Slashdot Mirror
First Playstation 2 Screenshots
Catgut sent us
a collection of early screenshots from the
playstation 2.
Another generation forward... remember intellivision?
Wow we've come a ways. Update: 03/02 07:28 by S :
RPGamer is reporting that the development OS for the
PSX2 will be Linux. That doesn't mean the PSX will run Linux
though, just that the tools will run on Linux.
Please
PS First
/.-ed already
Intellivision still rules - and I still play mine.
You can keep all those *yawn* drawn-out role playing games, been-done shoot 'em ups, and brain-dead 2-player fighting games. They require little real skill. Now Vectron - now THERE's a REAL GAME.
-Josh
22 and already a grissled old gamer
Is that 32-bit color or 16-bit?
What's the resolution? Anyone know?
"...system will hit sometime in Winter 99 (meaning between January and March)..."
Isn't it march already?
(The Slashdot Effect has taken hold...)
I thought the whole point of the playstation's standard libraries was that most games could be run directly on the playstation 2 hardware. That means that playstation 2 has thousands of titles and a great many top-notch developers.
Yeah, right, sure.
What every mother wants to buy her kid for christmas is a $399 PC against a $100+ console. It's not as if the console has 0 set-up time. No need to worry about frigging the HD up. No worries about it being out of date quite so quick.
Come on. The consoles are cheap, reliable, fun, easy to use. They're very fit for a purpose.
Go here to see what this puppy is all about:
http://www.psxnation.com/news/030299c.html
It's coming out in Japan this winter (around March 2000) and it will be on this side of the ocean by Fall 2000. Development systems will begin shipping to developers this spring.
www.gaming-edge.com got slashdoted ? :_)
Yeah, I also have to agree that you're the only one. I'm just to tired to go into the myriad reasons why yet again. Try dejanews.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Um, try reading the text.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
What's interesting is that these shots were manipulated in real-time. As for mirrors, you can visit the numerous gaming websites for pics. Luckily I've viewed these ones before posting them :-) The Gran Turismo demo looks amazing.
http://www.gamefan.com/
http://www.videogames.com/
http://www.next-generation.com/
http://www.gaming-age.com/
http://psx.ign.com/
These japanese guys have the strange custom of starting the
year in april...
Lets all run out and waste some more money on something that we can only play games on. Sure they might be cool games and graphics but I'll take a good computer game over one made for a dedicated machine anyday!
hey...anybody wanna buy a playstation? lol
This is getting quite annoying. Linux is good, but it's getting fucking out of hand with all these l33t wanna be linux hax0rs. Lets put linux in my toaster, maybe it'll work better, how about linux on my watch, maybe it'll show the time faster.
Consoles are designed for games, although all this talk about putting a modem and net access all in the new consoles is dumb.
Check out this news link: http://www.w-gamez.com
Imagine the kickass Beowulf cluster you could make with these things...
Show me something as fun or cool as Grand Tourismo on your Intellistation.
Sorry, bud, but with the right combination of good hardware and good software you can't beat this system.
http://www.psxnation.com/news/030299a.html
Looks like everyones dream has come true! WOW!
Not nearly a yawn. Tell me a 486dx33 w/ 1mb virge, 2mb of ram, a double speed drive and NO hard drive can play final fantasy 7 or gran turisimo. Thats about what hardware the psx has. It has set hardware that _always_ works with the game. The developer can eek the most out the hardware. Its an easy way for kids to have games. w/o nintendo so long ago, I wouldn't have to come to computers so soon. Its a good game machine. Not a hacking/admining machine. Also, working with limited hardware, forces developers to make better gameplay rather than graphics. You'd never see unreal or quake2 in their release states get shipped on a console.
http://www.psxnation.com/news/030299a.html
love those screenshots...keep the consoles coming
The truth as usual is probably somewhere in the middle. There actually is hardware running that stuff, and Sony is showing it to a lot of major gamedevelopers sometime this week.
:)
But on the other side, most of the actual numbers they give you are not very realistic, and don't have much value. That thing is really NOT going to render 50 million triangles a second. And is never going to achieve it's theoratical FPU performance. But ofcourse, that doesn't make it any less cool.
Looking forward to receiving a devboard
(Hopefully not on Linux. Which seems very unlikely though, more likely is that they are still using GNU tools (mainly gcc), as they always have, and will continue to do so.)
Sony would be very stupid to push thousands of developers used to Windows environments, and who often develop ALSO for windows, into Linux.
i mirrored it on my fortunecity site. FC should have the bandwidth to handle y'all. Besides: this looks sooo cool. http://www.fortunecity.com/s kyscraper/solomon/579/ps2/
What do you mean? The PS/2 has a full line of microchannel expansion products available for it. Look down at your local flea market for some 16/4 Token Ring cards, they oughta work.
TCP/IP may be somewhat more of a problem. I believe IBM sells a TCP/IP add-on for the OS/2 1.2 operating system, but it runs about $300.
This isn't very likely. They are probably just still using the GNU tools. Forcing developers into a new dev environment would be a very bad idea. 99% of the current playstation devevelopers develop in Windows, and use Win editors and tools like CodeWright,MS-DevStudio, and SourceSafe. Most of them are also very happy with that, and would just hope that Sony would sort out their tools so they would work on NT.
PS2 requiring Linux for development would piss most of them of, and just a bit. Suddenly you'd have to leave the platform you are used to, and happy with. (Yes we reboot once a day, big deal.)
So nope, doubtful that Sony will do this.
Are we sure this doesn't mean they use Linux as a development platform, from which they do cross-compiling? This is more common than you think.
Actually almost all PlayStation development right now is done on Win9x. Most of the Sony Tools do not work in NT. (Essentially most of it are DOS tools.)
By swithing to Linux we'd probably win:
- A bit of stability. (Whatever that is worth. Never had my machine crashing when I was just compiling/uploading to PSX/running.)
And we'd lose:
- The basic environment we work in. (Win)
- The development environment we are used to. (CodeWright, Devstudio).
- We'd LOSE to sourcecontrol system we are used to, and works great for us. (SourceSafe).
- We'd lose the ability to run the programs our artists use, or write programs for our artists to use, on our main dev machine. (3DSMax, Photoshop, etc)
- Our artists would lose the ability to run the development tools as well, so they can do quick visual testing.
