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[sonycowboy]

Wow.

This thing has gotten knocked around in review scores, but I didn't pay any attention to the talk about the graphics. This has got to be a serious paintjob on this sucker.

Lots of more good PSP GDC Europe stuff at the link

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=6382

Froggatt explained that MediEvil Resurrection (a launch title for Europe, but not released in the U.S. until September 13th) was based on the engine used for the studio’s previous PlayStation 2 titles Primal and Ghosthunter. The process of converting the engine for use on the portable was described as relatively easy, but with some unforeseen issues.

One of the first problems was that although the CPU (referred to by Sony as Allegrex) had a potential clock speed of up to 333MHz it was limited by the firmware to just 222MHz, making it functionally around a third of the speed of the PlayStation 2. Memory performance was also described as “not great” at between a half and one third of the PlayStation 2, with an ineffective scratchpad also coming in for some mild criticism.

Froggatt also warned about the FPU (Floating Point Unit) whose IEEE754 compliance makes it notably different to the PlayStation 2, resulting in a large number of exceptions being generating when first porting over PlayStation 2 code. The Vector FPU was said to be more comparable to the PlayStation 2, with the relatively minor differences being negated by its easy of use. The Graphics Engine (GE) was described as less flexible than the PlayStation 2 at a geometry level, but more flexible at a pixel level. One of Burrows most important “gotcha” warnings though related to clipping problems with the GE, which his team had solved only by implementing their own full 3D clipping system.

Froggatt’s final warnings were of a less technical nature, but he considered them no less important. According to his experience the sudden turning on or off of the network switch on the console caused numerous problems at the QA stage, with Burrows likening it to the “new memory card for TRC fails”. He also warned developers to beware of the Hold button, which disables the PSP’s button inputs and which had wasted many hours of development when switched on accidentally.

 

[Wollan]

"He also warned developers to beware of the Hold button, which disables the PSP’s button inputs and which had wasted many hours of development when switched on accidentally."

:lol

 

[Lord Error]

Not surprising it's not based off the PS1 engine. From what I've seen Medievil PSP is quite possibly the closest visually to the "PS2 ideal" promised on PSP. The textures especially are solid cut above anything I've seen on PSP thus far, and pretty much on par with some of the better (not best) examples of texture quality on PS2.

 

[Ceb]

Medievil's art direction lends itself really well to the PSP. The characters are low-poly, but don't look as such because of their design. I'm hesitant to pick this up due to the reports of floatier controls though.

 

[Acosta]

Sony Cambridge it´s fantastic for engines and technical stuff, but they really, really need to use one hand (or two) in the gameplay department, they tend to fall in very silly design problems and that is a real shame.

 

[dark10x]

How's the framerate? From videos and such, the framerate seemed to be a bit rough (though I'm sure a little overclocking will help it out). Then again, most of their games have slightly unstable framerates, so I'm not suprised.

 

[Elios83]

Sony Cambridge it´s fantastic for engines and technical stuff, but they really, really need to use one hand (or two) in the gameplay department, they tend to fall in very silly design problems and that is a real shame.

Totally agreed.
Primal could have been an AAA title but for really stupid design and gameplay limitations it ended to be just a decent title.

 

[jerrymaguire]

Totally agreed.
Primal could have been an AAA title but for really stupid design and gameplay limitations it ended to be just a decent title.

i can imagine cambridge being so technically driven that "extra baddies are removed at the expense of some nice water/ cloth blowing in the wind/ nice torch effects/ etc".

...no, honestly. =)

ok, i made that up, but you really don't know unless you're actually there. sometimes it's easy to point the finger at "lazy designers".

 

[Lord Error]

How's the framerate? From videos and such, the framerate seemed to be a bit rough (though I'm sure a little overclocking will help it out). Then again, most of their games have slightly unstable framerates, so I'm not suprised.

From what I remember, 30.

 

[Zen]

Primal had all the makings of a AAA title, if only it had been a joint project between Cambridge and a studio who understands how to make games. Everything about Primal had the looking of being AAA except the actual execution of the gameplay.

 

[zooL]

Where are teh NURBS?

Wasn't there some kind of Hardware-Effect possible on PSP that rounds polygons or something?

