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[gofreak]

I'm considering dabbling in a little "hobbyist" PS2 development, and I'm aware of 2 potential routes:

1) the official PS2 linux kit

and

2) connecting your PC to your PS2 and using a loader (modded PS2 required unless you do some demo disc swapping etc.)

I know at least a couple of people here are coding for their PS2s, so which route did you go for, and how has it worked out? Specifically, what would the advantages be of going with the linux kit over the cheaper second option? And how close can you get to the hardware with both routes?

Thanks for any help..

edit - also, can you use the official linux kit with the new slim ps2s? I've a feeling you can't since it doesn't support a HD..might have some trouble getting my mitts on an older model!

 

[ourumov]

I purchased a PS2 Linux Kit and I am actuallly doing my final research work for the University about PS2 and colaborating with Pana in one interesting project . My tip is that this is the best solution due to the fact that it's much easier to do things than using a loader.
You turn your PS2 into some kind of PC and this means you have your own files there and can compile things and execute them without problems.
I also did a bit of Saturn coding using homebrew methods and I didn't go as far as I am right now. So my tip is to go for the Linux Kit.

 

[gofreak]

Cheers for the reply. Convenience aside, are there any other advantages? For example, can you get closer to the hardware with the official kit, or..?

Also, how "like" professional PS2 development is the linux kit, do you know?

 

[ourumov]

PS2 Linux offers you many possibilities to code. There is an OpenGL-like API that makes things very easy but unfortunatelly the performance is very low and the support is non-existant. On the other hand there is sps2 which makes direct-access to the hardware overriding the Linux Kernel. This puts you very close to the final hardware and the performance you can obtain is HUGE.
Anyways, don't think things will be easy for you in order to take some kind of results from PS2. It's a tough system to develop for in the sense that THERE ARE tons of things to take care of.
I this professional ? Well I don't know what to answer. I am not a professional developer just a undergraduate in his last year with the desire to learn tons of things and perhaps someday work in Game Company preparing coffees.
I think that professional PS2 tools like CodeWarrior are very far from the kind of PS2 development you do using the Linux Kit but what I can tell you is that the Linux Kit provides tons of tools that will make you get some kind of habits when working on a non-PC system.


I think that both Fafalada and Panajev can elaborate more than me on how close is PS2 Linux development to REAL development.

 

[gofreak]

Cheers, thank you for your help!

 

[slayn]

I was wondering (dunno if you worked on HAM for gba with pana at all or on your own)

but how similar is ps2 linux kit development to that of gba dev with ham on a pc?
Obviously there are major hardware differences but aside from the graphical aspects, how much different is it really from anything else?

by the end of the school year my roomate and I should have our gba game complete and it might be interesting to move on to soemthing more complicated.

 

[AnIco]

gofreak, you might find some further help at this site: http://ps2dev.org/

 

[Panajev2001a]

I was wondering (dunno if you worked on HAM for gba with pana at all or on your own)

but how similar is ps2 linux kit development to that of gba dev with ham on a pc?
Obviously there are major hardware differences but aside from the graphical aspects, how much different is it really from anything else?

by the end of the school year my roomate and I should have our gba game complete and it might be interesting to move on to soemthing more complicated.

PlayStation 2 = pain... blood... sweat... tears... if you have never coded for a similar machine, the learning curve is quite steep, but manageable after a while.

At the beginning it seems that there is just too much stuff to keep track of, but after the first headaches... you'll be able to sort things out.

You will feel really good when you get things working though.

We code from Visual Studio: it compiles using GCC on PlayStation 2 linux, but you get the comfort of the Visual Studio.NET IDE if you have it). There is a graphical VU debugger which also helps you to debug the GIF Tags, but there is nothing like it yet for the DMA Tags (you have to print them out and check them or print out only elements of it that you are trying to set).

I have the PlayStation 2 connected to the TV and to the Router's LAN and I do basically everything remotely (except testing which I also do starting the code from remote and going to the TV to "interact" with the software) using telnet, Visual Studio.NET (thanks to the use of plink), GSVNC and SVVUDB (the VU debugger).

You can see the GS's output and the whole VRAM thanks to a tool called GSVNC (frame-buffers, Z-buffer, etc...): there is a VNC server on PlayStation 2 and you connect with a TightVNC client to it.

Prepare to reboot the PlayStation 2 a lot though (well, there are tricks you can do to minimize the number of effective reboots... such as commenting the instruction that starts the actual DMA transfer or commenting out the xgkick instruction in the VU code so no data is sent to the GS, using tons of assert commands, etc...) . If you lock the GS or if you mess the DMA chain up you will need to reboot (if the DMA chain orders the DMAC to write over an area already used by the Linux kernel then Linux will crash).

If you and your friend want to join Ourumov and I we can work something out .

 

[slayn]

I wouldn't want to join right now (and I doubt my roomate would be interested in buying a ps2 linux kit) as writing 1 game while still in school is enough thanks =P

but its something to consider during the summer. This of course assumes our game is done then. I'm hoping people like our gba game. I got to learn from all my problems at IGGS so as to avoid so many problems this time through. Plus we did it in C++ and made it as object oriented as possible which has made it much more smooth. Was planning on releasing the .gba rom on GAF or elsewhere in June or so.

Graphics are difficult but I've made a lot of pre-rendered stuff that looks at least halfway decent on the screen. Sound is such a problem though. I'm hoping before the end we can find someone capable of making their own music. I've made all kinds of games in RPG-maker and the like but I always hated my music and sound effets because I had steal them from somewhere else and someone inevitably goes, "hey! that song if from x." I want at least 1 game of my own creation where all craetive aspects were made specifically for it and none of it is stolen from elsewhere.

Ps2 programming extremely interests me though simply because of how hard it sounds. And if I want a job in the video game business I'd imagine it would be extremely beneficial to into an interview saying, "yup, I have both gba and ps2 experience. Programming for ps2 isn't that bad once you get to know it."

So I'll definitely consider that offer once our own game is done.

 

[gofreak]

Hmm..looks like I've a bit of a hunt ahead of me to find a cheaper old model PS2. I've looked on Amazon, and there are only traders selling them for over €300! Crikey..