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[Dragona Akehi]

All I'm saying kaching, is from previous experience, one can actually take Nintendo battery specs at face value and then some. Something, sadly, you cannot do with other companies (not just Sony).

Battery life is very important. I personally feel that six hours of continuous play is the absolute minimum. If Nintendo's estimates are truly within their usual reserves, I can possibly expect something more akin to eight to twelve hours of life for the DS. (Not including WiFi.) That's just their track record. It's still a horrid disappointment from the GBA obviously, I've never denied that.

For me, the reason I'm not on the PSP bandwagon yet (though fully interested) is the UMD drive durability and battery life. The idea that I can play PS2-esque games is a definate interest to me.

 

[isamu]

Dragona sure knows her stuff about gaming. Dragona did you go to the TGS? Being that you live in Japan I assume you did, no? What are your impressions?

 

[BreakyBoy]

Dragona sure knows her stuff about gaming. Dragona did you go to the TGS? Being that you live in Japan I assume you did, no? What are your impressions?

This insistence of yours is hilarious.

 

[mrklaw]

some interesting points here now. Some observations based on whats been said:

PPCs, mobiles etc are all getting more power hungry. Maybe there is some market research that says people are more willing to recharge regularly (i.e. whenever they are near a power point). That might help Sony decide on 'acceptable' battery life.

However, usage patterns of PPCs and mobiles are different. They maybe have as much active usage as PSP (maybe), but they are used sporadically, for short amounts of time. Therefore you aren't tied to charge points as much - you just get into the habit every day or so.

With PSP, you are likely to be playing for longer amounts of time in one go, so its more likely that you'll *need* to charge regularly, and therefore its more likely you'll run out of charge while out and about.

Of course, all this is based on low battery life, but if it was 30 hours like MDs, why would Sony still be waiting?

 

[mrklaw]

One other question that popped up in my mind reading about MDs:

Is MP3 more power hungry than ATRAC? Maybe Sony designed all elements of their MD system around power efficiency, including the codec?

It does seem odd that a PPC can only manage a few hours of mp3 with no screen, and from a memory card. OK, so its decoding in software, but still...

 

[cybamerc]

So you're saying that all other game platforms have always had feature complete SDKs many months before the actual hardware launches...

Isn't PSP still supposed to come out this year in Japan? That leaves a period of max. 3 months. So many unsolved issues so close to launch is absolutely unheard of.

The possibility of playing games off memstick is one that I hope Sony takes full advantage of.

Arrr, matey!

 

[Brofist]

Isn't PSP still supposed to come out this year in Japan? That leaves a period of max. 3 months. So many unsolved issues so close to launch is absolutely unheard of!

Kinda like where the DS was less then 2 weeks ago?

 

[Lazy8s]

Panajev2001a:

Are we back in 2000-2001 with the Toy Story thing ? LOL... that is kicking a dead argument over and over... SCE did not make that statement.

Sony's press materials were the reference for the media's news coverage:

"The new microprocessor will allow users to handle nearly 50 times more 3-D image data compared with Sega Enterprises Ltd.'s (7964) Dreamcast game console. It will also let users produce game characters comparable in image quality to Walt Disney's Toy Story."

 

[cybamerc]

Kinda like where the DS was less then 2 weeks ago?

Difference being that some developers have had access to hardware since last year.

 

[P90]

You're one to talk about fanboyism, chappy.

I'm a fanboy of what system, I pray tell?

 

[P90]

ou are the one that brought in PlayStation 2 problems.

Just as an aside: considering the HUGE amount of PlayStation 2 units Sony/SCE produces and ships compared to the considerably lower amount of Xbox consoles Microsoft manages to ship, isn't it natural that there are going to be more less longeve PlayStation 2 consoles than Xbox consoles on the market ?

Pana,

I was saying that Thompson drive Xboxes were rubbish. (Language barrier? )I don't say the same for the PS2. I would describe the PS2 planned 2 year obsolescence in the laser.

 

[TTP]

Panajev2001a:

Sony's press materials were the reference for the media's news coverage:

"The new microprocessor will allow users to handle nearly 50 times more 3-D image data compared with Sega Enterprises Ltd.'s (7964) Dreamcast game console. It will also let users produce game characters comparable in image quality to Walt Disney's Toy Story."

