Will PS2 Emulation on PS3 be PS2+?

[Shifty Geezer]

One of the key features for PS2 was backwards compatibility with existing games that actually IMPROVED the gameplaying experience by adding texture filtering.

Is there any likelihood that something similar could be achieved with PS2 emulation on PS3, like more processing grunt so games run smoother, or maybe some fancy upscaling so current PS2 games can be rendered to HDTV?

 

[Npl]

One of the key features for PS2 was backwards compatibility with existing games that actually IMPROVED the gameplaying experience by adding texture filtering.

Is there any likelihood that something similar could be achieved with PS2 emulation on PS3, like more processing grunt so games run smoother, or maybe some fancy upscaling so current PS2 games can be rendered to HDTV?

I`m almost certain there WONT be a PS2-GS on the board. So at the very least you will see alot better Trilinear filtering and quite easily forced Aniso. Also the interlaced output should be ALOT better.

Now its the question if Sony will emulate the EE in Software or place an EE on the Board like they did with the PS2. Emulation would be alot harder, but has no cost in additional Hardware and would be much more capable of enchancing Games...

 

[nAo]

I`m almost certain there WONT be a PS2-GS on the board.

Why are you so sure? cost reasons?

 

[Evil_Cloud]

I`m almost certain there WONT be a PS2-GS on the board.

Why are you so sure? cost reasons?

Hardware design and cost reasons. They recruited people for 'emulation positions' at Sony a while back, so I think they might've made a working PS2 emulator by now.

 

[Npl]

I`m almost certain there WONT be a PS2-GS on the board.

Why are you so sure? cost reasons?

Cost and the guess that it shouldnt be hard to emulate( now not talking about pixelperfect acuracy). It should be done someday anyway( emulation in Software ), or do you expect the PS8 to include 7 dated Playstation-Versions in Hardware ?

 

[j^aws]

If you're expecting software emulation, then you should expect > 48 GB/s bandwidth somewhere in the PS3 because the GS eDRAM is ~ 48 GB/s.

Therefore, either eDRAM on the GPU or XDR RAM > 48 GB/s!

 

[wco81]

Enhanced emulation is enticing but then again, they want you to buy PS3 games, not play PS2 ones on the PS3.

 

[GwymWeepa]

It would be pretty sweet if they could add different image quality enhancements to current ps2 games.

 

[Npl]

If you're expecting software emulation, then you should expect > 48 GB/s bandwidth somewhere in the PS3 because the GS eDRAM is ~ 48 GB/s.

Therefore, either eDRAM on the GPU or XDR RAM > 48 GB/s!

The question is: Would you rather have 4MB edram that wont EVER be used except in PS2-Mode... or just spent the same amount of transistors to place it on the GPU, usable for all games even if it wont have benefits in all cases.

Enhanced emulation is enticing but then again, they want you to buy PS3 games, not play PS2 ones on the PS3.

If you think enchanced PS2-Games will look remotly comparable to PS3 Games (or any other next-gen Console), you are in for a surprise.
Though many PS2 Games with fixed Trilinear and FSAA could easily beat anything on current consoles....

 

[wco81]

No but PS2 games will be much cheaper and more plentiful for the first year at least.

 

[AlNom]

er... so what graphics things can be forced? AA/AF? HDTV?

How does that work? I thought these things are game dependent, set by the developer (on the disc). How do they "force" something like that on a console? (I don't know how the PS2 does it with PS1 games so... yeah). Is it just like control panel settings on the PC?

 

[jvd]

You can force it the same way you can force it on a pc. Use a driver or software to tell the machine when playing ps2 games to use 4x fsaa and 8x aniso or something . With ps1 games 8xfsaa and 16x aniso .

If you tell the hardware to do that to the image it wont complain unless there is a problem with how the games were made that might affect fsaa

 

[Panajev2001a]

I`m almost certain there WONT be a PS2-GS on the board.

Why are you so sure? cost reasons?

Hardware design and cost reasons. They recruited people for 'emulation positions' at Sony a while back, so I think they might've made a working PS2 emulator by now.

What if they emulate the PSOne fully since for PlayStation 2 games you need PlayStation 2's I/O CPU anyways ?

