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PSX2 development on... Linux!
Here is something from PSX-Nation news:"
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.
Also, here are some tech demos screenshots. Would any
of our Japanese readers mind translating the article in ZDNet Japan?
Wow, this is cool.
FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
iot!!!
Microsoft just lost to Linux... again!
and you're 2nd. ;-)
Sony has done a good job in knowing what they should support and what they shouldn't.
Developing under the *nix environment has been done for a while now and continuing this support is the only way to go.
I think picking up a copy of Codewarrior next year would be in order.. =-)
whee!
muwhahah, that'll teadch you!
Whats that 9 stories down from this one?
.. just when I was thinking of picking up a crackstation.. I guess I'll have to wait..
Still, I doubt that the kit, while running on linux, will be free..
SN Systems uses gcc as the compiler in their psx and n64 devkits, so moving everything to linux
probably wouldn't be all that hard for them...
Besides, I doubt much of their current proprietary
stuff is of any use with psx2, so they'll be writing new tools anyways.
Really, you guys should be checking to see that the same story doesn't get posted ten times in a row. With all the space you waste doing that, you might occasionally be able to post a news article from somebody who didn't slip you a $50 under the table.
Not much about the develop environment for PlayStation 2 had been announced in Japan. Only -as far as I see- Gamespot Japan has mentionedw s01.html
that Linux will be the OS for development:
http://www.zdnet.co.jp/gamespot/news/9903/02/ne
You can search the word 'Linux' on that page.
On the psx, there are a bunch of libraries you use, and you code in C. (or assembly, or most likely, mostly C with a little asm). Theres a cd emulation device, where a scsi hd acts like the psx's cdrom, and you put your crap on that. Also (with different hardware), you can load an executable from your pc to the psx, and then you can access files on your pc from the psx.
This is for the psx, but it'll be similar on psx2.
My guess is that it's done mostly in C, maybe with a cross-compiler or something. And they do NOT burn it each time they want to test it, I'm pretty sure of that. If their machines are in a usable state, then they probably just hook up some sort of serial connection or something.
If you didn't read it on Next-Gen and other sites. Some representative of Sony claimed they are shooting for the mass market of "computer/video game console/home entertainment/internet access" thing and in doing so will go head to head with Wintel.
You make all scream yippie because you all hate MS so much but Sony is by far more closed and proprietary than MS/Wintel. Anybody can develop for Wintel. Nobody but Sony licensed/approved people can develop for Sony hardware.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that development on Linux would seem unlikely. Why? because the software we people use to make games does not currently run on Linux. Ie,
Softimage,
Maya
3D Studio Max
Lightwave
Nichiman
Photoshop
Fractal Painter
Debabilizer
Sound Forge
Premire
etc, etc, etc.
Every current game developer would complain because they would each need two machines. One machine to make/edit data and one to host software development on and unfortunately, most of the export tools will need to run under the environment of the asset creation tool since the APIs for those tools only run there. Ie 95/98/NT.
It might be nice to develop under Linux but until the software is available people are not going to want to add 20% time to there schedule for rebooting all the time to use the other software or to increase their equipment budget by double to get two machines for each person.
You are a ninny. Start up your OWN news site if it bugs you so much.
Oh wait, that would require effort, wouldn't it?
. . . sigh . . .
Knuckles :)
that sounds interesting, do you know if it is this spring? I read the announcement long time ago too.
Codewarrior for Playstation already comes in Windows and MacOS versions, and regular Codewarrior can be hosted on Win32, MacOS, and Solaris.
Metrowerks started off as a primarily MacOS, not Windows, company. With the *nix underpinnings in MacOS X, and with them already on Solaris, I don't think it will be that big a deal for them to rehost on Linux.
It would be nice if sony gave out the SDK under GPL.
Yeah, but what about Sony's current dealings with WebTV? WebTV is slated to turn into CE at some point, which means, if Sony continues WebTV, they'll be making a CE box. Why not just include WebTV/CE into the PSX2, like Dreamcast appears to be doing? If you did this, you might need to put in a TV tuner to the PSX2 ... but this might not be a bad thing... tv tuner could be used for Cable-modem OR tv tuning OR HDTV decoder (HDTV = mpeg2/ac-3, not too far from DVD, right?) or... or...
- Jeff
Ok , that's it, I've gotta bite back...