U sure that's Sony's press material? I dont recall Sony naming specific competitors in their PR (Dreamcast in this case) and what's that "7964" number? Looks like a reference to the stock market.

Edit: Got it, that's from Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I also really like how Sony's MD runs like a bajillion hours off of ONE FUCKING AA BATTERY and yet, the music on PSP is merely "ten hours" and you don't even use the damned UMD drive for the music.

That's just plain sad.

For music that figure includes the UMD drive and I do not know if that means screen off or on.

For music off Memory Stick and screen turned of I think the machine will yeld more than 10 hours.

 

[Che]

Someone desperately needs this

 

[Panajev2001a]

To me, IF TRUE it just sounds like a mistake on Sonys part (too ambitious i'd say) and now they are having to reel some developers in from making the game they thought they could. Given that (IF TRUE) the devs are only getting SDKs with battery meters, then this to me says Sony fucked up and simply didn't think about this issue well enough. I'm sure they'll learn from the mistake.

DCharlie: you want them to be less ambitious ? You know what they would have to cut back on ?

The screen and the UMD (using a cheaper and much suckier IMHO cartridge based solution).

Of course, with a much worse screen all the love you have for the unit would disappear .

I think your subconscious is playign trick on your volitions .

 

[Panajev2001a]

This insistence of yours is hilarious.

Hey Hey hey Hey, still she can make Japan wherever she lives... she can also make it hell on earth once in a while, but that is a loon-atic problem not mine mauhahahahah .


























P.S.: Dragona , do not ban me.

 

[cybamerc]

I think you're underestimating how much power the CPUs need.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Panajev2001a:

Sony's press materials were the reference for the media's news coverage:

"The new microprocessor will allow users to handle nearly 50 times more 3-D image data compared with Sega Enterprises Ltd.'s (7964) Dreamcast game console. It will also let users produce game characters comparable in image quality to Walt Disney's Toy Story."

Look I can make Press Releases too:

"Sega Enterprises Ltd. announces that Lazy8s is a well known individual that manufactures official PR quotes out of nowhere."

 

[Panajev2001a]

I think you're underestimating how much power the CPUs need.

I think you are over-estimating how much power the CPUs need.

 

[Bluemercury]

DCharlie: you want them to be less ambitious ? You know what they would have to cut back on ?

The screen and the UMD (using a cheaper and much suckier IMHO cartridge based solution).

Of course, with a much worse screen all the love you have for the unit would disappear .

I think your subconscious is playign trick on your volitions .

Battery consumption dictates the rules in the handheld market and it probably will for a long time, so yes sometimes you have to make sacrifices in order to have a long last battery based product.....

 

[Panajev2001a]

Arrr, matey!

Are you that limited in imagination ?

PSP Linux all the way .

 

[cybamerc]

I think you are over-estimating how much power the CPUs need.

Then why does the battery only last 2.5 hours when playing movies as opposed to 10(?) when playing music?

 

[dark10x]

Then why does the battery only last 2.5 hours when playing movies as opposed to 10(?) when playing music?

Wait, wouldn't that be due to the disc access requirements? You would not need to constantly access a disc while playing music, whereas movies would require a constant stream.

I'm sure the CPU is a factor, but I can't imagine it being close to the biggest factor...

 

[Fafalada]

Then why does the battery only last 2.5 hours when playing movies as opposed to 10(?) when playing music?

Music has the screen turned off for one, and can also use UMD drive in lowpower mode (because the streaming requirements are much more modest).
Also, don't know all the details about Media engine yet, but I was under impression that audio/video codecs were decoded by the specialized unit attached to it, not the CPU so much.

 

[cybamerc]

You would not need to constantly access a disc while playing music,

No reason why UMD music discs would be compressed so that main RAM isn't much of a buffer.

 

[cybamerc]

Also, don't know all the details about Media engine yet, but I was under impression that audio/video codecs were decoded by the specialized unit attached to it, not the CPU so much.

Whatever it is I'm sure we can agree that decoding video is likely to suck up a lot more power than decoding music files.

 

[Fafalada]

Whatever it is I'm sure we can agree that decoding video is likely to suck up a lot more power than decoding music files.

