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[The Gorby Congressmanz]

Graphically it's agreed the PSP is generally behind the PS2 but much stronger than a PS1 or N64 and considering game machines with support the only other comparable console that fits that category is the Dreamcast console from Sega. But is the PSP stronger than the Dreamcast? or does it fall a bit behind?

Here are some comparison gifs that will not load on slow or weak computers below. This will help us determine where exactly the PSP i placed in the power rankings.


Dreamcast

Sony PSP

Dreamcast

Sony PSP

Dreamcast

Sony PSP

While there seem to be trade offs for both, it does appear (to me at least) the PSP is a bit more powerful than the Dreamcast.

The PSP either way is a very powerful handheld for the end of the early 2000's, and was already a very capable device for a handheld in such an early period. The only comparable jumps are the Lynx and the N-gage to a lesser degree. But what do you think? Is the PSP stronger than the Dreamcast? Are there more demanding examples that show the trade offs each has over the other aside from the gifs above?

I know one thing may say something on paper but its the execution I am looking for when determining the PSP power relative to the consoles of the early 2000's.

 

[StateofMajora]

I think DC is probably a bit more powerful but due to the low resolution screen (psp has less pixels to push) and by virtue of coming out later and having more development techniques available psp often has better results.

Edit : seems psp was more powerful

 

[00_Zer0]

I guess you could also look at games that released on both consoles and compare the two. Honestly though, since PSP had better support some of the native/ original games look excellent on there.

 

[Marcus Aurelius]

PSP has the edge.

But lol who cares?

 

[stranno]

RAW specs, Playstation Portable is more powerful. At 333MHz, it beats Dreamcast on Dhrystone. And it has a parallel VFPU + FPU at ~2.6GFlops, while Dreamcast only has an unified VFPU at ~1.4GFlops.

Biggest bottleneck of PSP was probably the 4MB of unified eDRAM memory for textures and buffer.

And the Media Engine, DVD resolution hardware decoding H264 on a portable device, was basically science fiction in 2004.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Different systems, the Dreamcast fan base will tell you otherwise people expected PSP to have PS2, 3 levels of graphics and actually it had a lot of good games with graphics (portable ops, little big planet etc.) it’s one of those portables that just needed another chance. Vita would have looked fire in 2006.

 

[StateofMajora]

RAW specs, Playstation Portable is more powerful. At 333MHz, it beats Dreamcast on Dhrystone. And it has a parallel VFPU + FPU at ~2.6GFlops, while Dreamcast only has an unified VFPU at ~1.4GFlops.

Biggest bottleneck of PSP was probably the 4MB of unified eDRAM memory for textures and buffer.

And the Media Engine, DVD resolution hardware decoding H264 on a portable device, was basically science fiction in 2004.

So the chips were actually more powerful on psp then. Unless it lacked color compression that 4mb seems like a lot considering it has to output lower than SD resolution.

 

[The Gorby Congressmanz]

I guess you could also look at games that released on both consoles and compare the two. Honestly though, since PSP had better support some of the native/ original games look excellent on there.

Those usually are gimped in some way, usually frame rate, on PSPS, yet neither of the games shared between the two are among the best graphically on either consoles so those wouldn't really matter outside of scoring fan points.

 

[Astral Dog]

Nintendo Switch beats both

 

[SilentUser]

PSP is superior, at least going by these gifs. What a marvelous portable console it was, loved it. Had a white PSP 2000 model and a black PSP GO later down the road.

BTW, nice thread!

 

[RoadHazard]

Nintendo Switch beats both

I'm pretty sure the Switch isn't even more powerful than a Game & Watch.

 

[Krizalidx11]

Nintendo Switch beats both

Doesn't beat PSPs 30fps cap in most games

 

[muteZX]

Crazy Taxi .. DC versus PSP

PSP has better GPU, bigger RAM, prolly faster CPU /quite sure at 333Mhz/ .. screen resolution is low .. yes.

PSP : Burnout Legends .. GTA VC .. God of War .. Tekken 6 ..

 

[Trimesh]

I'm pretty sure the Switch isn't even more powerful than a Game & Watch.

Never underestimate the SHEER POWER of the Game and Watch. They were built around a Sharp 4 bit MCU with built-in LCD driver with most of the later ones using the SM510, with the following stunning specs:

Clock: 16.384kHz (yes, that's kilo)
ROM: 2772 bytes
Main RAM: 48 bytes (really 96 4-bit nybbles, since this is a 4-bit MCU)
Video RAM: 16 bytes (I.E. 32 nybbles)

Some of the earlier games ran on earlier CPUs from the same series with even less performance.