Dreamcast does not run Wince, code shops have the option to either use a Sega's own libs, or MS's.
So far, the only game to use Wince is SegaRally2 and (this is the main point) who actually cares what OS a product runs anyway, *nix geeks seem to have a problem with a big lumbering behmoth like M$, but don't seem to mind watching their Sony TV's, with their Sony VCR's underneath, their Walkmans on the belt etc... Are you spotting a trend here? I guess it's just the lumbering, huge, corporation that suits you (sir) at the time huh?
Sorry, it's people like you I could cheerfully throttle. People should pay games that they enjoy, not worry about the poly count, or the underlying OS.
Laters, as in much...
Nicely put.
You anonymous pussy!!
You forget that Sony actually produces a tangible product, and for that matter, a good product. When was the last time your Walkman ate a tape? How 'bout your Sony VCR? Or when was the last time that the TV stopped paying attention to what was coming in over the IR port?
And I'm certain that there are some people here (read: developers) that are _very_ concerned over choice of development platform and hardware specs. They often have to pick a platform to develop for first, and hardware specs, as well as startup cost (for software, computers to actually do the work on), and for them the above is important.
MS, as I recall has a history of providing buggy products (remember, you _can't_ ship a console game that's going to crash.), lousy developer support (unless you pay through the nose), and expensive development products.
It seems like some people (unless I'm misreading these comments) are under the misapprehension that the PSII *itself* will run Linux. Sony has a proprietary, modular OS of their own which they've been incorporating in everything from MiniDisc players to robots, and I strongly suspect that this is the OS which will run on the PSII itself.
As for development environments, theoretically you can develop PlayStation games on any machine that can run a C compiler, provided you have the right libraries. Most of the tools currently available to make development *easier* are only available on Windows, but I'm guessing that this announcement means that Sony will be providing a similar set of libs (and maybe supporting some decent 3D modelling tools) on Linux. I'd also venture a guess that you'll need a special PSII (similar to the Net Yaroze or "Black Box" PlayStation: [http://www.netyaroze.com]) to do this.
actually I have heard through various circles (I am in the gaming industry, a PSX programmer) that linux MAY indeed be the OS being used as the core OS for the PSX2. I really can't see why we wouldn't have heard of this before, but.... :) As to a special box, of course, the PSX2 dev stations will be a completely different animal from the real buyable public PSX2, just like the PSX dev stations were (the net yaroze was an extremely dumbed down dev station with even more dumbed down libraries).
as to linux support for develop environment, this probably means that they will have the libs in ELF format, and have proper SNsystems/etc support for linking, which the PSX dev environment didnt have. They have (er had) their own proprietary link format that was crap
Oh, dear...
1) Graphics artists produce graphics
2) Coders produce code.
Please use your brain before you post.
It's the thing between your ears.
/Larry_h
...after all, many (all?) PSX games are cross-compiled MIPS target using GCC. If you browse around the EXE files on Playstation games, you can sometimes gind GCC / binutils fingerprints :-)
Its not the first game system to have linux as a :)
development platform... I remember a nice little
thing called Project X (Nuon) that also had
linux as a development platform. Its called GCC
Its much easier to make a cross platform
compiler under linux than it is windows...
Personally I'd prefer it integrated into dev studio
so that after I compile something it zaps it over
and shows me the result as well as let me debug
and change code in real time without having
to recompile...
Actually, it has a variant of the MIPS R3000 microprocessor (the R3000A). And it's "RISC", i.e. "Reduced Instruction Set Computer". Yes, MIPS does use a big-endian byte ordering, meaning the most signficant byte in a word has the lowest memory address.
My Japanese is poor so I got lazy andw s01.html
I ran translingo (http://www.translingo.com/
highly recommended-- lots of laughs)
on the mentioned japanese news page:
http://www.zdnet.co.jp/gamespot/news/9903/02/ne
regards,
sandman
-----------------
SCEI announces newly hard finally.
CPU changes to 300MHz.
Sony computer entertainment (SCEI) held "Play Station meeting 1999" in Tokyo on March 2.