 

[Zer0]

Medievil's art direction lends itself really well to the PSP. The characters are low-poly, but don't look as such because of their design. I'm hesitant to pick this up due to the reports of floatier controls though.

characters on medievil psp are not low poly,in close up sir fortesque have a lot of polygons

 

[Defensor]

This was interesting as well from the article:

The third and final speaker was Dave Burrows of SCEE Studio Liverpool, the lead programmer on WipEout Pure who gave a brief description of working with the PSP’s “Game Share” option. This feature is similar to the single cart multiplayer feature on the Nintendo DS, where a version of the game is uploaded to nearby PSPs using an ad hoc Wi-Fi connection.

As Burrows demonstrated, the file which the PSP transmits can be any type of file, with SCEE already having experimented with single player demos and movie files (although the latter example included its own movie player rather than being simply a MPEG file itself). According to Burrows no matter the nature of the file it cannot be stored on the memory stick (answering an audience question confirmed that Sony had a policy of only running executable files from a UMD) and has a maximum transmission size of 8MB, uncompressing to a total of 24MB on the PSP.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

Medievil has horrible frame rate. It really makes the game feel like your average over-ambitious sub-20-fps platformer of the PSone era.

 

[dark10x]

Medievil has horrible frame rate. It really makes the game feel like your average over-ambitious sub-20-fps platformer of the PSone era.

At least the framerate can be fixed, unlike most console games where you're stuck with what you are given out of the box.

 

[Andy787]

Primal had all the makings of a AAA title, if only it had been a joint project between Cambridge and a studio who understands how to make games. Everything about Primal had the looking of being AAA except the actual execution of the gameplay.

They should've had Jaffe come in and show them what's what.

 

[dark10x]

They should've had Jaffe come in and show them what's what.

There are plenty of people who could have shown them "what's what". The game was quite compelling (finished it), but the combat was straight awful.

 

[Yusaku]

it was limited by the firmware to just 222MHz

NO NO NO WRONG WRONG SO WRONG GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARARARARAGH!

It is NOT motherfucking locked in the firmware.

 

[TAJ]

>>>it was limited by the firmware to just 222MHz

NO NO NO WRONG WRONG SO WRONG GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARARARARAGH!

It is NOT motherfucking locked in the firmware.<<<

Yep, I haven't done anything to the firmware, and I run everything except UMDs at 333Mhz.

 

[kaching]

The quote about it being locked in firmware is straight from Gamasutra's reporting on what the SCEE dev himself said in the GDCE session. Perhaps they mean something else by "firmware" (like the SDKs themselves) but the salient point is that devs still aren't developing with the maximum chipset speed in mind yet.

 

[TAJ]

They need to look into how the homebrew folks do it. I seem to get nice battery life in 333Mhz, but I'm sure running off a memory stick instead of a UMD has something to do with it.

 

[kaching]

I'm sure devs know how to do the same thing as the homebrew scene does to "overclock" the PSP, but I doubt that doing that would get their software past SCE approval and onto store shelves as a licensed game.

 

[slidewinder]

Yea, it's apparently the official dev libraries that set the clock speed to 222MHz. Either way, games won't release at 333 until Sony says so.

 

[Yusaku]

I don't see why games don't just make them as good as possible at 222 and include a "disable power saving features" option to make it run at 333 to give the framerate a boost.

It's not like magically 333MHz will drain less battery power in the future than it does now, so you're just wasting money by putting a 333MHz processor downclocked to 222.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

I don't see why games don't just make them as good as possible at 222 and include a "disable power saving features" option to make it run at 333 to give the framerate a boost.

It's not like magically 333MHz will drain less battery power in the future than it does now, so you're just wasting money by putting a 333MHz processor downclocked to 222.

I guess they are waiting when battery tech gets better or something to be accepable for 333 MHz.

 

[cybamerc]

It wouldn't surprise me if Sony kept the PSP locked at 222 MHz. Perhaps battery life isn't the real reason for limiting the clockspeed.

 

[Panajev2001a]

It wouldn't surprise me if Sony kept the PSP locked at 222 MHz. Perhaps battery life isn't the real reason for limiting the clockspeed.

I somehow do not think so... pats homebrew apps .