 

[xellos2099alpha]

I dunno, i don;t think i have seen a game on psp that look better than soul calibur on dc

 

[PhaseJump]

Another thread from OP that shit posts on Sega hardware.

 

[RoadHazard]

Never underestimate the SHEER POWER of the Game and Watch. They were built around a Sharp 4 bit MCU with built-in LCD driver with most of the later ones using the SM510, with the following stunning specs:

Clock: 16.384kHz (yes, that's kilo)
ROM: 2772 bytes
Main RAM: 48 bytes (really 96 4-bit nybbles, since this is a 4-bit MCU)
Video RAM: 16 bytes (I.E. 32 nybbles)

Some of the earlier games ran on earlier CPUs from the same series with even less performance.

That still seems like more power than those games actually needed, with their 10s of "pixels" and 1-2 fps refresh rate.

 

[fart town usa]

PSP has a baby resolution. Even in 480p it doesn't fill the screen of any tv natively and the visuals do take a bit of a hit. It also looks great though, just subpar in comparison to the DC if you had both set up side by side on a TV.

Lots of PSP games feel like portable games too. Not that it's a bad thing but I'd rank the DC higher than the PSP when it comes to core titles. I think you'd have a better experience on the DC. PSP is obviously better for JRPGs though.

 

[RoadHazard]

DC had a lot of smooth 60fps arcade games, whereas I think PSP games were mostly 30fps?

 

[Trimesh]

That still seems like more power than those games actually needed, with their 10s of "pixels" and 1-2 fps refresh rate.

They could have run faster - but the design had the chip in sleep mode most of the time and just woke up on a timer interrupt for power saving reasons. Really, the original Super Mario Bros is a lot more impressive - that had a total of 40kB of code/data (32kB code, 8kB graphics data) and 4k of RAM (split between 2K work RAM and 2K graphics RAM).

 

[Kadve]

DC had a lot of smooth 60fps arcade games, whereas I think PSP games were mostly 30fps?

Hard too find an exact list, but there was a whole bunch of games on PSP that supported 60 FPS. Including Maverick Hunter X, Soul Calibur, Tekken, Persona, FF Tactics, Ridge racer, gran turismo, Loco Roco and Prinny.

 

[RoadHazard]

They could have run faster - but the design had the chip in sleep mode most of the time and just woke up on a timer interrupt for power saving reasons. Really, the original Super Mario Bros is a lot more impressive - that had a total of 40kB of code/data (32kB code, 8kB graphics data) and 4k of RAM (split between 2K work RAM and 2K graphics RAM).

Cool, always interested in old gaming trivia like this!

 

[ManaByte]

PSP has the edge.

But lol who cares?

The guy who posts endless threads shitting on Sega.

Tom Kalinske, Peter Moore, and Bernie Stolar killed his dog.

 

[ManaByte]

PSP has better GPU, bigger RAM, prolly faster CPU /quite sure at 333Mhz/ .. screen resolution is low .. yes.

Wait...you're saying a piece of hardware released in 2004 is more powerful than something released in 1998/1999? YOU DON'T FUCKING SAY!

 

[sunnysideup]

I prefer dc on real hardware. Dc image quality is pristine. psp is dithered and low resolution.

Psp looks insane emulated though.

 

[CamHostage]

PSP has a baby resolution. Even in 480p it doesn't fill the screen of any tv natively and the visuals do take a bit of a hit. It also looks great though, just subpar in comparison to the DC if you had both set up side by side on a TV.

Well, yeah, it's rendering at 480x272, so a little over half the resolution of a 480p TV natively. (I think this also was back before "sub-native" scaling was much of an option? The games dithered the colors and there was some interlacing issues with PSone games but I believe PSP games ran full frame/progressive?)

Still, it's outputting 7.8mil pixels a second at max and 3.9 at 30, Dreamcast (which was mostly interlaced, I see only 24 progressive-scan Dreamcast games) on most games was running 10.4mil a second? (Or did I mess up the math there?)

So I don't know if "baby" resolution is fair, interlacing adds its share of unwanted artifacts to an image (not that scaled-up sub-480p is pretty to look at in general.) PSP wasn't made to fill the screen of a TV though; it was made to look perfectly fine on the screen it came with. Later when TV-out came along, PSP had to contend with its inset platform limitations (it's sad PSP 2000 or 3000 didn't have extra power to give its scaler more image to output, as PSP games scaled up in-engine via emulators can look gorgeous even at 1080p,) but on a PSP screen, "272p" was all it needed.