The outline of the Play Station of this meeting and rumor for the next term was clarified and part was clarified. It was main that this meeting originally reported to the maker and the press on the breakthrough of Play Station of 50,000,000 in world wide. However, "? this meeting and the Play Station for the next term were announced" and the guess flowed from the announcement of SCE and Toshiba Corporation of MPU for an efficient computer entertainment in San Francisco on
February 16 etc.In clarifying the Play Station for the next term as of 3:30p.m., development OS is Linux etc.The name etc. of hardware are not clarified now. CPU has been improved from 250MHz of rumor in 300MHz. Moreover, the possibility of the sale during the '99 year is said that (*S) alluded it difficult according to SCE though is. Details of this machine are published at any time later. Expectation so.
I will have to see it for my self before i belive this. The PSX2 is reverse compatable with the old PSX games, to do that you would need to use the same Developer environment as the original PSX such as Code Warrior PSX for MacOS. I doubt sony would bother with porting their current developer kits over to linux when other platforms are much more commonplace for development like NT. Besides, Sony makes most (if not all) its money on the API - yet another reason why linux would not be a logical choice.
Your a little confused there bud... Its compatible not
because of the Developer environment... Its compatible
because it contains like the main chip from the current
PSX. They aren't porting the SDK or anything, they just
mean that the PSX2 will RUN old games, thats it...
Nothing more... No porting... No Macs (thank god)
What? Since when did sony have anything to do with
WebTV as of lately? WebTV to my knowledge is still
owned by Microsoft, which is why its changing into
CE...
well I don't think anyones really seen what either can
do yet... I mean, Im still seeing things that impress
the hell outta me on PSX, stuff I didn't think was
really possible for a system to produce, IE Spyro...
But technical stuff doesn't really matter that much,
its all in the games... Look at the current PSX...
If Sega was to say drop their price by a $100 and
the PSX did come out at $500 (remember 3D0 )...
Well, I think it'd be a safe bet that Sega would
capture the market. Sega has a lot of power in
Japan behind the DreamCast from what I've seen...
Yeah, Sony may have square and namco, but to
make it in the US, they're gonna need a _LOT_
more. RPGs stil don't do as good in the US
as in Japan. Here its mostly sports and adventure
(a la Zelda), the adventure part, sony still
doesn't have.
I'd personally rather take that chip, throw it
on an Add-on board of sometype and let it be
my graphics chip alone... (the chip in the psx2)
How many of you zealots would buy a PSX2 just because the SDK is on Linux?
a) they dont make anything off the API...they make money off the dev stations...
b) MacOS? since when? *chuckle*
c) the support for the PSX games out now is in HARDWARE, its a section of the cpu dedicated to compatability...has ZERO to do with new developing..
d) if they do indeed release for linux, you can bet the farm they won't release source to any tools or to the libraries...even the libraries THEMSELVES(in binary format) are under harsh NDA...and i've never seen sony produced source for them period. and i doubt we ever will.
Why? You can find it on many sites to download for free.... find em...
Search for PSX YAROZE DOWNLOAD
tahts funny, i have a copy of the gcc/libs/docs etc... from a 'friend' ahahaahhaahhahaha
:P~
NDA? whats that.... NOT DOWNLOAD ABLE?
fukit
I sincerely hope this post was made in jest.
why don't some of you just make a port of linux that runs on the dreamcast?
Um, last time I checked, my TV wasn't running WinCE. Neither was my VCR.
Most *nix geeks problem with MS isn't that they're a big lumbering behemoth (after all, the Linux developer community is a big lumbering behemoth, sort of), but rather that they are a big bumbling behemoth. Their OS's and their software just sucks. The Linux developer community does it's share of lumbering and reinventing the wheel over and over again. However, there are groups of people who are pushing things forwards and making things that are new and unseen before.
PSX2 sounds like it's going to be a cool system. Hopefully they'll give it plenty of RAM this time.
"PSX2 sounds like it's going to be a cool system. Hopefully they'll give it plenty of RAM this time."
32MB from what I've heard
I'd buy it over the Dreamcast because
:)
1) Sega never gets ports for their good games to our shores. In Japan the Saturn is popular. In America we got Bug
1) the Dreamcast's joypad looks like it was made by hasbro. I don't give a crap about "lovegg" compatability.
2) I wouldn't pay a dollar extra so Microsoft can give me the pleasure of owning the first console that needs upgrades.
(II) Malda's other big moneymaker is stories like "KDE developers kill babies" and other stories that cause idiotic flamewars and generate 400 replies -- meaning a lot of ads get seen.
