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MVG: Was the PS2 "Emotion Engine" over hyped?

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Sony launched the PlayStation PS2 in 2000 to massive hype and promises. One promise was the brand-new Emotion Engine ( EE ) , the main SoC that powered the PS2. Developed in conjunction with Sony and Toshiba. It was the next generation of processor after the PS1. But the Emotion Engine was more than just a CPU. It housed other additional co-processors known as Vector Units and also came with powerful DMA Controller that could move data around the bus very quickly. However, was this all worth it? The Xbox, GameCube and in some scenarios, Dreamcast showed off many games that easily match the power and performance of the PS2 and in many cases, exceeded it. In today's episode we deep dive and take a closer look at the Emotion Engine and its use cases. After a slow start, developers got the very best from the chip and developed some unique and interesting post processing effects that really showed off the power of the PlayStation 2 hardware. Please Enjoy!
 

winjer

Gold Member
I still remember being very impressed with the first tech demos for the PS2.
As time went on, it just kept getting better and better, as devs leaned to extract all the performance from that machine.
It might just be the biggest jump generation over generation, of all time.
 

Erebus

Member
It was a beast in the right hands.
I wonder if we will ever see such a graphical leap.
 
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SHA

Member
Secret Sauce should exist if we reached the limit of the silicon, it's obvious we're running out of choices.
 

Geometric-Crusher

"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡

E-Cat

Member
Sigh, I really miss the days of the crazy Kutaragi hype cycle. Even PS3 with the Cell processor, though it may have been overhyped, delivered some good times e.g. the crazy E3 2005 meta concepts like Cyber Society. "The world we live in is full of information....here we have a world just like reality. Look at it more closely." They were talking about the Metaverse in 2005 -- a real Metaverse, and not Zuckerberg's dystopian Miiverse.

 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
I still remember being very impressed with the first tech demos for the PS2.
As time went on, it just kept getting better and better, as devs leaned to extract all the performance from that machine.
It might just be the biggest jump generation over generation, of all time.

Anyone who was there knows the answer. No.

GT3 in 2001… there was no bigger leap from generation to generation.
How can you guys look at ALTTP and Super Mario World against OOT and Super Mario 64 and conclude that GT2 to GT3 was a bigger jump?

The shift from 2D to 3D by default is the biggest generational jump and this won't be topped until there's another major jump like say from 3D to full-on VR.
 

SSfox

Member
MGS2 Tekken 4 FFX. I was blown away man.

The Tanker section in MGS2 was so insane bro even 5 years later it was still the most technically impressive thing ever, not only visually but also in AI and cinematics and gameplay

Today we have Concord. Sony standards really gone downhill
 
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E-Cat

Member
How can you guys look at ALTTP and Super Mario World against OOT and Super Mario 64 and conclude that GT2 to GT3 was a bigger jump?

The shift from 2D to 3D by default is the biggest generational jump and this won't be topped until there's another major jump like say from 3D to full-on VR.
The size of the shift from 2D to 3D can't be quantified, so only 3d-to-3d is a sensible comparison.
 
Of course it was, always remember
Kim Jong-il will daisy chain a number of PS2s together and nuke the west or some kind of shit drivel coming out of his dick licker.

Listen, it was a great machine and I still have my functioning day 1 console hooked to my Trinitron.

The lack of shaders was instantly noticeable once the GameCube and Xbox came along.
 

angelgs90

Member
I remember trying the PS2 in a Toys'R'Us for the first time. Unforgettable moment.

A bunch of kids staring at the monitor with their jaws on the floor.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I was more impressed by the Gamecube, Xbox and Dreamcast before it. But GC and Xbox had an extra 18 months of new tech to put in their systems to make them more powerful. By the end of the gen, the PS2 just couldnt keep up with the xbox. No doom 3, half life 2 ports, and RE4 looked rough compared to the sublime GC original.

Those early gen games like Tekken Tag, Dead or Alive 2, SSX, MGS2, DmC, and Madden were just awe-inspiring. The rest of the gen felt like it was on life support. Simply wasnt able to keep up with larger more ambitious games. SOTC was running at like 15 fps. San Andreas looked like dog shit. MGS3 was a big downgrade from MGS2 and groznigrad ran at 15 fps too. I ended that gen being thoroughly disappointed by the performance especially since my friend was playing some games at like 720p on his xbox.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I was more impressed by the Gamecube, Xbox and Dreamcast before it. But GC and Xbox had an extra 18 months of new tech to put in their systems to make them more powerful. By the end of the gen, the PS2 just couldnt keep up with the xbox. No doom 3, half life 2 ports, and RE4 looked rough compared to the sublime GC original.

Those early gen games like Tekken Tag, Dead or Alive 2, SSX, MGS2, DmC, and Madden were just awe-inspiring. The rest of the gen felt like it was on life support. Simply wasnt able to keep up with larger more ambitious games. SOTC was running at like 15 fps. San Andreas looked like dog shit. MGS3 was a big downgrade from MGS2 and groznigrad ran at 15 fps too. I ended that gen being thoroughly disappointed by the performance especially since my friend was playing some games at like 720p on his xbox.
I know it does not matter from the point of view of gamers, but remember MS had to kill the Xbox early because it cost so much to make and they couldn't drop the price. The PS2 gave people a powerful piece of hardware and flexibility to the point where it was costing like $150 in a couple of years. Hardware design is always a holistic thing that takes in all these elements.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Was the PS2 "Emotion Engine" over hyped?


bf6de2ed-cb00-48c9-8eec-857d0957620c_text.gif
 
Was a beast in the right hands when games were done specifically for it. Painful in the early days tho as the VU's were barely used, if at all.
 