Well obviously it's shifting more data around, but the question here is what's more significant - that, or the fact that video uses up more for both screen and UMD also?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Whatever it is I'm sure we can agree that decoding video is likely to suck up a lot more power than decoding music files.

Yes, because it does both music and vidoe when decoding UMD movies for example: the VME needs to process the compressed audio and the compressed video.


Power conusmption for the VME doing that (audio + video decoding) is below 500 mW.

 

[Lazy8s]

TTP:

I dont recall Sony naming specific competitors in their PR (Dreamcast in this case)

Mainstream news coverage delivers announcement stories over the PR wire by regurgitating product facts from the company's PR materials. They don't just make them up nor have specific knowledge to do so anyway. These were the product facts Sony issued in their PR materials at the PS2's unveiling.

 

[jarrod]

Even if we accept that Nintendo is oh so conservative, their DS battery life estimate is still less than their GBA/SP battery life estimates. If you're among the crowd who claims that battery life >>>>>>> hardware power for handheld gaming, both PSP and DS should be equally condemned.

Both condemned or both equally condemned?

 

[kaching]

DCharlie: Whether restrictions are policy imposed or due to inexperience, the practical outcome is the same - a relative few titles that stand out at first and then you have to wait an unspecified amount of time to see the hardware utilized to its potential more consistently. Either way, having hardware potential you can grow into has been the hallmark of any fixed platform and the situation is really no different for the PSP even if this policy is in fact real.

Further, the policy is not likely to be as simplistic or necessarily as sweeping as the gi.biz article implies. We went through this same exercise several months back with the then hotly rumored Sony PSP policy about "No Ports". Post-TGS, what exactly is the significance of that supposed policy on the landscape of PSP software we've been shown?

Jonnyram: Yes, I expect raised eyebrows, because everybody has a hard time with the PSP being versatile and capable of many things. They want hard numbers that accurately describe what their personal experience will be like when it can be many things for many people dependent on their use. Nintendo offers one set of numbers for GBA battery life, yet DCharlie and Dragona say they get better than that while I've seen others say they get less than that. So is Nintendo equally accountable for deceiving their customers? No one bothers to accurately create a matrix that describes how much battery life a portable device is likely to get under all possible scenarios of use, so why is Sony suddenly being held more accountable for this?

Dragona: Fair enough - it's just that you came in guns blazing about the status quo and how Sony is deviating from that, but didn't really acknowledge that it ain't just Sony. There's a trend here...

Cybamerc: When exactly did rewritable media lose all legitimate use?

jarrod: Equally. For the camp that claims battery life > hardware performance, they should never condone a significant reduction in battery life for the sake of hardware performance from one gen to the next. DS and PSP both qualify as signficant reductions so the exact amount of reduction is moot at that point. What's important is that they failed to maintain the de facto standard previously established for battery life.

Of course, that's only if the battery life > hardware performance crowd are true to their principles.

 

[jarrod]

jarrod: Equally. For the camp that claims battery life > hardware performance, they should never condone a significant reduction in battery life for the sake of hardware performance from one gen to the next. DS and PSP both qualify as signficant reductions so the exact amount of reduction is moot at that point. What's important is that they failed to maintain the de facto standard previously established for battery life.

Of course, that's only if the battery life > hardware performance crowd are true to their principles.

Well, if that was the consistant stance by most then you'd have a point, but I honestly can't recall *anyone* taking such a hardline view of the battery situation. Which crowd are you criticizing exactly again?

 

[kaching]

What's "hardline" about being consistent to a principle one claims to believe in?

 

[jarrod]

What's "hardline" about being consistent to a principle one claims to believe in?

The problem being, I'm not sure anyone holds the standard you've given, much less a crowd. Who's claiming this principle exactly?

 

[kaching]

So you're saying you've not actually seen anyone say that battery life is more important than hardware performance? People like bluemercury, GDGF, efralope, and others?

 

[jarrod]

So you're saying you've not actually seen anyone say that battery life is more important than hardware performance? People like bluemercury, GDGF, efralope, and others?

I'm saying I don't see anyone holding the exact principles you're pushing.