Wait...you're saying a piece of hardware released in 2004 is more powerful than something released in 1998/1999? YOU DON'T FUCKING SAY!

Well, a portable piece of hardware (and the first at that level of console-quality spec, unless you compare to that gen of iPhone/Droid/Blackberry) compared to a console hardware on a sustained and unlimited electrical power source. It's a fair and I think interesting comparison.

But yes, this should in no way demean the Dreamcast to say that the little PSP could conceivably "beat" it. Both machines were awesome for what they were built to do.

 

[ManaByte]

Well, a portable piece of hardware (and the first at that level of console-quality spec, unless you compare to that gen of iPhone/Droid/Blackberry) compared to a console hardware on a sustained and unlimited electrical power source. It's a fair and I think interesting comparison.

But yes, this should in no way demean the Dreamcast to say that the little PSP could conceivably "beat" it. Both machines were awesome for what they were built to do.

The Vita could out perform the Wii. Where's a thread about that?

 

[muteZX]

Wait...you're saying a piece of hardware released in 2004 is more powerful than something released in 1998/1999? YOU DON'T FUCKING SAY!

heh ..

Anything you can do I can do better
I can do anything better than you

The PSP can easily handle any DC game. PSP screen resolution is low, but nothing can be done about it and we can dispute about 30 vs 60 fps games ..

 

[CamHostage]

The Vita could out perform the Wii. Where's a thread about that?

I don't know, never saw such a conversation. If it's something you want to talk about, maybe start a thread about it?

I do think it may be less interesting to talk about, though. Once you get into modern gaming hardware, and especially once you cross a threshold where the mobile market drove technology in new ways to support rabid demand, the portables caught up real quick and the home platforms had less interesting things to say about their power flexing (particularly given Nintendo's approach to staying with lesser-powered hardware for cost and other concerns.) PSP was in pioneer territory, as was Dreamcast in its time. But hey, Wii versus Vita, tell us what you think.

 

[Dane]

PSP was more powerful than the Dreamcast, some of the games that were also on PS2 didn't have much decreased quality, others like the Warriors were 1:1 (in fact it had better textures).

 

[SkylineRKR]

PSP is more powerful and has games that are more ambitious than a lot of DC games. I don't think you'll see anything like Ghost of Sparta or Vice City stories on DC. Wasn't Powerstone on PSP relatively close to the DC version bar resolution ofcourse?

 

[alabtrosMyster]

The guy who posts endless threads shitting on Sega.

Tom Kalinske, Peter Moore, and Bernie Stolar killed his dog.

And they posted the video on social media!

 

[Goro Majima]

Well, a portable piece of hardware (and the first at that level of console-quality spec, unless you compare to that gen of iPhone/Droid/Blackberry) compared to a console hardware on a sustained and unlimited electrical power source. It's a fair and I think interesting comparison.

But yes, this should in no way demean the Dreamcast to say that the little PSP could conceivably "beat" it. Both machines were awesome for what they were built to do.

That was a wild time for graphics advancements so while today I can't imagine a portable PS4 even though that's 8 year old tech, back then it makes more sense.

There certainly wasn't a "hold onto your 1080ti for 5 years" concept either.

You legitimately had to think about tossing your graphics card every 2 years on the dot back then. Sure they only cost $400 at most but the CPUs were going obsolete almost just as quickly.

 

[01011001]

Dreamcast games generally ran at 480p

PSP games generally ran at 240p

so even if the game would visually look identical in every other way, the Dreamcast would still render at 4x the resolution of the PSP

and even with that in mind Dreamcast games generally looked comparable to PSP.

if you'd normalise this and target 240p on a Dreamcast, or 480p on a PSP, the Dreamcast it could most likely outperform the PSP by a longshot.


without deep insights to the hardware it's always hard to tell what the Dreamcast was capable of, since it died just around the time the generation really started. due to it being released so early, most games were cross gen titles and still stuck in the N64/PS1 generation in terms of game design and general graphics complexity.

we would need a new game that really tries to push the hardware of the Dreamcast with more modern designs and true PS2 gen style of graphics, to really tell what it was capable of in the end. since now we can only speculate based on vague "theoretical" hardware capabilities

 

[Physiognomonics]

PSP hardware is overall well behind DC and I don't care what the theoretical specs are saying. Power stone runs at 30fps on PSP, 60fps on Dreamcast with a higher resolution.