EtcEtc
Really, it's a bad idea.
Old PSX has 1M of video memory for double buffer and texture maps(2M for arcade version), and is usually set to 320x240. It has a color depth of 16 bits, not 24.
The pictures on that page are probably actual size, given that televisions are terrible for high quality display. There's not much reason to go above 320x240, and your colors will bleed so much that 16 bit color depth looks fine. Then again, memory has gotten cheaper so they're probably 24 or 32 bits now, and maybe even have a zbuffer finally.
Just to let people know, SDony has had developers
making games for this platform for some time now.
If WinNT 5.0 beta 2 was any indication of what Win2k will be like, no, we won't have much of a switch. We'd still have the same development environment, with the same tools, with same programs which the artists use. Just the basic environment in which we can have the full team functioning well and produce quality software.
Win2K will probably be are horrible resource hog, yeah, ok, get me that 512Megs of RAM and 16gig harddrive. Big deal.
Stability? Whow, so I wouldn't have to reboot my machine again each morning. Big deal.
FUD????? Where is the Fear? Where is the Uncertainy? Where is the Doubt? This isn't FUD, it's just misleading!
But the first real asynchronous systems may appear first in your kids' room. Imagine a battery-powered, handheld Sony Playstation with 10 times the performance of today's unit that plugs in the wall. That's the 3-D graphics equivalent of a $30,000 SGI workstation for $100. I am not making this up.
From PBS.org
Will this be possible? Will we need to overburn the 80-minute media to copy PSX2 games?
No, they're saying it has to be a lot less than $800, because that's how much the average PC costs in Japan these days.
My computer is an Indigo2. Now that is beautiful.
1> Uses a graphic chip with integrated DRAM and Logic... Much like IBMs recent announcements this really does enhance performance. However, as the Graphics Processor (Graphics Synthesizer) only has 4MB of RAM, I think the 46GB/s internal bandwidth it's got ain't worth kaka.
Sony said they use some kind of texture compresion and I'm sure this graphics chip
has a _very_ fast connection to main memory;
something like AGP 4x or more likely what SGI
uses in their NT workstations...
Of course you don't get the same thrill from games now as you did back in. Like any experience, you get less excited and more sophisticated about it as time goes on.
I can assure you twenty or so years from now, people will be saying the same thing. Only it will be:
"I remember back before we had full 3d virtual reality with tactile feedback. They were crude polygonal models projected onto a flat tv screen. We had to control them with a little stick and some buttons. But oh, those were the best games I ever played."
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Maybe we need to start thinking of this thing as less of a full-function computer replacement in its own right, and more of a killer peripheral that does the expensive PC bits very well and cheaply.
Really, think about it - this thing will be pretty cheap, and provides killer performance for all the things that make a good 3D/gaming/multimedia PC prohibitively expensive (at least for me...)
With a firewire port, using it as a peripheral is not as crazy an idea as it might seem at first. I think I could get to like something like a Corel Netwinder or stripped-down Sony Slimtop(hint) with this thing handling the MM processing!
Dub Dublin
dub@psw.com
Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would choose linux over beos for intense games. Linux sucks when it comes to 3d. BeOS rocks and rules...
Intelevision rocked, i played Tron Deadly Disk and AD&D for hours! then B-17 bomber some! Flack Flack! target below! never forget the speach in that game :)
If the PSX2 is even AS GOOD as the Dreamcast, Microsoft is screwed. WinCE is loosing to PalmOS on the PDA front, and nobody in thier right mind trusts it for embeded apps. And hey, we all know what kind of "problems" M$ is having with Win2K:)
The Dreamcast is M$ one significant high visibility shot at fame on Computing Appliances. With backwards compatability to origional PSX titles, what current US Playstation owner would bother with a Dreamcast when they will be able to get the PSX2 10 months later?!?!
Just look at those specs people! 32MB of RAM, 4MB Video ram, USB, FireWire, modem... If the "Average" US consumer wants a PC for Games, E-Mail and Web, and perhaps some light word processing, something even close to this could do it. Throw on a USB keyboard, mouse, printer and a USB ZIP or LS120 drive for storage. All that it needs is some small footprint OS + GUI for running the Web Browser software and some Wordproc app. Mr & Mrs joe sixpac of America and thier 1.6 kids are now more than happy. Consistant architecture for sound, video, modem (perhaps even "supported" USB keyboards, mice, etc?) and bye-bye PC hardware conflics and TECH SUPPORT COSTS!!!
Hey Sony, if you're reading, make nice with the system specs once the PSX2 gets released. In return, we promise we'll help sink the Dreamcast faster than the Saturn bombed on it's own:)
Current Playstations, yes. But if you're lucky enough to have an early japanese unit (or an early blue developer's station, not the Yarouze machines, IIRC), you might have S-Video jacks on the rear -- no friggin adapter necessary.
There's an easy solution to your blurring problem -- turn the sharpness controls of your TV/monitor all the way down. People always turn the sharpness all the way up, but that doesn't enhance clarity, it just displays noise that would have otherwise been blurred out. This advice is especially true for high-resolution video devices and low- to mid-range monitors. (If your TV can't be NTSC color-tuned, you know you have a low- to mid-range monitor.) OTOH, if your monitor has a better comb filter than the Playstation does, by all means use composite video.
Firewire seems damn awesome for video, but until I have a monitor with Firewire-ins, I want to see component video outs. Mmm...home theater-y...
BAH, more doom2 spoofed SHIT! I am sick of 3D garbage. Lets see a good old side-scrolling game.
It's not actually all that cheap when you factor in the cost of a television that is worth using it on then you have to add in the controllers and the memory cards....and of course an s-video connector will probably be sold seperatly as well. All in all it's not that much cheaper than buying a computer these days, and computers can be used as your tv as well. Games are better on them, they are endlessly more versitile. The only thing sp2k will be better for is playing multiplayer games with your buddies while sitting back on your couch. I'd rather have a good computer anyday.
yah 400 dollars for the machine itself but then add in the cost of the television that is worth playing it on and it's not all that much cheaper than a decent computer. Get yourself a Celery/a 300+ based system for that cost or less once you add in the tv. Throw in a Voodoo2 or TnT card (go with the TnT) and a tv tuner and you got yourself a tv and a better game machine that can do more than just play. I'm not knockin sony they make gr8 stuff but computers are the better deal.
