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PlayStation Portable Chip Details
boarder8925 writes "The Register posted an article today that detailed the PlayStation Portable's chip specs. The CPU will run at up to 333MHz, and its frontside bus at up to 166MHz. The graphics system, operating across a 512-bit bus, will be capable of rendering 664m pixels per second and 35m polygons per second. Its core, operating at 166MHz, will include 2MB integrated buffer DRAM."
Granted, my understanding of electronics isn't what it should be, but I always find it amazing that the processors used in these things can be so slow considering the requirements of most PC software these days.
On a pure polygon basis, that's ~50% of a PS/2 in your pocket or about ~25% of an Xbox in pure polygon performance.
Naturally, these are meaningless numbers...but if does give you a hint (especially given the pixel real estate being small) that the PSP will have proper, immersive 3D gaming capability...which I guess has been shown to good effect with the GT4 demo.
-psy
seriously, this things is gonna draw way too much juice. 333mhz processors, huge screen, optical drive, etc... No matter how good the systems specs are, if battery life doesn't cut it, its going to be smoke by gameboy.
I hate to break all your dream, but technology has moved forward quite a bit since the Gamegear... Both for batteries AND power consumption.
The latest PocketPCs are using a Xscale at 600+MHz and they have HOURS of autonomy. My older Dell PDA (only a 300MHz Xscale) can play games for 6+ hours before needing a recharge (and using a PSX emulator with games on a microdrive)) and the battery was not even that impressive. I could watch a movie for ~1.5h.
Sure, they may not reach the portability level of a GBA (which itself is years behind a Palm, that could live MONTHS on 2 AAA), but it may be *enough*.
Then again, maybe not... so, wait and see...
I get 11 hours off my MiniDisc with a freshly charged 1300mAH battery. Thing is, MiniDisc keeps the juice consumption down by a number of tricks: the drive spin up is VERY slow (takes a couple of seconds) and it reads in burst and plays from memory.
I don't know if this would work well on a game console.
gah, hate to reply to myself, should have used preview.... forgot a chunk of what I was going to say
You also have to consider that this hardware is designed specifically for games. Standard pc hardware is very general in nature, but console hardware is not standard PC hardware, it's put together to be able to perform in exactly the ways where games need performance.
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RTFA:
When playing Gran Turismo 4, it's going to suck down the batteries. Bring your AC or DC adapter, depending on where you're going to be. Maybe even invest in a jacket with a goofy solar panel on it or something. Or, here's an idea, a battery pack that goes in your pocket and feeds the system through the charging socket. However, if you're playing GBA-esque games which will mostly fit in memory and demand little CPU, the system will scale peformance down to preserve battery.
If you can afford a PSP you can afford an external battery pack. Further tidbits:
Not using wifi? It'll be shut off. Not using IR? ditto. Not currently loading anything off the disc? It's not going to be sucking power.
It would be foolish to assume that battery power will be a non-issue but I suspect it will not be anywhere near as bad as the lynx - Sony is not incompetent - and I'm certain that it will not be as bad as you imagine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That has been contested.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
But they're promoting GT4 on the PSP as the killer app...
Also, they promised you'd be able to transfer saves of many games between PS2 and PSP, which only makes sense if the game the saves belong to is a port, no?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I'm just looking forward to playing games with a little more action and carnage. You just don't find games like Twisted Metal and Grand Theft Auto on the GBA.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men... --Willy Wonka
A lot of comments here have focused on battery life. I think that the integrated chipset may have another potential benefit. It may make the PSP easier to develop for. If this is the case, it will give the PSP a better chance of competing with the GBA and the DS. It has already been reported that Gran Turismo for the PSP will be a nearly straight port from the PS2 version. Assuming this is not overly difficult, it means that the PSP should be able to draw on the large library of PSOne and PS2 games for its first generation. Hopefully some brand new stuff will be made too, but living off of ports isn't so bad in the first year.
Ease of development was a big plus for the original Playstation. And the initial difficulty of development hobbled the PS2 (killed Saturn). Hopefully Sony is designing the PSP with development considerations in mind. Of course those batteries had better last more than a couple of hours too!
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The main things is that the GC does not read DVD formatted discs, even mini ones. You would actually have to change the frequency of the laser, or connect a DVD drive to it through some hook-up to get it to do that, and of course, that would stop the cube from reading real GC discs. I do find it kind of funny that when Nintendo finally switched to optical discs, they got it right the first time, when it comes to stopping piracy. Nobody else have managed that.
Nintendo has had years to perfect the design of the gameboy. sony may be a bit naive by trying to cram in too much power into a battery-sucking device.
they need to balance power vs battery life