod.

I mean, look at the poly counts, they´re obviously very, very, very low, the complexity of the scene is quite poor, there´s no signs of the special effects that could be used in PSX, I don´t want to know how crappy the collision detection must be, nor the framerate the thing is running at. The color pallette used also lacks any sort of variety, etc, etc, etc. All in all, it looks terrible, I really don´t know how someone can think that approaches PSX graphics.

I don´t even want to know how it sounds either.

 

[Vince]

MIPS32 core simply means it's going to be a MIPS ISA implimentation. "Super one-chip solution" is simply marketting speak for a heavily integrated SoC.

While I run the risk of sounding like a broken-record (actually this threshold was past around a year ago), I'm beginning to become convinced that PCP will harbor an incarnation of Cell for a few reasons beyond the simple SoC talk.

Several IBM statements point to early Cell-based production for a release 2004 on the 90nm SOI process - which runs contrary to what SCE and Toshiba are doing and begs the question, why @ 90nm so early?

Also, this would fit well with it's role as I envision it, aswell as the talk of eDRAM, 90nm SOI, SoC... aswell as I allways thought it would be based on MIPS and not PPC. And would be inline with Sony's new ambition to plan for interconectivity and use Sony produced IC's almost exclusivly.

Will be interesting nevertheless.

 

[archie4oz]

Well lets just say that I was trying to be more immediately practical and tried to avoid Cell speculation.

Of course your thoughts are exactly what I've had in mind myself as a possibility as well. For all we know they might even sneak embryonic runs of Cell in upcoming CLIEs or AIBOs as well...

 

[London Geezer]

Well lets just say that I was trying to be more immediately practical and tried to avoid Cell speculation.

Of course your thoughts are exactly what I've had in mind myself as a possibility as well. For all we know they might even sneak embryonic runs of Cell in upcoming CLIEs or AIBOs as well...

AIBO's what i've been thinking all along!!! i think that little thing and of course next generations of it will become VERY popular in the future.
Sony's already using it in commercial, a bit as if it was a symbol, they are already giving it name recognition. or at least they are succeding in letting everyone know that "there is a robot-dog around" which one day will be powerful enough to react realistically like a real dog and also do stuff a dog obviously cant do, like emails, videos and stuff like that...
i have no doubts this whole Sony getting into the Cell manufacturing and by extension into the chip-manufacturing will get us to good things in the future.

 

[DeadmeatGA]

...

I'm beginning to become convinced that PCP will harbor an incarnation of Cell for a few reasons beyond the simple SoC talk

I am 100% certain PSP has nothing to do with CELL for one simple reason; PSP reference hardware must be released to developers by the end of this year but CELL is not ready and is apparantly delayed enough for Sony to look for other alternatives on PSX3 itself.

PSP is a modernized PSX1 rehash.

 

[Fafalada]

or at least they are succeding in letting everyone know that "there is a robot-dog around" which one day will be powerful enough to react realistically like a real dog and also do stuff a dog obviously cant do, like emails, videos and stuff like that...

I still say they should use this hardware to build a real life Sumomo (it's about the size as Aibo anyhow) and it'll work much better (ok, better make it not behave like a dog then... , but keep the other functionality )

 

[Tagrineth]

I mean, look at the poly counts, they´re obviously very, very, very low, the complexity of the scene is quite poor, there´s no signs of the special effects that could be used in PSX, I don´t want to know how crappy the collision detection must be, nor the framerate the thing is running at. The color pallette used also lacks any sort of variety, etc, etc, etc. All in all, it looks terrible, I really don´t know how someone can think that approaches PSX graphics.

I don´t even want to know how it sounds either.

60fps, solid.

And I did say roughly; I know PSX games tend to look a heck of a lot better than that.

Pocketeers are using a combination of tris and quads. =) And how much of it did you look at? Obviously not much; the colour palettes are just fine, especially in the Football mini-video (numerous different-coloured ads, lots of people on the field...).

 

[Panajev2001a]

Re: ...

I'm beginning to become convinced that PCP will harbor an incarnation of Cell for a few reasons beyond the simple SoC talk

I am 100% certain PSP has nothing to do with CELL for one simple reason; PSP reference hardware must be released to developers by the end of this year but CELL is not ready and is apparantly delayed enough for Sony to look for other alternatives on PSX3 itself.

PSP is a modernized PSX1 rehash.

Psst... it is the PlayStation 1.5 you discovered 3 and a half years ago



Reference HW by the end of this year ?

Simulators Deadmeat... simulators and then real HW by mid of next year for last months debugging ( the system will likely ship in the second half of Q4 2004 )...

The new Oita fab will be ready by then... Toshiba said they expect mass production to start around mid 2004...

Oh and BTW, they have 90 nm lines available already at the old Oita fab IIRC...

 

[JacksBleedingEyes]

Re: ...

I'm beginning to become convinced that PCP will harbor an incarnation of Cell for a few reasons beyond the simple SoC talk

I am 100% certain PSP has nothing to do with CELL for one simple reason; PSP reference hardware must be released to developers by the end of this year but CELL is not ready and is apparantly delayed enough for Sony to look for other alternatives on PSX3 itself.

PSP is a modernized PSX1 rehash.

Psst... it is the PlayStation 1.5 you discovered 3 and a half years ago



Reference HW by the end of this year ?

Simulators Deadmeat... simulators and then real HW by mid of next year for last months debugging ( the system will likely ship in the second half of Q4 2004 )...