The most frustrating thing was that there ws no choice. Every time Windows crashed, wiping out half a day's work, one just had to grin and rewrite it. Everytime VTune completely arsed a Windows install, we just had to spend the next six hours reinstalling and reconfiguring.
Oh! And Windows networking! Ha! Yes, I just love copying large files over a busy network and getting random bit errors. Hadn't they heard of checksums? Arrrgh!
Spend two weeks getting used to a Linux-based development environment, and you'll make up that time in 4 months. With fewer tears, too.
Although high resolution and colour depth will be nice when HDTV arrives. Sony's likely got a big hand in that development as well.
-Lord Crass
You're leaving out some critical details. First off, no PC (even with Voodoo 3 and a P3-1GHz) is capable of doing the Squall and Rinoa (FF8 ballroom) dance scene in real time (6.2GFLops is a lot more than intel has managed on 1 CPU). The PSX2 is. That kind of power is unrivaled. But, if you were to take the best PC components currently available (still nowhere near as powerful as P2k), you would be looking at closer to $3,000. And you don't have any games. PSX2 - $400 (maybe less, could be as little as $200-300), uses all old playstation games and peripherals (no need to get new controllers unless you want to upgrade). HDTV support, AC-3 and DTS support (no computer has real time AC-3 encoding, PSX2 does), USB, FireWire, PCMCIA support (so it is highly expandable). Very few PCs have firewire. Essentially, for the cost of tomorrow top-of-the-line PC, you could get a 36" Sony VEGA Trinitron XBR, a Dolby Digital/DTS sound setup, with all the speakers, and a PlayStation 2 (which could double as a DVD player). And of course, you could save $2000 and go with a nice Trinitron TV, rather than the VEGA XBR.
Wow,
I want one of those R3000 LSI-IO controllers for my aging PPro!
Think of it: FireWire, USB, and Playstation Compatability on a single chip.
Sounds like a killer (low-cost) PCI card for PeeCees.....
Wow, put one of those in a Sony Vaio, start selling them for the same price as other P.C.s and those ugly purple boxes may actually start to look attractive.
Which brings up another question: Why doesn't the Sony Vaio have playstation emulation built in to it? How braindead can sony be to over look this way to distinguish their offerings from all the compaq's and gateways of the world.....
Hello???
Were talking about playstation 2 comparing to pcs of today..
what about 2-3 years from now how much is that pc worth then???
pcs are definetly the better deal
low cost
cutting edge tech
all kinds of games available
backups possible
cons are that it takes a while longer to configure game
Dude,
When "B17 Bomber" came out for Intellevision, I
thought that was the greatest game ever. Im only
27, and I can remember when my and and his friends would crowd into a room to play "PONG"
We've come a long way.
Rob.
Doh, Windoze is the ultimate gaming platform right now! And those Linux people use WINE to play our games!!! Bastards.
Quake II has been out for well over a year on Linux and it uses standard audio and standard graphics layers (OSS, which will be replaced by ALSA soon) and OpenGL. If those are not standard, I don't know what is.
You migh have a talk with ID also, since Linux is one of their three main target platforms for Quake Arena. They must be doing something wrong with no standard audio and video API's availabel on Linux, oh dear. Please, don't be fooled by that overhyped MediaOS shit propaganda. True, BeOS handles media better than Linux, but Linux is only starting now (and we don't need multi-million dollar VC investements just for creating "standards" for outputting PCM samples to a soundcard).
Also, the fact that you don't see a lot of games on Linux (yet) is simply because the commercial game companies haven't bothered looking at Linux because of the perceived market share i.e. 6 months ago every game company except ID would have laughed you in the face if you came up with the idea of porting to anything but the MacOS. That is changing now...........................
Forget it. Stick with Dreamcast. It has what you REALLY want:
Windows CE Operating System
DirectX
I only wish I knew where my intellivision is.
Glide lives just below the OpenGL layer so I don't see where Glide comes in. SVGALib is dead or dying. GGI is up and coming I guesd. X had been standard for like what? 10 years? The only "standard" graphics interfaces for games (we are talking games here right?) are DirectX and OpenGL. We all know DirectX sucks, and Linux support OpenGL. What kind of standard do you want more???
:)
And yes I have used BeOS. Hell I *OWN* a BeBox! Do you?? I even programmed for BeOS (since DR8)! And the API is sweet, but it's not magic (like many people seem to think). Linux can use (steal) many nice ideas from BeOS, but saying there are no standard in Linux, just cause you don't happen to use them is just plain foolish, hence the "Ignorant fool" subject
> No, you dont need millions of dollars to create a standard, you just need all developers to agree about which one is best.(Yeah right, Ill probably die before I see that happen in the Linux community).
Are you planning on dying young? Because that's exactly what's happening now.
For some time, I've been a bit bewildered by the lack of games for Linux. I'm not talking about commercial games, either. I realize that the commercial game industry tends to follow whatever platform the media puts their bets on...the number of Mac games was about zero when Apple was being dragged over the coals by the media, and now that the media's slobbering over Jobs, there's a level of magnitude more games. Linux has id, of course...every platform has its hardcore adherents...like the Mac had Bungie. But, commercial games aside, why is there an almost complete vacuum of shareware/freeware games? There's open source *everything* on Linux...except for games.
The Mac (Yes, I do focus on Mac/Linux parallels a lot) has *always* had a huge number of shareware/freeware games. I'd actually say that there are more quality Mac shareware/freeware games than there are Windoze games. Given the do-it-yourself approach on Linux, I'd envision a massive number of top-notch things like these on Linux. There just isn't. Sure, there's a bunch of Rogue clones, and Xconq, frisk, freeciv, and a few other simple things. But where's the Escape Velocity of Linux? There's no Exile or Realmz. (I won't argue about action games...I can understand "speed" games being more difficult to do well in X-windows). But somehow, my gut feeling is that Linux should have quite a few impressive RPGs (no, Virginia, not more Rogue clones) and strategy games (well, there are a *few*). The Gimp is out there. There's sound support. There's rudimentary 3D hardware support freely available. Development tools on Linux...well, that goes without saying. All the tools required are in place. So why no free/shareware games? Where are the independent developers?
