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[tenchir]

I do NOT believe this, it's just doesn't make sense unless like someone mentioned before, the games that last 8 hours are very simplistic like may be a 2D puzzle game. Unlike they meant 8 hours with the battery extension addon?

 

[Phoenix]

Sure, if thats how you write your games. But if that results in getting 1.5 hours, and writing games that load the whole level into memory and only spin up to load the next level - then you get 5 hours, I know what I'd recommend if I were Sony.

So... how much memory does the PSP have? (2MB VRAM, 8MB Main) We will assume that you don't have a WiFi game because that by nature must drain energy at a 100% rate. Now subtract the frame buffer * 2 ( 480x272x24 bits per pixel * 2) at a minimum just to render a screen. Now subtract memory for the textures. Next subtract some for the geometry. Hmmm... lemme guess, you're dipping into main memory at best. How large are most GBA carts? Are they larger or smaller than the memory of the PSP? Anyways, subtract a little bit more for all of the objects in the game. Some more for the LUTs. And then subtract some for those little intangibles like the music, your AI tables or state machines, and of course... the GAME itself. Now if you think you can fit an entire game engine, all its textures, and level into memory, and never have to during that level fetch data or perform a malloc - then you're very good.... better than most PS2 programmers.

 

[KickyFast]

PSP has 32 MB of main memory.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

maybe its some techie thing thats over my head, but does it not make sense to anyone else that playing UMD movies would be so much more battery intensive than playing a UMD game? Aren't they pretty much the same as far as how much the screen and battery would have to work?

 

[Fularu]

Music playback is from memory stick.. there's no spinning involved...

10 hours of music, without a spinning disc, without a screen and up to 8 hours for a game? Are they talking about that Warp black game or what?

 

[human5892]

maybe its some techie thing thats over my head, but does it not make sense to anyone else that playing UMD movies would be so much more battery intensive than playing a UMD game? Aren't they pretty much the same as far as how much the screen and battery would have to work?

A movie would have to constantly be read from the UMD disc, whereas a game could have portions loaded to RAM. Therefore, there's more mechanical action going on during the movie, so it eats up the battery lots quicker.

 

[mrklaw]

So... how much memory does the PSP have? (2MB VRAM, 8MB Main) We will assume that you don't have a WiFi game because that by nature must drain energy at a 100% rate. Now subtract the frame buffer * 2 ( 480x272x24 bits per pixel * 2) at a minimum just to render a screen. Now subtract memory for the textures. Next subtract some for the geometry. Hmmm... lemme guess, you're dipping into main memory at best. How large are most GBA carts? Are they larger or smaller than the memory of the PSP? Anyways, subtract a little bit more for all of the objects in the game. Some more for the LUTs. And then subtract some for those little intangibles like the music, your AI tables or state machines, and of course... the GAME itself. Now if you think you can fit an entire game engine, all its textures, and level into memory, and never have to during that level fetch data or perform a malloc - then you're very good.... better than most PS2 programmers.

Sure, some modern games stream data, but mostly they stream from main memory into VRAM and not from the DVD. Size of VRAM was the killer issue with PS2. But that was 3 years ago, and is mostly overcome now.

So even if devs follow the same model, they'll be streaming from main memory into VRAM, not spinning the UMD. The few games on PS2 that do actually access the disc all the time will just not work efficiently on PSP without reworking them.

 

[Phoenix]

Well this will be interesting to see. THose games will suck ass or repeat the same tired textures over and over because the texture budget for any modern game is far larger than 32MB.

 

[MrSingh]

yes, game time = 8 hours...

if game time = masturbation.

 

[explodet]

Now you've all got me wondering how many "loading" screens we're going to see on the PSP.