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[Squeak]

Where the hell did you get that from?

From any spec sheet on GC and PS2 around the web.

 

[deadhorse32]

From any spec sheet on GC and PS2 around the web.

GC video memory = Framebuffer + Zbuffer (All the textures are in the very fast 24MB 1T-RAM pool)

PS2 video memory = framebuffer + ZBuffer + all the textures (since it's very small you have to move textures around)

 

[jarrod]

jarrod - One developer's comments aren't enough to immediately put the PSP dev suite at the same level as the original PS2 dev suite. The overall tenor of developer response to the PSP dev suite has certainly been far more positive than the response to the initial PS2 dev suite. You can't simply latch onto the early dev environment of the PS2 as the definition of the trend in Sony's Playstation dev efforts.

Well, I didn't mean to imply that PSP's suite is at the same (horrible) level as PS2 early on, just that it's similarly problematic or below par. And PSP should've been relataively simple too, we're dealing with 1998-2000 capabilites here and an Open GL environment.

There's definietely a trend here though, in that SCEI obviously can't deliver proper toolsets for hardware launches. I don't really expect a miraculous change for PS3 in that regard.

 

[kaching]

Based on Koei's comments?!?

 

[Insertia]

I can't believe people wishing for that. It always amaze me. You all must be Nbots or something.
What's the use to invest in 4 controller port (and probably influence the price of the console) for the 4-5 games that will use it?? And what's more, almost any 4 player split-screen games the screens are too small and it sucks.
Man buy yourself a multitap if you play some 4 player games. I prefer 2 controller port and playing splitscreen in 2 with other people splitscreen in 2 online.

" the more controller ports the better "? lololololololololol

yah, i agree. :/
the demand for 4 controller ports isn't high. sony would be better off with two ports keeping the cost down and size of the unit smaller.

 

[DrLazy]

I can't believe people wishing for that. It always amaze me. You all must be Nbots or something.
What's the use to invest in 4 controller port (and probably influence the price of the console) for the 4-5 games that will use it?? And what's more, almost any 4 player split-screen games the screens are too small and it sucks.
Man buy yourself a multitap if you play some 4 player games. I prefer 2 controller port and playing splitscreen in 2 with other people splitscreen in 2 online.

" the more controller ports the better "? lololololololololol

That is the most insane logic I have ever heard. An Nbot? Please. Only a diehard Sony fanboy would even try to defend Sony's decision not to include 4 controller ports on the PS2. I'm imagining you are the type of gamer who plays strange imported Japanese RPG's by yourself in your mother's basement. Some of us are social gamers. And I don't mean belonging to a Counter Strike clan when I say social gamer.

Have you ever played Halo splitscreen? Bomberman, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Monkey Ball, any First Person Shooter, 4 player sports games, Super Smash Brothers, Godzilla, anything?

Gamecube and Xbox are known as the party game systems, and if Sony wants to continue to give up that crown for the sake of a few pennies, it's their loss. No 4 player ports = less games that take advantage of it.

 

[soundwave05]

What I would expect from Playstation 3...

Advantages:

- Most powerful next-gen console
- Blu-Ray format
- Backwards compatibility with PS2
- Built-In Eye Toy Camera
- WiFi Link to PSP (connectivity!!! heh)

Downsides:

- Same basic controller
- Tougher architecture to program for initially
- They may still stick with the 2 controller ports (ugh)
- Possibly limited Blu-Ray functionality (ie: not recordable)

Basically almost the same as the PS2, except I think the PS3 will be more powerful than Revolution or Xenon. I don't think Kutaragi is going to invest that kind of capital in CELL and watch it get outperformed by off the shelf parts. Not launching 18 months before the other guys will help Sony tech-wise obviously.

I think Sony will come correct this time out with at least one killer launch title though. I think they do know that they have to step their game up, not only with the hardware but with their launch offerings.

 

[CrimsonSkies]

"a dumbshit who comes up with retarded consipracy theories"

Sounds like the political debates on the other forum.

 

[Gantz]

Strengths (umm..)
-3rd party support.
-Dual Shock 3?

Weaknesses
-Already mentioned (loading times, 2-controller ports, memory cards etc..)
-Shitty hardware components.
-Price.
-Launch shortage.
-Shitty launch titles.
-Largest library of shovelware.
-Knowing sony, they'll waste the hard drive again.