Already. pooh.
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Your honor is perfectly understandishable.
foobar
foo
So sign up for mailing lists at golgotha.org! I doubt we are going to be doing 4 bit graphics, but I can tell you that I for one am trying very hard to avoid the instinctive diving for various cliched easy gamedesign options. It'd be great to have more iconoclastic flakes on board ;)
I know that I've spoken at times (sometimes raising eyebrows from Golgotha people) about how the stuff I'm trying to bring to the table will also play into '_my_ game ideas'. It sounds like I'm holding out on Golgotha, but the fact is, I have certain goals involving severely noncommercial games. I can't go into too much detail, call 'em hacker games or serious geek games, or check out Robotwar (dunno how many platforms it is, there is a Mac game of this name and there was an Apple II game of the same design). And I don't care if it's totally crazed and nobody will ever want to play it (as some marketroids would quite justifiably claim), I have been germinating ideas for such uncommercial exploits for a long time now, and am moving steadily closer to the reality of writing 'em.
Naturally, as soon as I'm technically able to release Linux binaries or to make it possible for better pure-coders to port the stuff I'm playing with, it'll be dedicated Linux games, in a very serious way. Until that time I gotta just soldier on with nothing but determination, but damn- I _so_ sympathize, I _so_ agree with this very bleak view of the creativity gap in the game industry. One thing about it, people are learning how to do lovely graphics- guess you gotta work on one thing at a time- the graphics are just marvellous, one day we'll have entertainment beyond just pretty pictures. Current gaming is very much like _cinematography_ as visual impact is increasingly important.
Posted by Charles Bronson:
Nothing beats a console system for gaming. When you buy a console you're guarenteed that any games will work, regardless of how old it is. You don't need to upgrade, etc. Also, since console systems are usually plugged into a TV, and since the TV is usually in a convenient comfortable place, console systems have an edge over a computer, which is hideously ugly and sits on top of a desk, usually uncomfortably.
Posted by stodge:
:)
yes you are. Sorry!
Posted by Ruford:
:-)
Hmm...Sound is the easiest to handle as this
is well supported in the drivers which are
implemented in the kernel level.
The VGA/SVGA code as anyone who has followed the kernel development will know was consciously left out of this arena since well -- you don't need it to operate a system.
As for using X -- yes, that's one way -- but if you take a moment to look at the games actually available for Linux, you'll see that there are plenty that give graphics and don't use X -- most of these us the svgalib package...
So in hindsight--I just have to wonder, what lack of standard graphical interface are you talking about??
Im not sure if you noticed but sony is at the forfront of this whole firewire thing... they are sort of pushing REALY hard for it to be included in absolutely everything
there is no way that it wont be in this.
besides, it may be usefull for expansion and add ons and since they are on the origional firewire licence its probably not that expensive for them to put it in a consumer device like this
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Anybody know what the music from that clip is from (or if it was created just for the clip)? Yeah, the graphics were pretty awesome too.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
My dad worked for Pong for a bit. I remember when I was a little bitty kid, he brought home this big white box and we hooked it up to our 13" Black and white television.
Pong didn't have much of a future, though, they were pretty much a one-trick pony.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
"Sony has stated that the system will hit sometime in Winter 99 (meaning between January and March)."
Huh? No way is this coming out by March 99, and probably not even by March 2000; there hasn't even been any news yet about third-party companies signing on to make games for it. I want this as bad as the next glassy-eyed joystick junkie, but I'd say that Christmas 2000 is a much more likely timeframe for it.
And what's this about "Sony has stated"? As far as I know, they haven't even acknowledged the existence of the thing yet, have they?
Does the current Playstation have S-VIDEO out? Will the new PS2 have it? I just noticed my Mac has an S-VIDEO in - I could just plug a playstation into there, fire up Apple Video Player, and use my monitor instead of a TV!
--
Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
Buddy, the word "FUD" is actually an acronym for "Fear Uncertainty (and) Doubt". A campaign idea that was supposedly developed by Microsoft.
You're getting off lightly. The PSX developers I know are having to reboot 4 or 5 times a day due to Windoze instability, and having to reinstall every month or so. And that's with official publisher supplied developer kits.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
hmm the vodoo 3 can pump 8 million polyons/sec on on a 2500 pentium3 and a 155$ ps/2 can pump 55 million polygons a second. Which is better? I feel disgusted that the stupid computer engineers can even make a system as fast a childs video game system. Thats sad. Hey! could this $399 pc even compete agaisnt the playstation1. Also their is an emotional chip that makes special effect and beautifull graphics for the graphics chip to pump out. 500 mips! OOOh I am getting a hard on just thinking about it. We need a ps2 with a hardrive and linux and a dsl modem or cable modem and pure paradise will come.
"Never stick an electrical appliance down your pants." -Tim Allen
I started getting into computers because the graphics and games were alot better. It was easier to develop a game in those days then a regular nintendo. IF i was born 10 years later, I would have never gotten into computers because the price of what these developers go thru to make any game run on widnows sucks. How many hoops have you all jumped to make a simple triangle that you can move around in a 360 degree enviroment in derectx. I can do this alot easier with the development version of the playstation for programers. ITs very sad. I blame this on MICROSOFT 100%! Oh and I jsut rmembered that microsoft purposely crippled visual c so only the $1300 version could be compiled tightly. Al.so microsoft's api's are secrets that only visual C can access. THis sucks! I hape to pay 1300 for a fast game and end up with a slow performer because microsoft believes in overlly engineered pc's because they can sell windows at a higher price! I hate them and intel. ALso sony has liberal licensing compared to sega and nintendo so part of the problem is with nintendo but I want my games back on my pc. I like customizable pc games. I wish those days would come back. Anyone know what happened to the performance of todays pc's and why are they so far behing consules when they are soo much more expensive? This would be unthinkable back in 93 or 94. Someone mentioned that the n64 was as fast as a 10,000$ sgi workstation and we laughed at him. Its now true :-(! what the (&&^. It seems to me that cisc is finally strangling the desktop market and having bus speed only a fith as fast as the cpu with slow memory aren't helping either. Especially if that old hardware has windows choking it and slowing it down even more.