MacReady13

Member
God I miss these days when Sony took chances on these types of things with hardware to try push the boundaries of tech at the time. Now they are just low powered PC's with zero differences between consoles (Nintendo excluded).
 

Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia
Yeah, Sega delivered with the Dreamcast but overall the words EMOTION ENGINE are pure marketing like the BLAST PROCESSING...

Shenmue cutscene intro (99/Dreamcast)

Of course, Playstation 2 games cannot match the high poly beautiful models of the Dreamcast but look at Yuna... Sure, the hair are a little rough but the model is not that far from Shenhua (Shenmue/Dreamcast)

FFX cutscene intro (2001/PS2)

PS2 is not that bad,seriously... 😎
 
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xbox and gcn were also released almost 2 years after the ps2, which was a big ass gap back in those days, so cut it a little slack.

i never loved the ps2, but onimusha as a launch title was sooo good.
esp. when coming from the n64 and dreamcast.
 

AGRacing

Member
People talk how it took a WHOLE YEAR to get one of the most incredible console lineups ever. That is called a “launch window” in 2024.

The PS2 architecture was a damn miracle in 2000/2001.

And as much as I loved it … no… Dreamcast was not close. It would NOT have been able to touch Gran Turismo
3 OR Grand theft auto 3 and the idea it would is ridiculous.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
It was an actual, custom designed CPU.
That fell behind in performance compared to the gc and Xbox off the shelf pc cpus.

Yeah no. It was just a marketing gimmick no different from blast processing. You guys are conflating regular tech advancements with marketing speak.

Was the ps2 an astronomical jump from ps1?
Yeah!

Was it because of the "emotion engine"?
No.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
And as much as I loved it … no… Dreamcast was not close. It would NOT have been able to touch Gran Turismo
3 OR Grand theft auto 3 and the idea it would is ridiculous.
Dreamcast would first have to be able to store all the data those games contained on its measly gdr before we even talk about performance and what cutbacks would need to be made.

Dreamcast is late 90s hardware, ps2 is Y2K hardware. There's a difference, and it's a significant one.
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
That fell behind in performance compared to the gc and Xbox off the shelf pc cpus.

Yeah no. It was just a marketing gimmick no different from blast processing. You guys are conflating regular tech advancements with marketing speak.

Was the ps2 an astronomical jump from ps1?
Yeah!

Was it because of the "emotion engine"?
No.
This is semantics. The PS2 CPU was, in fact, a real thing. It actually existed. It was named "Emotion Engine" because companies name stuff. Whether or not it is what people claim it should have been is a different question.

It is not the same thing as, for example, "blast processing", because blast processing was an entirely fake, made-up term that had absolutely no relevance to the Genesis hardware or the tools or anything else.
 
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Connxtion

Member
Dreamcast would first have to be able to store all the data those games contained on its measly cdr before we even talk about performance and what cutbacks would need to be made.

Dreamcast is late 90s hardware, ps2 is Y2K hardware. There's a difference, and it's a significant one.
GDR (gigabyte disc rom) nearly double of a CDR, but yeah they would have struggled to fit GTAIII on a GDR.

Only pirates (homebrew) and mil-cds uses CDRs
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
This is semantics. The PS2 CPU was, in fact, a real thing. It actually existed. It was named "Emotion Engine" because companies name stuff. Whether or not it is what people claim it should have been is a different question.
Ok I stand corrected. The "emotion engine" quite literally made the PS2 what it is.

Still though it doesn't seem like anything special as opposed to other desktop CPUs of the time to warrant all this praise and hype over the arcitecture
 

Geometric-Crusher

"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
And as much as I loved it … no… Dreamcast was not close. It would NOT have been able to touch Gran Turismo
3 OR Grand theft auto 3 and the idea it would is ridiculous.
For a long time, Sega fans said it was possible to run MGS2 because the textures were palletized or 'recv looked better'. In short a homebrew programmer made a demo of MGS2 for the Dreamcast only for everyone to realize that it's not possible run it on DC's hardware , hell, even Twin Snakes (2004) was inferior.
 

Futaleufu

Member
Very overhyped as it promised to do things they were showing in CGI trailers, then when it released was about on par with the Dreamcast
 

KellyNole

Member
I don't think it was over hyped. It did a good job. It didn't look as good as the Gamecube or Xbox, but it did come out a year earlier than either of those two, so it gets somewhat of a pass.
 

coffinbirth

Member
xbox and gcn were also released almost 2 years after the ps2, which was a big ass gap back in those days, so cut it a little slack.

i never loved the ps2, but onimusha as a launch title was sooo good.
esp. when coming from the n64 and dreamcast.
Onimusha wasn't a launch title. I had already beaten all of my PS2 launch titles by the time that came out...was under a year after launch though, if memory serves.
 
Of course it was ... OG Xbox was so much better. I found the original PS1 console to be one of the few consoles to actually live up to the hype.
 

Kacho

Gold Member
No. But we don’t need to humor marketing nonsense years later when the PS2 was stacked with banger after banger after banger. Wish we could go back to those days when consoles were irresistible.
 

Griffon

Member
One year later the Gamecube was capable of doing much of the same things without having to do rocket-science on the CPU cores.

The PS2 was an over-engineered POS to work on. It had an amazing fill-rate, but it was nothing but a tech dead-end and everyone knew it.
 
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Geometric-Crusher

"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
Onimusha wasn't a launch title. I had already beaten all of my PS2 launch titles by the time that came out...was under a year after launch though, if memory serves.
At that time the release was double, although Onimusha was 1 year old compared to Japan, in North America it was only 4 months after the release.
 
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