 

[soundwave05]

If the Blu-Ray is rewritable I think a HDD would just be an optional thing.

If the price is $299.99 again (likely), considering the Blu-Ray functionality, the thing would be a friggin' steal. Kutaragi is probably crazy enough to do it (look at the PSP and PS2).

I don't mind the DS2, but for crying out loud, lets get some analog triggers and some better analog joysticks please. Overall I think the XBox Type-S is a better controller than the DS2.

 

[mrklaw]

GC video memory = Framebuffer + Zbuffer (All the textures are in the very fast 24MB 1T-RAM pool)

PS2 video memory = framebuffer + ZBuffer + all the textures (since it's very small you have to move textures around)

Nope. Exactly the same. PS2 keeps all its textures in the 32MB main memory, and transfers them to the 4MB video memory as they are needed. (At least, thats a good way to get lots of textures on screen)

You have plenty of bandwidth to transfer lots of textures per frame into VRAM, display them, then throw them away and transfer more over. So the VRAM in PS2 is never needed to do anymore than hold the textures for one or two models at a time.

 

[Midas]

Strengths (umm..)
-3rd party support.
-Dual Shock 3?

Weaknesses
-Already mentioned (loading times, 2-controller ports, memory cards etc..)
-Shitty hardware components.
-Price.
-Launch shortage.
-Shitty launch titles.
-Largest library of shovelware.
-Knowing sony, they'll waste the hard drive again.

Haha, you dont like Sony, do you?

 

[Do The Mario]

What weaknesses / strengths do you expect from PS3?

I think the ps2 will be strong against water type but weak against fire.

 

[Kon Tiki]

I think the ps2 will be strong against water type but weak against fire.

Haha.

 

[DCharlie]

Strengths
-3rd party support.
-Fantastic image
-Link up with PSP
-Bluray support for larger games and movies
-Launch title program expect to be stronger than before
-expected to look stylish
-Japanese support pretty much guaranteed
-Sony may decide to chew lots of costs again
-Backwards compatability (DVDs and PS2/PS1 games)
-if online infrastructure eventually gets into place, an amazing collection of Music/movie/documentaries potentially available for download.
-finally a move away from memory cards to memory sticks, increasing the interoperability with other devices (PSP for game saves,
-PSP to be used as a controller a la the GBA for some sports games

Weaknesses
-Unit may not be demonstratably (initially) more powerful than the Xbox 2
-Expectation of their own hype may weigh heavy this time if the above point is not obviously dismissed.
-Initial support for Xbox 2 and price comparison of both machines may help sway western gamers towards the Xbox 2.
-will sony be willing to roll out a big first party title at launch ? (GT5 / Three-co)
-Very far behind Xbox Live interms of a compotent online service
-legacy controllers may stunt the design?

 

[cybamerc]

Nope. Exactly the same.

If it's programmed for it.

 

[ourumov]

Nope. Exactly the same. PS2 keeps all its textures in the 32MB main memory, and transfers them to the 4MB video memory as they are needed. (At least, thats a good way to get lots of textures on screen)

You have plenty of bandwidth to transfer lots of textures per frame into VRAM, display them, then throw them away and transfer more over. So the VRAM in PS2 is never needed to do anymore than hold the textures for one or two models at a time.

Bandwith in PS2 is very huge but if PS2 could adress textures from main RAM you would have more resources to work with.
The whole design makes you have the need to sync textures-models so you cannot send a chunk of model to GS unless GS already has the texture. Using PATH2+3 for textures and PATH1 for models is a good solution to it but you are never maximizing the bandwith, just wasting it.

 

[mrklaw]

Bandwith in PS2 is very huge but if PS2 could adress textures from main RAM you would have more resources to work with.
The whole design makes you have the need to sync textures-models so you cannot send a chunk of model to GS unless GS already has the texture. Using PATH2+3 for textures and PATH1 for models is a good solution to it but you are never maximizing the bandwith, just wasting it.

I'm not saying it couldn't be better - its both a strength and a weakness IMO, but the architecture is clearly designed for that method of operation - it should just have been more automated

If it's programmed for it.

Heaven forbid someone actually program a console the way its meant to be programmed. But still, I get your point.

 

[Panajev2001a]

And PSP should've been relataively simple too, we're dealing with 1998-2000 capabilites here and an Open GL environment.

Seriously, PSP is simplier as it allow a good abstraction layer to be used efficiently, but that does not mean that the abstraction layer is trivial to design.