 

[01011001]

PSP hardware is overall well behind DC and I don't care what the theoretical specs are saying. Power stone runs at 30fps on PSP, 60fps on Dreamcast with a higher resolution.

really? ok that's crazy. so 480p60 vs 240p30? that's an 8x pixels per second advantage for the Dreamcast in that case.

I think the PSP would have some instances where it would come out on top. but yeah in general the Dreamcast should easily outperform the PSP

 

[MetalSlug]

It's shame they never ported many Dreamcast games to the PSP.

Power Stone on the PSP was good though.

 

[CamHostage]

Dreamcast games generally ran at 480p

PSP games generally ran at 240p

I don't think that's correct? Dreamcast games generally ran at 480i; the VGA adapter ran the component signal as cleanly as possible but I think that was still generally 640x480 interlaced. The list I see of progressive-scan Dreamcast games only accounts for two dozen games, is this not an accurate count?

Here's a pretty readable layman's breakdown of the DC's display methods and technology:

Sega Dreamcast

Sega Dreamcast The Dreamcast (like most other 6th generation game consoles) outputted most games in 480i, with some supporting 240p and 480p. If you're not familiar with those terms, I highly recommend you read my 240p page before continuing. All 480p Dreamcast games look great through VGA and

www.retrorgb.com

did 480i games actually render at 480i tho? pretty sure they still rendered at 480p internally and sinply output an interlaced image

but ok, if they truly rendered at 480 interlaced, that would still be a 2x higher res.

The lists and info I posted above may be wrong, I don't see SoulCalibur listed, and that's widely listed as 480p. Apparently, though, the DC's frame buffer and "tile-based renderer" makes things complicated to compare to later pscan-conformed TV devices?

(EDIT: I am indeed wrong about how Dreamcast produced game images. Neither of us is right technically, I think, since tile-based rendering complicates things, but there's a LOT more good info below from others in this thread if you want to understand how DC worked and how that was different from later machines, including PSP.)

 

[01011001]

I don't think that's correct? Dreamcast games generally ran at 480i; the VGA adapter ran the component signal as cleanly as possible but I think that was still generally 640x480 interlaced. The list I see of progressive-scan Dreamcast games only accounts for two dozen games, is this not an accurate count?

Here's a pretty readable layman's breakdown of the DC's display methods and technology:

Sega Dreamcast

Sega Dreamcast The Dreamcast (like most other 6th generation game consoles) outputted most games in 480i, with some supporting 240p and 480p. If you're not familiar with those terms, I highly recommend you read my 240p page before continuing. All 480p Dreamcast games look great through VGA and

www.retrorgb.com

did 480i games actually render at 480i tho? pretty sure they still rendered at 480p internally and sinply output an interlaced image

but ok, if they truly rendered at 480 interlaced, that would still be a 2x higher res.

I still doubt that's the case tho

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[FromDuskTillGameOver]

I doubt the PSP could run Shenmue 1 and 2 above 20fps.

 

[The Gorby Congressmanz]

Another thread from OP that shit posts on Sega hardware.

This is a PSP thread, take your Sega fanboyism somewhere else, not everyone is out to get you.

Wait...you're saying a piece of hardware released in 2004 is more powerful than something released in 1998/1999? YOU DON'T FUCKING SAY!

Sega fans always looking for something to cry about, almost makes you wonder if they actually ever liked Sega since they never focus on the positive. Too hurt to notice people having constructive discussion in the thread.

 

[Kilau]

I guess the specs show the PSP was more powerful but I think DC games look nicer.

Back then I was playing DC on my computer monitor using VGA, psp games look pretty bad blown up to TV size.

 

[ManaByte]

Sega fans always looking for something to cry about, almost makes you wonder if they actually ever liked Sega since they never focus on the positive. Too hurt to notice people having constructive discussion in the thread.

There you go talking down and belittling someone in one of your anti-Sega crusade threads. Every day is a new thread from you shitting on a company that hasn't produced a console in two decades:

Sega's consoles failed mostly because they only had one blockbuster FP franchise, Sonic (2 if you include Japan)

A lot of people come up with many theories as for Why Sega couldn't stabilize in the console space, but many of the reasons are straight forward just that many people who are attached won't admit so. One of these reasons is a very inconsistent first-party development arm, that at best could...

www.neogaf.com

Apparently, Microsoft was supposed to work with Sega to add an operating system and make software for the Saturn.