"Never stick an electrical appliance down your pants." -Tim Allen
I doubt that they would take PS2 backwards, so I would guess S-Video Out will stay.
According to GameSpot, Playstation 2 will also be "digital TV ready." Whatever that means.
Keith Russell
This sig intentionally left blank.
See title. Enough said.
Signed,
An Old Fart
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John 3:16 - God's Public License
I could play that game a million times and still not get tired of it.
Hey,
I've been looking over some of the specs that have been released at the playstation-europe site in PDF format on the Playstation2. All in all, I'm sure it will be very impressive hardware.
1> Uses a graphic chip with integrated DRAM and Logic... Much like IBMs recent announcements this really does enhance performance. However, as the Graphics Processor (Graphics Synthesizer) only has 4MB of RAM, I think the 46GB/s internal bandwidth it's got ain't worth kaka.
2> Uses RAMBUS technology for the main CPU to achieve 4.3GB/s access to system RAM. That's pretty cool, and is a lot faster than my current system's PC100 RAM. However, keep in mind that I think Intel owns the company that designed RamBus, and several PC makers and CPU makers are adopting it for PCs.
So - yeah, they talk a good storm in terms of performance, and it really will be a good performer - but nowhere near the maximums and peak performances they are talking about. Yeah - it'll render 12 million polys/sec with z buffer, alphablending, and textures - if those polys only cover 48 pixels of screen area each - and all the data for them fits in that 4MB RAM of the graphics chip.... How many PC games even fit in that limit now - I think Unreal uses on the order of 200MBs of textures per level for texture maps, and light maps....
So yeah - it's a Sony FUD campaign.
- porter
I personally don't care for playing games at 640x480 interlaced that I can play at 1280x1024 non-interlaced on my PC. Until the days of HDTV are upon us, consoles can't compete in that area. Oh, and IMHO N64 has games that are more fun than playstation, with more replay value, with the exception of FF7, which is better on my PC :)
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
will it run linu.... oh. ;-)
This sig is false.
...On a floppy, somewhere among the thousands in boxes on the floor of my room. Star Control in team vs. team mode is pretty much SpaceWar only better, though :/. I still have that on floppies somewhere, too.
Turn on anti-aliasing. That is the only thing that a television display gets for free that a monitor doesn't.
Or take off your glasses to get the same effect for free
Put a playstation 2 next to an SGI box and prove this, if you want me to believe it.
An SGI box of equivalent cost, maybe...
The numbers coming out of Sony's marketing division are very overinflated. The screen shots prove otherwise, you say? Take a good look at them and figure out how many polygons you'd need in order to generate something that looks like that. Many, but not *that* many, by between one and two orders of magnitude (even at a decent frame rate).
We must be talking about different "Spacewar" programs, then.
What program are you referring to?
The playstatoin is about 10 times faster then a 5,000 visual sgi workstation and only a little bit faster then a indy workstation.
Put these boxes beside each other and run them. To my knowledge, no real, production grade Playstation 2 exists. You can do wonderful things with demo hardware (I seem to recall a few Intel shennanigans in that regard...). This is vapour.
Its true that a $150 kids consule can outperform a $5,000 workstation. GO blame intel for those rediculously over engineered motherborads and [..]
Perhaps you weren't aware of this, but Intel does not make real workstations.
Real workstations are made by companies like Sun, Compaq, HP, and SGI, and are based on Sparc, Alpha, PA-RISC, and MIPS processors, respectively. Intel processors are garbage in workstation-land, and PPC processors aren't much better, I'm afraid. Likewise, real workstations and servers use well-designed motherboards and well-designed bus protocols. Never, ever confuse souped up desktop "workstations" with the real thing.
Now, go to www.spec.org and to the web sites of the manufacturers mentioned, and get specs on some real systems, please.
Oh, and FYI a real workstation costs about $50,000, not $5000.
adaptec for making scsi really expensive video card manufactors for over engineering their cards to make them 10 times as much and 5 times slower then what they could be.
The video cards that are put in PCs are about the same quality as the PCs themselves. For an example of a real video card, go to http://www.3dlabs.com and look at the high-end Oxygen boards.
I couldn't agree with Larry Elison more when he calls pc's mini mainframes.
Architecturally, they are very different. Functionally, they have very different strengths. The best thing to call a PC would be a poor man's workstation, and even that's stretching it. Please research for yourself what "mainframes", "servers", and "workstations" are before blindly believing what your favourite noteworthies tell you.
THink about how fast a mainframe can do graphics and compare that to todays pc's. hmmm they have something in common. Also isdn and scsi are all mainframe based technologies that suck. scsi is actually slower then eidi with non server single user loads. ITs true.
I believe that this demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge about what a graphics workstation is. Please look up the terms described above, and try again.
Done. It's the same game, though my version is obviously a port of the original (it ran in monochrome CGA on an x86).
In the 2nd pic (the one with a realtime demo of an old man's face in the top-left corner) does anyone think that looks strikingly familiar? It looks like the FF8 movie preview that was out a while ago.
Wow, that would be impressive if the FF8 animation could be done on the PSX2.
Then again, it's a console. ehhh......
I'm a dumbass, rpgamer.com confirms it right in the article. Sorry.
1) HDTV - yes
2) widescreen - maybe
According to
http://www.psxpower.com/news/7135.html
" It will also be completely compatible with the HDTV standard, but games will run at a standard resolution of 640x480 out of the gate. It is unclear if the system will have built-in 16:9 modes for televisions with that aspect ratio, but since some PlayStation and N64 games include this feature, it's almost a definite. "
- sigs are for wimps.
Go to
http://www.psxpower.com
They have screen shots, and people that went
to see the demos. Tekken was being played
real-time , and Grand Turismo (check out the screenshot) was ported and played real time.
- sigs are for wimps.
Good to see the marketing hype of the game industry is still going strong. One page touts "Exclusive Screenshots" Another spouts "We're the first with this information!!" meanwhile all they say in hindsight is "Well, it was a rumor, and we wanted to jack up our page hits" I disbelieve the screen shots, as much as I would -love- to believe them. Those are very nice images, however at NTSC resolutions, that's not as impressive.. Information from source x, states that Sony is still deciding chip designs, another states differing and conflicting hardware specifications from all the rest, yet a third has what appears to be screen shots of "final beta" stage games... Who to believe?