The EE+GS chip, at 90 nm or at 65 nm, is small enough to fit and not cost too much while being able to provide easy backward-compatibility. Maybe they could have the EE and emulate the GS with the CELL processor and the nVIDIA GPU which is the path they chose with PlayStation 2 to provide accurate PSOne backward-compatibility.

 

[cthellis42]

I'm not sure, but I hope they do it with more success than the improvements the PS2 offered to PS1 games. I only saw any REAL difference in a handful of games.

 

[The GameMaster]

Please excuse the fact this is my first post on these forums, even though I have been reading these forums for a while now. I do have some insight to share on this topic based on unconfirmed rumors, and it is unlikely we will know for sure until the actual hardware is made available.

From what I understand they was successful in integrating the EE+GS onto a single chip called the "Dragon" and this chip was used in the failed PSX as well as the newer slimmer PS2mini. I heard that they was working on emulation of the PS2 on the PS3 hardware, but it is kind of difficult to try to create a emulator for hardware that does not exist yet. We also know the architecture of the PS2 is not exactly the most friendly or efficient and more than that uses a different programming architecture than the PS3 (MIPS versus PPC). Trying to create a emulator to work on hardware that does not exist is nearly impossible, it takes time... and you need the hardware first and Sony just does not have the time to try and make an emulator for the PS3 once they get the hardware finalized and a prototype created (assuming they have not created the hardware by now that is).

It is very likely that they will do what they did with the PS2, and as we all also know the primary reason why the PS2 was backward compatible to the PS1 was because the actual PS1 processor was present on the PS2 and was being used also as a IO controller for the system. In which case I highly expect Sony to create a version of the EE+GS chip and integrate IO controller functions on the chip much like the PS2, but this is done at a extra cost to the manufacturer of the hardware and also increases heat output. So the PS3 will likely consist of the Cell CPU, an unknown GPU, and the Dragon EE+GS for backward compatibility. I just do not see Sony dropping backward compatibility even though it will increase the cost of the machine, and the hardware backward compatibility issues is unque in certain aspects to Sony as it would probably be much easier for Microsoft and probably Nintendo to achieve backward compatibility than it will be for Sony.

See you around!

The GameMaster...

 

[jvd]

Well gamemaster i'd say it depends on how much that 90nm dragon chip costs to make . It might be cheaper in the long run to go with emulation even if in the short term some games mighth ave bugs . After all there were a hand full of games that don't work on the ps2 from the psone

 

[randycat99]

"Heat" does not strike me as an issue. Look at the slim PS2. It's not like it is a hair-width away from melting. Next to an actual PS3 CPU...a PS2 on a chip would not even be a dot on the radar.

"Cost" does not strike me as an issue. Look at the slim PS2- selling at a what, $150? ...and you can be sure it is at a nice profit. The chip is probably a nonissue at this point, compared to the supporting hardware.

My guess is that dropping in an EE sans GS somewhere in the PS3 is a nobrainer.

As far as PS1 game compatibility on my PS2, it works on every one I have, fwiw. It's a very nice feature, because there are the oldies, but goodies that are really nice to come back to, w/o having to wire up a whole other console. Compatibility won't be full-proof whether you are using original equipment on a chip or emulation, either. You could do either, and there will still be games that won't behave. It entirely depends on the developer and how "by the book" they made their game. Sometimes it is completely out of the control of the developer. Maybe the game runs as it is expected, and to the coder it seems it is running properly, but unbeknownst to all, there may be a bug that relies on errata in the original hardware to run "properly". Some things are going to work, and some aren't. Mostly everything does, so that ends up being a perk.

 

[jvd]

"Cost" does not strike me as an issue. Look at the slim PS2- selling at a what, $150? ...and you can be sure it is at a nice profit. The chip is probably a nonissue at this point, compared to the supporting hardware.

we are't talking about the chip in the pstwo , we are talking about that chip in the ps3 . Where most likely cost will be an issue and 10$ spent on that per unit may be better spent some where else

That may or may not be true , I"m just giving an example

 

[PC-Engine]

Very true, why do you think SONY removed ports from the PSTwo? Surely ports don't cost that much to incorporate that is until you sell millions of them.

There was/is a tradeoff in the design of the PSTwo. Some things cost more to incorporate while there were things that saved costs...

 

[randycat99]

Yes, that chip in PS3 in 2006. Who knows- maybe it will be a buck, rather than $10. It's a silly thing to worry about considering the truly expensive components that will appear in PS3.