The new Oita fab will be ready by then... Toshiba said they expect mass production to start around mid 2004...

Oh and BTW, they have 90 nm lines available already at the old Oita fab IIRC...

PS 1.5?
NAHHH I Recon is going to be something like a pocked dreamcast. PowerVR chipsets.

 

[PC-Engine]

Well lets just say that I was trying to be more immediately practical and tried to avoid Cell speculation.

Of course your thoughts are exactly what I've had in mind myself as a possibility as well. For all we know they might even sneak embryonic runs of Cell in upcoming CLIEs or AIBOs as well...

8)

 

[DeadmeatGA]

Re: ...

Psst... it is the PlayStation 1.5 you discovered 3 and a half years ago

I was merely promoting the release of a clock-doubled PSX1 with some extra features transparent to software, not a new machine.

 

[zurich]

60fps, solid.

And I did say roughly; I know PSX games tend to look a heck of a lot better than that.

AH HA! Tagrineth shows her colours as a flaming GBA fangirl!!!

Really girl, how the hell can you say that those engines are running at a solid 60fps, especially from videos downloaded from their website (the 'assuming framrates from videos has been done ad nausem here)?

I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself here

Its sort of neat that they've got 2 and a half dee engines going on a system that was meant to scroll sprites, but that is far from a 60fps 'solid' PSX quality gaming experience!

I could see it working for a few limited genres though, like sports/racing. The 'TWOC' (i guess GTA-style clone thing) was just a joke though! Like, seriously a joke!

 

[London Geezer]

LOL @ fangirl....

i can give u a couple of people that would go perfectly well with that name

 

[Tagrineth]

AH HA! Tagrineth shows her colours as a flaming GBA fangirl!!!

Really girl, how the hell can you say that those engines are running at a solid 60fps, especially from videos downloaded from their website (the 'assuming framrates from videos has been done ad nausem here)?

I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself here

Its sort of neat that they've got 2 and a half dee engines going on a system that was meant to scroll sprites, but that is far from a 60fps 'solid' PSX quality gaming experience!

I could see it working for a few limited genres though, like sports/racing. The 'TWOC' (i guess GTA-style clone thing) was just a joke though! Like, seriously a joke!

From Pocketeers' C2 engine info page:

Full screen coverage texture mapped primitives running at 30fps+

OK, so I was wrong about 60fps, I could've sworn they said something about that. But still - >30fps is fantastic, especially considering that the machine was never designed for 3D in the first place.

 

[archie4oz]

I am 100% certain PSP has nothing to do with CELL for one simple reason; PSP reference hardware must be released to developers by the end of this year but CELL is not ready and is apparantly delayed enough for Sony to look for other alternatives on PSX3 itself.

You don't need that much of a lead-in time for a handheld. Als what is this mythical PSX3 you speak of?

PSP is a modernized PSX1 rehash.

A few years ago that would've been a possible solution, but something like that is a rather weak solution in light of todays embedded solutions (for crying out loud, the ARM my girlfriend's cell phone would mop the floor with a clock-doubled PSX ASIC)...

I still say they should use this hardware to build a real life Sumomo

You would!

Sony's already using it in commercial, a bit as if it was a symbol, they are already giving it name recognition

And in videogames now to (well at least one)...

I was merely promoting the release of a clock-doubled PSX1 with some extra features transparent to software, not a new machine.

Considering they wanna support MPEG 4 video and clock-doubled PSX ASIC ain't gonna cut it. Hell the IOP barely manages to decode an Ogg stream with Tremor, it sure as hell isn't going to manage a QCIF A/V stream!

 

[Tagrineth]

A few years ago that would've been a possible solution, but something like that is a rather weak solution in light of todays embedded solutions (for crying out loud, the ARM my girlfriend's cell phone would mop the floor with a clock-doubled PSX ASIC)...

Cell phones have really REALLY sucky battery life.

 

[archie4oz]

Cell phones have really REALLY sucky battery life.

Cell phones also have RF transmitters that draw directly from the battery around 600-700mA during talk (upto 1.7A when a GSM handset burst-transmits) which is right about what most of them supply. They also tend to have a ton of LDOs to manage all the different power states and conditions a handset deals with which in turn consume their own small amount of current. You could cut down a lot of the complexity in a hand-held simply because it's not dealing with as many of the issues a cell phone is...

For one, this would also be an opportune time for Sony to utilize their lithium-polymer battery tech that's been used in the iPod so far.

 

[DemoCoder]

Who cares, as long as it's rechargable. It only has to last long enough to satisfy a normal day's play, then you cradle it and charge it, which you'd probably do anyway to download new content or backup/trade other game data.


We heard the same cries during the Palm vs PocketPC wars. Yeah yeah, a Palm could run on a few AAA batteries for weaks. But it didn't do much (try a chess game watch the batteries dry up) My PocketPC lasts a normal days worse of usage, can play DOOM, MP3s, movies, emulate gameboy and gamegear, has a full webbrowser, connects over 802.11 and bluetooth, yadda yadda...


A PSP with 2-3 hours of unrecharged battery life is good enough for me. Should be able to play a full length MPEG4 movie, or 2-3 hours of gaming.

If I'm on a long 8hour flight, I'll just take extra battery packs.

 

[archie4oz]

2-3 would work, but it'd be really hard to get the general public to go along with that after years of Nintendo conditioning people to the 10-20+ range. Besides even my GP32 gets over 10 hours... 10+ hours seems to be the real sweet spot...