 

[Raven.]

Strength:
superb image quality
best gphx
ability to play Blu-ray movies
b/w compatibility
two controller ports

Weakness
not enough for everybody(around launch time)
could use more ram.
Higher dev. costs(due to next gen gphx, physics, and the like)

 

[jarrod]

Based on Koei's comments?!?

Sure, it's not like we're hearing loads of glowing comments from around the world concerning PSP's development environment to dispute them. What should we base our comments on besides those we've heard?

 

[mrklaw]

how about not basing them on anything except how good the games are?

While its nice to have a simple dev. environment, its not the only part of the equation.

eg, if PS3 was a fucking nightmare, and you had to code in assembler, lots of companies would still develop for it if the userbase was there.

The 'ease of development' thing is really something MS and Nintendo need to lower the barrier of entry for developing on their consoles and help to compete against Sony's.

Although Sony do seem to have heeded the developers calls since PS2, and have better tools for PSP (and hopefully PS3)

 

[Fafalada]

Sure, it's not like we're hearing loads of glowing comments from around the world concerning PSP's development environment to dispute them. What should we base our comments on besides those we've heard?

I'm not gonna argue that PSP tools are ideal or anything - but at early stages all SDKs have plenty of bugs to pass around, be they GC, DC, XBox doesn't matter. And hardware kinks are usually still being worked out too - it's not exactly public knowledge but hardware pretty much always ships with a few bugs that never get fixed.
Granted they are usually more a nuissance then any serious problem.

But anyway, you lumped PSP together with PS2, as OPPOSED to PS1, and that's just wrong really. You seem to be making an assumption that because PS1 didn't receive many complaints, the tools were perfect, which is far from true.
It's the competition that was much much worse - with Saturn tools being comparable to PS2 or worse, and N64 being absurdly expensive and quite below par also, there were good reasons for people to praise PS1 and complain about others.

Anyway, KOEI also seems to be complaining mostly about performance, and well, that could be more hardware issue then anything else. But I wouldn't know really, I didn't touch a hardware kit myself yet.


To try to get back on topic here - as I listed in my PS3 pro/cons and everyone apparently ignored, we're very likely going to have significant input from IBM in the toolsets - and as I pointed out that could be both a good or bad thing...

 

[jarrod]

I'm not gonna argue that PSP tools are ideal or anything - but at early stages all SDKs have plenty of bugs to pass around, be they GC, DC, XBox doesn't matter. And hardware kinks are usually still being worked out too - it's not exactly public knowledge but hardware pretty much always ships with a few bugs that never get fixed.
Granted they are usually more a nuissance then any serious problem.

Evidently, Nintendo handled the DS kits just fine according to Koei. And while I believe you concerning GC/DC/Xbox kits probably being a little buggy early on, we simply don't have any concrete documentation supporting that from the development community... unless you're saying the DC/GC/Xbox kits you've worked on personally were buggy?

But anyway, you lumped PSP together with PS2, as OPPOSED to PS1, and that's just wrong really. You seem to be making an assumption that because PS1 didn't receive many complaints, the tools were perfect, which is far from true.
It's the competition that was much much worse - with Saturn tools being comparable to PS2 or worse, and N64 being absurdly expensive and quite below par also, there were good reasons for people to praise PS1 and complain about others.

First off I reiterated my stance that PSP & PS2 being lumped together doesn't imply the same degree of imperfection, but rather they're both "below par" for what should be delivered. PS1 evidently wasn't.

Second of all, you're raising an interesting issue regarding rating dev suite by comparison. I do remember some complaints about the early PS1 dev systems not allowing "to the metal" access but yes they were clearly the best at the time. Similarly the PS2 tools were the worst off the bat compared to everything else. And now with DS and PSP, Koei's clearly happy with one toolset and complaining about there other.

Anyway, KOEI also seems to be complaining mostly about performance, and well, that could be more hardware issue then anything else. But I wouldn't know really, I didn't touch a hardware kit myself yet.

They're still admitedly disatafied with the development kits though, no way around that. Fortunately kits get revisions and progress over time, their hardware capability concerns are a little more troubling I'll agree.

 

[kaching]

jarrod, saying there are bugs in a dev suite is like saying the sun will come out tomorrow. It's obvious, expected. It would be simply unprecedented for a software suite as complex and versatile as a dev kit to be bug free. THAT would be something worth trumpeting from mountaintops if true. Koei's DS guy doesn't say anything about bugs, but he doesn't say anything about it being bug free either.