I've seen people say PSP isn't looking like it's going to be enough for them or the market at large, but I've never seen anyone imply the GBA 'standard' must be met for their satasfaction or industry success either... you're taking others opinions/concerns and holding them to your own 'standards' here from the looks of it. Which seem pretty black or white at that...

 

[DCharlie]

"DCharlie: Whether restrictions are policy imposed or due to inexperience, the practical outcome is the same - a relative few titles that stand out at first and then you have to wait an unspecified amount of time to see the hardware utilized to its potential more consistently. Either way, having hardware potential you can grow into has been the hallmark of any fixed platform and the situation is really no different for the PSP even if this policy is in fact real.

Further, the policy is not likely to be as simplistic or necessarily as sweeping as the gi.biz article implies. We went through this same exercise several months back with the then hotly rumored Sony PSP policy about "No Ports". Post-TGS, what exactly is the significance of that supposed policy on the landscape of PSP software we've been shown?"

so how about this situation.... theoretical maybe?

This constraint comes into play the start of this week. However, some companies have been porting PS2 code like crazy to the PSP since the first emu dev kits were delivered. With info as to what the PSP could do, and so that they can have their games running quicklyfor launch , companies use the same assets and convert what code needs to be converted. As i've heard that porting to the PSP from PSTwo is relatively easy, you could see that probably a few companies with good technical expertese (EA, Namco, Koei) would have probably done this.

Now, if suddenly they are told the can't exceed a certain power threshhold because it'll give shitty battery life, then that is a bit of a kick in the teeth to find out now.

"GBA battery life, yet DCharlie and Dragona say they get better than that while I've seen others say they get less than that. So is Nintendo equally accountable for deceiving their customers?"

I don't mind being deceived when the numbers i get are ABOVE what they claimed! From talking to dev friends who had to sit through Nintendo, MS, and Sony presentations about new hardware, MS and Sony want to show you charts and figures about performance (which are always based on peak) , where as Nintendo will give (in comparison) worse figures that factor in everything in a real world situation. So they say 10-12 hours for GBA, it turns out to be around 12-15. Perhaps they are factoring in battery degridation? Either way, yes Nintendo are accountable to customers, but if they set a bench mark and then exceed it, i don't think there is much to complain about. I asked the GF, and she claims to be getting around 15 hours out of her GBA as well (less with a flash card as she pointed out! )

"Of course, that's only if the battery life > hardware performance crowd are true to their principles. "

A drop from a 12 hour peak (which is actaully closer to 15) to a 10 hour peak still represents a massive difference to a (alledged) 4 hour peak of the sony machine. i can't understand why you aren't grasping this as a concern for people and trying to twist into people having an agenda against Sony. For you, as you stated, it's not a problem if its 4 hours, for me, in most cases (commute to work, trip to aki) it's NOT going to be a problem either. But for flights home, it will be a problem. For long train journeys, it's a problem. I don't want the hassle of having to recharge after every 4 hours of play.

 

[Phoenix]

I don't know what you guys are fighting about, according to mrklaw all you have to do is load an entire level into memory and then you don't need the UMD at all.

 

[Panajev2001a]

A drop from a 12 hour peak (which is actaully closer to 15) to a 10 hour peak still represents a massive difference to a (alledged) 4 hour peak of the sony machine. i can't understand why you aren't grasping this as a concern for people and trying to twist into people having an agenda against Sony. For you, as you stated, it's not a problem if its 4 hours, for me, in most cases (commute to work, trip to aki) it's NOT going to be a problem either. But for flights home, it will be a problem. For long train journeys, it's a problem. I don't want the hassle of having to recharge after every 4 hours of play.

You know you will buy the external battery pack .

 

[DCharlie]

me and Faf were talking about buying one for each shoulder and having space aged shoulder pads...

 

[Tenguman]

You know you will buy the external battery pack .

I know I will! I'll look hot

 

[DCharlie]

just another thought... just say that it is UMD access that fecks up the battery life, the assume that streaming is going to be a no-no...

... what happens to the larger GT4 tracks?

Surely Musou does a fair bit of streaming too?

Out of interest, how many of the demos so far possibly use any ingame streaming ?

 

[Panajev2001a]

just another thought... just say that it is UMD access that fecks up the battery life, the assume that streaming is going to be a no-no...

... what happens to the larger GT4 tracks?

