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Playstation 2 Innards, Annotated

Posted by timothy on from the the-guts-of-the-thing dept.

Kenneth writes: "Firingsquad.com just released a really hefty technical article explaining exactly how the PS2 works. It goes into detail about the number of FMAC/FDIV units each PS2 processor contains vs. other computing platforms, and actually delves into more than just the graphics capabilities of the machine." The article also addresses some of the corporate / technological history of how that cute blue box came to be cooler than hula-hoops.

5 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. The article doesn't know what FMAC stands for! by RealTime · · Score: 3

    FMAC does not stand for Floating-Point Multiply-Adder Calculator. FMAC is short for floating-point multiply-accumulator. A MAC operation is a multiply followed by an accumulation. It is used to add the product of two factors to an existing sum, such as when computing the dot product of two vectors. MAC instructions are pretty common on DSPs where they are used in various signal processing applications.

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    Yesterday it worked; today it is not working; Windows is like that...

  2. Progression by tritrium · · Score: 3

    I don't see why everybody is so excited about the hardware of all these next generation video game consoles. It really seems like the software is the most important thing. Games that were released with the PS1 are nothing compared to Gran Turismo 2 or the new Tony Hawk. Remember these games are running on 5 or 6 year old technology, and the graphics are not too shabby. Why don't we focus on developing software for these consoles rather than arguing about polygons per second capabilities.

  3. Improper Slashdot article icon for Games? by AFCArchvile · · Score: 3

    The icon for the "Games" topic in Slashdot is a picture of the N64 controller. However, it is widely known that most Slashdotters are biased towards the PlayStation and the PS2. Why haven't I heard other people complain about this? (No, apathy is not a legitimate reason.)

    --
    "Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
  4. Read Ars technica articles: by skeurto · · Score: 3

    Okay, honestly I haven't made it all the way through the article, but it seems like a watered down version of two previous Ars Technica articles (they used the same source, so its not surprising.

    emotion engine overview

    ps2 vs pc

    -brian

  5. Architecture by Animats · · Score: 3
    Great comment in the article: The significant skill, effort, and experience required for developers to reach the full potential of the PS2 will be financially and intellectually taxing. If the PS2 was released by a company other than Sony, it would be doomed; developers would switch to a different platform in a second.

    Yeah. Only a dominant player in the market could force an architecture like that on developers. You can't port much to those vector units; you have to redesign for the platform.

    The X-box, on the other hand, is very vanilla. It's an x86 PC with an nVidia graphics controller. Of course, the big problem with the X-box will be manufacturing them cheaply enough.