/. uses a gameshark. of course not.. especially me.. yeah, that's it *hidehidehide*)
I don't care. I'm not going to change my life for a -GAME- system.
I've seen the Dreamcast. I've played on one extensively, and I have my own on order. Yes, it's a nice system, but the world didn't change when it was released.
How many of you are more "into" these 32bit games now, than say, when you bought your first 2600? I don't mean "more of a game fan" I mean "how much more absorbed are you into the game?" not a whole lot, when you think about it right?
I remember many a night huddled over my 2600, playing "battlezone" or "asteroids", seen the wrong side of dawn once too many from "Mario Brothers" or "excitebike" I didn't care that mario was a chincy little sprite, or that excitebike didn't have "real" motorcycle sounds, or a custom motorcycle handlebar controller with force feeback and vibrations.
I remember when games were played for the sake of enjoying the game, not how many polygons per second you could shove into your eyes...
I could care less if Linux is used for the development OS. That's called "Baiting a targeted audience" I dont' care if it could play games from the "old" playstation, sega cd, saturn, and dreamcast COMBINED. That's why I still have those systems. I'm not going to toss them out because I bought a new toy. I don't give a flying fig how many polygons per second you can display... Takes more than that to impress me.
You want to know what will get my interest? Original Ideas. I'll take 4 bit graphics and beep sound effects, if you give me a game that is original. I'm SICK AND TIRED of all these "street fighter" clones, racing clones, "final fantasy" rpg's, platform jumping clones and doom clones.. how many times can you "run down a corridor, if it moves, shoot it" before you get tired of it? How long until a "Game Shark" is created for it because 'Joe Gamer' wants the easy way out? (but -of course- nobody who reads
You want to know what I want Sony? How about a new idea.. instead of this "Let's stick with a known genre, it's safer than trying something original, the gamers will buy everything" decision paradigm that is stagnating the game industry.
Will I get a PSX2? maybe.. maybe not. I'm waiting until I see what's released before I decide. See what the console -really- is before I plonk my money down on it.
save this one under "probable vapourware" and let's see what turns up.
As always, this opinion is mine. Your opinion will vary, after all, you are not me. If you were me, you would be wondering where you put your coffee right now.
> Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn!
Thank you sir, for your well thought out, poignant, and wistfully worded diatribe on my posted comment. Your elegance and skill with words has persuaded me to change my ways, and never post again! Amazing that you did it using only 4 letters and a punctuation! Such oratorial skill! I bow before your intellect kind sir, I shal run off and ask that my original comment be stricken from the record, and my posting priveledges perpetually revoked! A pox on me!
*plonk*
It is replies like these, that make me wonder why I don't have my threshold permanently set >0.
Yeah, from playable fun games to high-speed razzle dazzle which require a help book so you can have any hopes of beating the game. And, er, "beating the game"!?!? I just want to play a game. What's so wrong with that?
Give me my comfortable disc controller anyday. . .
-Augie, cranky at 22 yrs. 364 days
mirror
-Z
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
Seeing as how fishy the 50 million trianges/second announcement sounded, this could easily have been rendered on computers and sent out to kill any leftover excitement about Sega's Dreamcast. Until I see a picture of a prototype Playstation2 connected to a TV and rendering these graphics on its own, I'm not falling for this smoke-and-mirrors campaign.
http://www.gaming-age.com/news2/march99/030299h.ht m
they look damn good!
still, like i said before, i'm not gonna believe it until i see a PS2 connected to the display that's outputting these movies. They could've been rendered on "special development version" PS2's for all we know. After a while you learn not to bite the bait too quickly. I still recall Intel demonstrating bogus high-speed Pentium Pro's a few years back... they were in special refrigeration units under a table!!!
friend, on a TV, 640x480 looks as about as good as 1600x1200
I mean, as good as the whole advent of 3D games is, 2D games are a vital part of a well-balanced gaming meal. What would a world without Street Fighter have been? Or Contra? Or Super Mario? 2D has been totally neglected, man...
I asked on the last PS2 thread, but it was dying, so no one responded. Will the PS2/Dreamcast take advantage of HDTV? Will they support the higher resolutions or even the widescreen aspect?
Yay. Just what the world needs - another closed, proprietary, non-upgradeable, worthless hunk of plastic. Yawn. Wake me when I can run Linux and do TCPIP networking on it...zzzzzzzz
Am I the only one that sees console gaming slowly riding off into the sunset, in the face of today's $399 PCs?
--jwriney
John Riney III
jwriney@awod.com
Nothing beats a console system for gaming.
Speaking only about the console I have any experience with(the n64), I have yet to find a game that are even close to being as entertaining as the majority of titles on the PC. Some friends and I tried last weekend to play 007 multiplayer. After spending 45 minutes piddling with the awful controllers, the microscopic screen area, and the wonderful framerate that would dip everytime somebody fired a weapon, we brought the game back and got Mario Cart. At least that's somewhat playable. I guess we're all spoiled from playing weekly LAN games of Quake and Shogo.
When you buy a console you're guarenteed that any games will work, regardless of how old it is.
I can play Kroz(Apogee's ancient clone of Zork), Scorched Earth, F117a Stealth Fighter, Wolfenstein, Heretic, etc, etc, etc, on my brand new PC. What does that prove?
I suppose consoles are fine, as long as you don't mind forcing yourself into obsolence. Your only hope of extending the functionality of the box is through manufacturer-approved upgrades- rumble paks, memory cards, extra controllers - that are only add-ons. Once the next better console comes out, the only option is to plunk! - throw it away. Wasteful.
Another scenario: The SegSonyTendoVisionPro 2000(tm) is about to come out. All the game mags promote it-gorgeous screenshots come out-promises of massive developer support are made. The console comes out, and everybody buys one. Oddly though, the promised flood of games at rollout is only a trickle of 5-10...most are new revs of older stuff. More promises are made, deadlines slip, developer support falls apart - and you're stuck with a $250 paperweight. Oops. Now what? It happened to me and a couple hundred thousand other people with Atari's last gasp(Jaguar).