They're still admitedly disatafied with the development kits though

Outside of mentioning the bugs, most of his comments spoke to how the hardware didn't work as much like a PS2 as expected, not the dev kits. And I'm not really sure it can be construed as dissatisfaction since he was answering a direct question about whether there were any issues with the port.

 

[jarrod]

jarrod, saying there are bugs in a dev suite is like saying the sun will come out tomorrow. It's obvious, expected. It would be simply unprecedented for a software suite as complex and versatile as a dev kit to be bug free. THAT would be something worth trumpeting from mountaintops if true. Koei's DS guy doesn't say anything about bugs, but he doesn't say anything about it being bug free either.

I think it's safe to say Koei finds the DS kits/tools to be more satasfactory than the PSP kits/tools none the less. Going by their published comments anyway. Meaning PSP is again bottom of the heap with PS2, and unlike PS1 comparatively. It's smaller heap sure, but it's why the comparison I made is valid.

Again, I'm just not sure advanced development environments are really Sony's strong suit. In fact we've heard nothing but complaints in regards to their last two hardware platforms concerning them. Given this trend, I don't really feel too out of bounds suggesting PlayStation 3 will most likely suffere the same fate, especially given it's nontraditional architecture.

Also, any documentation regarding DC/GC/Xbox kits being similarly buggy early on would be appreciated. Not that I don't think it's possible, likely even... but something more than reitering "that's just the way things are" would be nice.

Outside of mentioning the bugs, most of his comments spoke to how the hardware didn't work as much like a PS2 as expected, not the dev kits. And I'm not really sure it can be construed as dissatisfaction since he was answering a direct question about whether there were any issues with the port.

If the tools were satasfactory though, then why bring up the complaints at all? It's not as if the toolsets were asked about specifically (as they were in the DS interview).

Sorry, I don't think my conclusion was at all off base given the evidence.

 

[Squeak]

Bandwith in PS2 is very huge but if PS2 could adress textures from main RAM you would have more resources to work with.
The whole design makes you have the need to sync textures-models so you cannot send a chunk of model to GS unless GS already has the texture. Using PATH2+3 for textures and PATH1 for models is a good solution to it but you are never maximizing the bandwith, just wasting it.

If you are double or triple buffering the texture buffer, then you should in theory be able to get very close to max utilisation of bandwidth.

 

[kaching]

I think it's safe to say Koei finds the DS kits/tools to be more satasfactory than the PSP kits/tools none the less. Going by their published comments anyway. Meaning PSP is again bottom of the heap with PS2, and unlike PS1 comparatively. It's smaller heap sure, but it's why the comparison I made is valid.

Fair enough, but that's neither an empirical measure of how in/significant the gap is, nor does it take into account the differences in the expectations of these two teams and their subsequent approaches to the hardware. Notably, the PSP crew was going into their project with high expectations for performance very similar to the PS2 outing of DW4, while the DS team doesn't even sound like they expect to use 3d much, if at all.

Again, I'm just not sure advanced development environments are really Sony's strong suit. In fact we've heard nothing but complaints in regards to their last two hardware platforms concerning them.

Nothing but complaints, regarding the PSP? The likes of Backbone (Death Jr.), Planet Moon, Criterion and the coder for a couple of the E3 PSP demos certainly haven't done nothing but complain, in fact they've done pretty much the opposite.

Given this trend, I don't really feel too out of bounds suggesting PlayStation 3 will most likely suffere the same fate, especially given it's nontraditional architecture.

I don't think its out of bounds to suggest this, just not based on a trend that hasn't been established to any reasonable degree of credibility yet

Also, any documentation regarding DC/GC/Xbox kits being similarly buggy early on would be appreciated. Not that I don't think it's possible, likely even... but something more than reitering "that's just the way things are" would be nice.

Since you were the one to initially suggest that Sony needed to provide an "efficient bug free dev suite" why don't you provide evidence that these other kits have all been bug free?

If the tools were satasfactory though, then why bring up the complaints at all? It's not as if the toolsets were asked about specifically (as they were in the DS interview).

Different strokes for different folks...note that the DS guy has had experience developing for both and he doesn't say anything about the bugs, just that one is more prepared than the other.