Seems like this fell through and a limited variation of this was done instead for the Dreamcast. Of course with the Xbox being planned and designed in 1998 and approved in 1999 I think MS just decided to do the minimum for the Dreamcast and never had much faith in Sega from the start. This goes...

www.neogaf.com

After 24 years of 3D Sonic, do you think there is a definitive 3D Sonic game? Or have they always been junk?

(Not including Sonic 3D Blast because it's not actually a full 3D game, 2.5D counts if there are polygons throughout the game) In 1997 Sonic R was the first complete fully 3D Sonic title, and ever since then we got games like the Sonic Adventure games, Sonic Riders, Sonic Heroes, Shadow, 2006...

www.neogaf.com

And that's not even acknowledging how you completely derailed the Saturn 3D games thread:

Most impressive 3D-Games for the Sega Saturn

Kind of curious what emulator does everyone prefer? Trying to get VF Remix up and running in MedGUi and it doesn’t seem to recognize my HRAP Pro for Xbox One Beetle core in RetroArch, that's Mednafen too but with the nice (after you get used to it, since it's the same for all emulator cores...

www.neogaf.com

Please show us on the doll where Sega hurt you so bad that you are on this crusade in 2021.

 

[The Gorby Congressmanz]

Including Maverick Hunter X,

On that note, was Powered Up also 60fps? Because it played and felt like it was 30fps and sluggish to me for some reason.

Nice level editor though to bad that's dead, and so are the easy way to get the other characters, although I think you can do some tedious challenges to get Protoman but just downloading him was much easier. I don't think you can get any forum of Roll at all now that the servers are dead (as far as i am aware)

PSP is more powerful and has games that are more ambitious than a lot of DC games. I don't think you'll see anything like Ghost of Sparta or Vice City stories on DC. Wasn't Powerstone on PSP relatively close to the DC version bar resolution ofcourse?

Ahh forgot about the sizable GTA games on the PSPS for a second. I don't recall of Vice City looked better than Liberty City though.

As for Powerstone I think he frame rate was lower on the PSP version unless I'm mistaken. But it's not a good example of either machines capabilities but I constantly see it used as an example of the PSPS being weaker across the net.

I doubt the PSP could run Shenmue 1 and 2 above 20fps.

Shenmue 1 I don't see why not.

Shenmue 2 is interesting because even the DC has issues running that, still keeping the pop-in textures and characters from the first game, inconsistent graphics and slowdown. The question is whether the PSP would end up with the same issues or not, and I think that depends on how demanding the GTA games were on the PSPS, because if they were notably more demanding than Shenmue 2 than the PSPS could likely run it better, if not than similar or worse than the DC.

 

[Zero7]

PSP in 2004 is what the Dreamcast was in 1998. Both systems were ahead of their time, but massively under appreciated.

 

[Kadve]

On that note, was Powered Up also 60fps? Because it played and felt like it was 30fps and sluggish to me for some reason.

From what I've heard it was, never played it myself though.

 

[Physiognomonics]

did 480i games actually render at 480i tho? pretty sure they still rendered at 480p internally and sinply output an interlaced image

but ok, if they truly rendered at 480 interlaced, that would still be a 2x higher res.

I still doubt that's the case tho

Yes. 480i was the output given to the TV but games were internally 640x480. I played all my games on a CRT monitor and the res of all of them was 640x480.

The PSP has a 480x272 pixels screen so DC outputs about 2.4x more pixels. It needs to be taken into account when some compare for instance God of War PSP vs Dreamcast games.

 

[Mokus]

I'm not convinced about being more powerful, but sure it was close. Never owned a Dreamcast, but I think the PSP is not pushing the same amount of polygons.

 

[Drew1440]

Crazy Taxi .. DC versus PSP

PSP has better GPU, bigger RAM, prolly faster CPU /quite sure at 333Mhz/ .. screen resolution is low .. yes.

PSP : Burnout Legends .. GTA VC .. God of War .. Tekken 6 ..

For the first few years the PSP was capped at 222Mhz for its CPU and 111Mhz for its GPU/Media engine, It wasn't until around 2008 (i think) when Sony unlocked the full CPU speed, and even then some games had to specify that speed in order to use it, existing games didn't benefit unless you soft-modded the console.

As for which one is better, based on the Crazy Taxi comparison posted earlier the DC looks more fluid and has more detailed textures, whilst the PSP has a noticeable blur, and I think the HUD is being stretched.