Surely Musou does a fair bit of streaming too?

Out of interest, how many of the demos so far possibly use any ingame streaming ?

I will reply posting what Fafalada said on Beyond3D again:

Consider that you can have CPU&GPU&UMD at max thermal/power output by just running an empty loop.
Even if a game drains the battery in minimum amount of time possible, that doesn't mean it pushes the hardware at all.

Optimization in case of portables can just as well serve to save battery while maintaining the same speed (as opposed to just running faster).

Streaming can be done in good and battery conscious ways or just through brute-force.

 

[DCharlie]

"Streaming can be done in good and battery conscious ways or just through brute-force."

okay, so how would you stream in a large GT4 track in a good and battery conscious way without disrupting the feel?

I can see that with FPS's etc you direct the game based around smaller areas and go with load times inbetween each segment, but aren't a lot of games using on-the-fly loading?
If so, what techniques would you suggest?

 

[KickyFast]

I don't know about GT4, but GT3 loads the entire track into memory and only streams the music.

I just tried the Dynasty Warriors 3 demo and ejected the DVD after the level loaded. It seems that it stores the entire level in memory too. The music and sound effects were cut out though.

 

[Panajev2001a]

"Streaming can be done in good and battery conscious ways or just through brute-force."

okay, so how would you stream in a large GT4 track in a good and battery conscious way without disrupting the feel?

I can see that with FPS's etc you direct the game based around smaller areas and go with load times inbetween each segment, but aren't a lot of games using on-the-fly loading?
If so, what techniques would you suggest?

Better placement of data on the UMD disc to allow less seekign back and forth on the disc: that is quite a big point which developers might overlook.

I take Jason Rubin's comment to heart: "to fill PlayStation 2 RAM completely you need about 8 seconds... if you ake much longer than that, you are doing something wrong".

If data is not laid out well on the disc (do I know the best layout ? No, hey I am a novice programmer, not an expert... can I think about it and have some ideas regarding better or worse approaches ? Possibly ), you will have to do something quite bad and spin the disc, moving the head from one end to the disc to the other and then back to its end because data is all over the place.

UMD accesses are one bad point, another is the screen: the fact it is sooo good does eat battery life, but you know what... I can take it, it is well used battery life .

As far as CPU and GPU usage: you allow for more streaming time if the work done on the CPU and the GPU is done efficiently.

Why should we use 100% of the CPU time with the CPU running at 333 MHz for a program that optimized could use less CPU time thus maybe a lowered clock-speed: if you use 100% CPU time very efficiently... well those 2 hours of gameplay will be so awesome, you will not mind... if you do not plan to increase the detail in the scene, then optimize the code and lower the clock-speed.

 

[Jonnyram]

Something to bear in mind. UMD is a brand new format. It has significantly more storage than MD, so the readers will need to be higher tech, hence the greater battery consumption than today's MD players. Also, we have no idea what kind of error correction is needed on these things due to disc jog, etc. For all we know, the disc may need to spin 5 times just to re-read the same data properly.

I don't think it's the right time to consider data layout on the actual disc - I think most developers will be more interested in getting their apps finished first.

And if streaming data effects the battery heavily, I have a really bad feeling about Lumines

 

[kaching]

I'm saying I don't see anyone holding the exact principles you're pushing.

Is that a 'Yes' or a 'No' to the question I asked about whether you've seen anyone say that battery life is more important than hardware performance ?

 

[Vark]

Eh, unless sony's got some super duper battery saving middleware, all this is going to do is mean developers have to waste more time and money fixing sony's problem on shit thats already costing them more money than they want to be spending.

Can developers make a profit? Will gamers shill out 50 bucks for a PSP game? Find out in our next exciting episode of 'give me the god damn games already'.

 

[DCharlie]

"Better placement of data on the UMD disc to allow less seekign back and forth on the disc: that is quite a big point which developers might overlook."

um - if Sony allowed people to burn their own UMDs then surely that would help them test?

"UMD accesses are one bad point, another is the screen: the fact it is sooo good does eat battery life, but you know what... I can take it, it is well used battery life ."

Now this is something i DEFINITELY agree on.

I'd much rather have 2 hours of AWESOME PSP, than 4 hours of neutered pegged back PSP.