Crossplatform Titles Shortchanging PlayStation 2's Performance?

Thanks to GamerFeed for their new story noting that Sony Europe's research, using their 'performance analyzer', on the latest PS2 games. According to the piece: "The secret (or not so secret) way to unleash the PS2's power is to use its vector units (VUs)... of course, the games that used the VUs fared much better, and the game that scored highest did indeed use the VUs the most." An previous AnandTech analysis of the PS2's hardware explains a little further: "The power of the two VUs exists in the proper use of them as serial counterparts in handling the T&L calculations necessary during 3D rendering, but with the PS2 being... dramatically different from what most developers had seen in the past, getting the most out of the host CPU was quite difficult." The original article, in UK magazine PSM, concludes by pointing out: "A lot of the games that don't really use vector units are ports from other systems."

Comments

The same can probably be said for the rest

[Dark Nexus]

While there don't seem to be any studies to back this up for the other consoles, I doubt that many cross-platform games found on the X-Box or GameCube have any optimization for those particular platforms.

Really, I doubt the PS2 is the only console who's power isn't being fully used.

Re:The same can probably be said for the rest

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I think more what you'll find is the developers will take advantage of the features of one system, then port the game to the others, just leaving out things that don't directly translate, rather than trying to find ways to impliment them differently.

I really noticed this with Grandia II. It looked great on the Dreamcast. But when the PS2 version came out. It really did appear that the developers did what I said above. Anything they couldn't quickly port, was just removed.

Of course all the GCN ports now are getting cheesy GBA tie-ins. But that isn't taking advantage of what the system offers in my opinion, it is just offering a gimic.

This is one of the reasons for Linux kit

[Kris_J]

Sony is heavily promting development of software that uses the VUs through their Linux development community. I bought the kit a while back, but I don't really have the right skill set to play with them. I'd love to see if, say, a Distributed.Net client could be optimised for them.

Um?

[unclethursday]

"A lot of the games that don't really use vector units are ports from other systems."

Funny, most muti-platform games are designed on the PS2 FIRST, not last. There's two I can think of, though: Splinter Cell (which really did look good on all three consoles), and Wreckless: the Yakuza Missions (which is just a shitty game, period).

There're very few that go from GC to PS2 or Xbox to PS2. Normally they're either PS2 to Xbox or GC, or they are developed at the same time for all the consoles that the game will launch on.

So, I wonder how many games equates to 'a lot?'

Not an attempt at trolling...

[orthancstone]

Perhaps this is a sign to Sony that the next console should be less complicated with its graphics. The Xbox is probably easy enough consider its DirectX basis and the Gamecube architecture uses one graphics chip rather than a convoluted parallized two chip system.

While the PS 2 may have a powerful, robust graphics core because of this design, as has been pointed out: Does every company have the time to make use of the specifics, or are they going to do the least amount of work possible when porting to make a game playable and not horrendous looking?

If cross-platform gaming continues to become a huge trend, it would be in Sony's best interest to try and simplify some parts of its graphics to make the best parts of it more accessible to developers that perhaps don't have all the time they need to port the game as well as they should.

In the meantime, though, Sony has a large amount of exclusive content...so they shouldn't be too worried about whether or not they are getting optimization for cross-platform games. People are sure to still buy them but they most likely will definitely pay attention to kick ass exclusive games for being even better.

(PS-If that sounded like complete crap, eh, oh well :/ )

Re:Not an attempt at trolling...

[brotherscrim]

Of course at the moment they've only just announced that their console can maybe swing 60fps at about 800x600 or less. Hello, Sony, the early 90's called, they want their framerates back.

Of course, that framerate and resolution is already twice what 95% of all televisions in the US is capable of doing...

Performance Analyzer presentation

[antime]

I'm not sure it's this the article is referring to, but here's lecture slides on the performance analyzer from the Game Developer's Conference 2003 that includes some case studies.

For more info, look at the other docs on SCEA's R&D site and SCEE Technology Group's site.