Anyway, thank God we live in a free country so opinionated buttheads like me can freely spout.
Peace
--jwriney
John Riney III
Um, the part about running Linux and TCP is called humor. I'm trying to express frustration with the closed, unupgradable nature of console boxes. It would take a bigger nut than me to try to run Linux on one of these...
--jwriney
John Riney III
jwriney@awod.com
Well said.
--jwriney
John Riney III
jwriney@awod.com
Now, the real question is, how long will it take for Connectix to come out with Virtual Game Station 2? :-)
Yeah, right. A game console is an appliance, you plug it in and it goes. There is little you can do to make it not go that a power cycle won't fix. A PC, any PC, whether it is running linux, windows or whatnot is not in the same league.
If you can not see the difference between the two, or its value, then I think you are either horribly naive.
Rather than seeing the console riding off into the sunset in the face of $399/pcs, I see the low end of the PC market, or at least the bulk of it, going to multifunction computing appliances which provide some combination of game console, Internet access, DVD player, Satelite/Digital Cable decoder and perhaps even video recorder functionality.
There is a great deal of overlap in the componentry needed for each of these tasks.
A game console will likely support DVD media.
The graphics subsystem of a console will likely support DVD decoding.
DVD decoding has a lot in common with Digital TV decoding.
Support for Internet access makes sense in a game console anyway, if only for gaming and support for web browsing and e-mail isn't particularly demanding.
These will be supplimented by various mobile computing devices and various home server devices.
There will still be a place for general purpose computing, and it is inevitable that prices will continue to drop in this space.
Who said anything about set-top box?
Sony just wants to keep their options open for future use. Perhaps removeable media, or linking 2 PSX2k together, or something else remarkably brilliant.
It is already more than a games console; its a full entertainment center, what with PSX support, PSX2k support, DVD playback, CD playback, and quite possibly 3d sound and AC3 digital dolby surround sound...
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So far Linux has been mentioned as a development platform, and not any sort of OS for the PS2k
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Probable vaporware? =)
Sony would be losing a lot of money if they didn't follow up their commanding presence of the PSX with a PSX2, so its more probable than vapor, I think... It's like calling the Merced probabale vaporware, or Win2k probably vaporware...
I'm not interested in original ideas; I just want the system so I can play my FFVIII, my FFVII, my anime DVD collection, my Metal Gear Solid, my Parasite Eve, and maybe even Square's new racing game...
What's there to be impressed about? I'm already impressed with FFVIII on a current generation PSX; It will be nice to see what magic Square and Sony can cook up with the new power of the PSX2k, what with DVD as well(Whee! Single disc games again, well, at least for a month or two...)
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Why should he back it up? Go read some of the articles on the web...
http://www.rpgamer.com/news/030299a.html
It even explictly mentions backwards compatibility for the PS collection of games for the PS2k, as well as DVD support, and Linux development OS...
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Okay =)
I've heard it called PlayStation2000 in earlier posts...
Playstation=PSX
2000=2k...
If Sony has officially called it Playstation2, then yeah, PSX2...
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I value fun over innovation...
Hey, FFVIII, FFVII and Parasite Eve are fun! If the PSX2 didn't have backwards compatability, I doubt I would buy one, unless FFIX comes out for it.
I never said anything about looks being why I played or liked the games. They are really nice bonuses, but its the games first. So it seems we don't agree on the same games. You value innovation, whatever that is. Can you quantify it? Or is it just 'whatever isn't popular right now'? If the FF series of games were all text based, I would still enjoy them.
Otherwise why would I bother to buy books and read?
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So the big deal everyone makes about the PSX and PSX2 is...
I suppose consoles are fine, as long as you don't mind forcing yourself into obsolence.
Well, the PSX has actually been out for a long time now, buying it when it was brand spanking new would have let you play games for a good solid 3 or 4 years... As opposed to the PC's upgrade cycle of new hardware requirements every 13 or so months... So less investment and greater returns, at least with the well thought investment in a PSX...
Another issues is that the PSX2 is backwards compatible with the PSX, so upon release it will have the largest game library available of all game systems, except perhaps for the GameBoy series. I'm really sorry that you lost so on the Jaguar, but such criticism can't really be placed on Sony's PSX. Not only does it extend the life of all your old games, but it makes it painless to contemplate buying because of the plethora of released games for the new system.
The real argument I think is whether there are any games you want to play on said system. Don't buy because of specs, because of hype, because of marketing(If you do, then you end up buying things like Jaguar, without any game support), but because there are games you want to play. Because of Xenogears, or Gran Turismo, or Castlevania:Symphony of the Night, or MegaMan X4, or Bust-a-Groove.
It would be silly otherwise, no?
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I think if you like playing with yourself... i mean by yourself.. you would love the playstation.. or if you were a hardcore gamer...
but for those of us who have seen multiplayer games... why would you want to do anything else???
yeah.. I would have to agree with you .. until you have HDTV support.. and better multiplay over the internet.. it wont appeal to me....
ZDNet has posted a lot of information about the new console.
you do realize that the blue sky rangers programmed vectron to be unbeatable, right? Intelivision RULES!!! classicgaming
blue sky rangers
-davek
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Linux is actually a lousy games platform, even compared to a "new" incomplete OS such as BeOS. The advantages BeOS has over Linux, when it comes to games, is that the graphics-handling is actually FAST and standardized, which goes for sound too. The GUI is more nicely integrated, with a higher performance and less memory overhead etc. In short, the OS is designed for High Performance media-handling, and nowadays you can include games in that category.
However, neither BeOS or Linux is suited for a games console, which is mostly bought by people who either buys it for their children, or whose interests only lies in gaming. Neither category would use the OS in itself. There are practical reasons for not using it as the consoles OS. How would you store it? On a flash-ROM? How large part of the OS are you going to include? If you use Linux, which graphics library will you use? Will you use X for the GUI(Theres no way you are going to get the majority of gamers to use a CLI)? Those are just a few questions that would arise. Its better to either use a homegrown OS, or one suited for embedded/realtime applications instead.
>and is usually set to 320x240. It has a color >depth of 16 bits, not 24.
Actually, a skilled programmer(Do they still exist?) can tweak the PSX to achive 400*300, and if he performs a complex ceremony, of which some ingredients are a tanker of Jolt, some Lego and a rubber chicken, he might actually squeeze out a 24-bit display.
>The pictures on that page are probably actual >size, given that televisions are terrible for >high quality display. There's not much reason to >above 320x240, and your colors will bleed so much >that 16 bit color depth looks fine.
Hey!! Dont go comparing the lousy NTSC-system(In European graphics- and video-circles NTSC stands for Never The Same Colour) with the actually usable PAL-system. PAL TVs can easily accomodate 720*576, many TVs can handle full D2 PAL, which is 768*576, compared to NTSC:s 640*480. PALs colour-definition is also infinitely more accurate than NTSCs. Also, PALs 25 fps, interlaced is smoother than NTSCs 30 fps, non-interlaced.
"Wwoowwe, a 96-bit display!!" Quote from a lamer I had in my class.
Yes, I know, I just commented on the person who wanted Linux as the OS for the console, and for that purpose, its totally useless.
Wow, you have it 100% confirmed?? When did you get hold of one? And why would one even think of outputting the display over the FireWire-interface(IEEE 1394)? Maybe for transferring DV to a DV-cam, or the other way around etc, but its absolutely a no-brainer to try and output a signal to the display through that bus. BTW, I take it you havent used a SGI system, right? Oh, silly me, if it took hours to do the things on that display, it was probably a Personal Iris Workstation, or something even older, such as one of the 68x-equipped machines they built in the beginning.
I totally agree on this one. To further prove the point, I could also include a few more things: Those screenshots probably werent running on a 1280*1024 32-bit display. And a few good questions: Single- or double-sided polys? AA-levels? Amount of textures? What kind of lights? Resolution? Colour depth? What kind of hardware were they running it on?
Someone said they were manipulating the images in realtime, I would like to get that confirmed, and how they manipulated the scenes in that case. And how was the scenes setup? Were they they precompiled programs, with object controllers included, or were they a normal scene from a 3d-program?
Which Playstation? PSX2 is not out yet, and the old one is slower than a P166 when it comes to cpu, and the Permedia-chip is faster than the PSXs hardware. The Visual PC is limited by its "slow" CPU, but its graphics-hardware is among the fastest on the PC-side. Only Intergraphs Wildcat is faster in theory, although I have yet to see that proved IRL. I take it you have never used an SGI-workstation. The Visual PC is faster than any Indy in existence...Ok, faster than any Indy workstation ;) The difference between the Playstation and the workstation is that the Playstation works with compiled programs heavily optimized for the hardware, using assembler and C, while the workstation works with realtime modelling and graphics in a way similar to Java or uncompiled basic, in that the scene is actually a pure ASCII-file(Take a look at a PovRay-scene and you will see what I mean). Also, the Playstation doesnt use the same level of interactivity, resolution, anti-aliasing, colour depth etc etc ad infinitum.
>practical rate possible; it is most certainly not an interpreted emulation like the running of a BASIC program.
:).
Thats how games like Quake works, and the procedure for a final scanline or raytrace-render. When youre working in Maya for example, which I was talking about, modelling, animating and lighting a scene fully shaded and textured, its not very practical to work that way. You would lose all interactivity and workflow. In Maya and other 3D-programs, the scene is parsed in realtime, and rendered and output to the display. The same goes for hardware OpenGL-rendering. In a game, all calls to OpenGL or other appropriate API is already parsed and ready.
>Re. storing scene files in ASCII, the storage format makes no difference. Before rendering begins, the scene is loaded into memory and
>translated into OpenGL primitives in native form. When rendering begins, no further translation is necessary.
Again, this assumes that it is a final render, or a game. I mean, when you are working on a scene in realtime, changing the dynamics settings for the entire scene during realtime shaded and textured playback of an animation in the perspective window requires realtime-parsing =)
>So, the software on a real workstation is nothing to sneeze at
Oh, I wouldnt know, I lost count on the number of hours Ive worked at a SGI-workstation sometime after passing 1100 hours =)
...but basically what it bolds down to (for me anyway) is good arcade translations. if i can play a good port of Mavel Vs. Capcom (not some watered down console toy, like most arcade ports tend to be) or something similar, i'll buy it...if not, i'll wait for an emulator...
Could these be fake, with the PSX2 image being "borrowed" from FF8?
Check this out.
http://www.psxnation.com/news/030299a.html
According to The Japanese site Gamespot it has been reported that the PlayStation 2 will use the operating environment of Linux for development! As Linux prepares to host its first huge convention this week at Linux World, this is huge news and pits Dreamcast with Windows against PlayStation with Linux. Gamespot also revealed that the specs for the CPU have been bumped up from the 250Mhz announced at the IEEE conference to 300Mhz. PSX Nation will have much more tomorrow and throughout the week
Neutrons are slippery little rascals, they can fool you. They can bounce and show up around corners you don't expect.
All this baby needs now is a Java VM on it. Just think you could use Jini to connect it to your 486 server so that you can save games and Son on.
Damn you nintendo for "making" buy that piece of shit N64(a cdrom is all that was needed and Sony playstation would be dead you fools).
I think all you previous commenters have missed the point. PSX2 is still R&D so specs demoed are likely to be final release specs.
And who gives a rats bum if PAL is better than NTSC, even if it is. HDTV will and is here and if you read the comments from the Sony dudes, they plan to support it.
The final spec is boasting a 60 million+ polygon rate and a 14 million+ 3D polygon fill rate at a full 25fps. This said, and judging by the pictures will give close-to-life-like real-time pictures, scenes, characters, you name it.
Remember back in '93 when this great invention, 'Virtual Reality' was released? It looked shit, played shit, and cost a fortune. VR ran at a mere 1 million polys and a 1/4 of that fill at less than 15fps.
What Sony aim to deliver, is a fantastic, full featured product at the consumer level, and hopefully at a consumer price. Whichever, It will not replace the PC, (ever tried to so much write a letter on a console let alone program a CAD/CAM process), and I'll still have both.
- Dan.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
i have to wipe the monitor off now.
I know I'll regret this but ... My mirror. Please don't beat my computer up too much ;)
You can buy an S-Video out for the current Playstation. They sale for around $10. You can get one online at probably any game dealer, but I know Ebworld has them.