I'm not saying that Malda is a particularly bad guy because he isn't. In fact, I'm pretty glad that I'm not facing the commercial pressures that he's facing, because I can make web sites that are based on quality rather than quantity. (Which is why this ninny would rather bitch about Slashdot than make his own news site.)
Hi
I have 3 movies (24MB total) that i need someone to host, these movies show what the PSX2 can handle, they are in great quality and it looks really cool !!!
Regards
AndersTP@PLEASE_DONT_SPAM_ME.usa.net
Go into town, and buy yourself a clue...
FGN Online --http://www.fgnonline.com/index_main.html ... wait for it .. Renderware?
have released more info. Apparently it's gonna
use
Renderware?
Renderware eats my underwear.
Good choise SONY!!!!!
This is a great thing people will begin to understand the power of Linux.
Linux is Life!
"Companies can talk a big game, but until they really throw their support behind Linux, it is hard to know who to trust. A lot of companies seem to provide half ass support for Linux, while not really making any quality products for it. It is refreshing to see Sony doing this."
:)
Do you know how stupid that sounds? Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, but your comment is embarassing to the Linux community. I mean, just because they use Linux doesn't mean they are behind the "Linux Propaganda Machine". I would be willing to bet that it just gives them a much less "No Fuss" environment to develop, not because they are "Against All That Is Windows". Your comment has a very immature ring to it. It sounds like, "I'm better because I have better toys". Grow up. I'm sure Sony really couldn't give a crap about Linux. They are a huge company, and don't place sides because one is "The Right Thing To Do". They place sides where the money is, and where it makes sense. If developing on Linux makes sense, then that is what they will do.
Sorry if this seems like a flame, it's not. Just an opinion.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
You cross-compile on a computer. You have a development console which is connected to the computer, so instead of reading a CD, it mounts a filesystem from the computer.
I imagine the development consoles will run a slightly different OS to the consumer model, with more in the way of diagnostics etc. Look at the developer's PalmOS ROMS for comparisom.
Of course, developers are free to choose whether to write in assembly or C, or anything else. Usually it's a combination of C for the high-level stuff and ASM for stuff like graphics engines.
One reason the PSX took off, was that Sony provided nice easy to use APIs to the graphics hardware, so early game development was fast. By comparisom, although the Saturn could outperform the PSX, it was fiddly. Only later in the PSX's life did developers start to need more oomph, and began to replace Sony's APIs with their own.
--
No.
Cross compilation.
The binaries will be neither Linux binaries nor intel binaries
At least I hope not.
Gaming needs a realtime OS
Linux is not a realtime OS
Gaming does not need the stuff Linux is good at
--
Anyway, in the 3rd paragraph it says something like "one clear fact about the next generation playstation is that the development OS is Linux. The name of the hardware is still not clear."
Okay, the development OS is Linux. I believe that's also the case with "Project X". However, the OS for the shipping product will probably be a RTOS. Probably some development of the original Playstation OS, whatever that was...
Errr... I can bet you anything most serious developers have more than two machines laying around...
In fact, I'll say more. If you are a developer, you don't want to interrupt content creation to initiate a compile, so you *want* more than one machine.
So quit yer FUD.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Well... Dreamcast does run Virtua Fighter 3, so I guess I *have* to spend money on it when it comes out. At least, that game does not run on CE, unlike, say, Sega Rally 2.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Next-Generation Online, has been posting important information about the PSX2, Anyone interested should check it out.
www.next-generation.com
awalker@ou.edu
I didn't notice that they said so explicitly.
Will the binaries work on a regular Linux machine?
Will it be compiled for Intel processors or what?
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Visit my homepage for the OS/2 version of Stella, or the Stella Homepage for version for Linux, Mac, Amiga, and many other operating systems(even winblows).
It would surprise me if Nintendo did anything intelligent. :>
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Um, I'm writing commercial BeOS software *right now*. MGI, where I work, has made a public commitment to write software for BeOS.
Or maybe I didn't understand your message?
[ReidNews]
Ok, here my humble attempt at a translation of the Japanese ZDNet article...
---
Tokyo, 2 March, at the Playstation Meeting 1999 organized by Sony
Computer Entertainment (SCEI), the company provides first details of
the much-spoken about next-generation Playstation.
Originally, the main news of the meeting should be the worldwide
distribution of over 50 Million Playstations. However, as on the 16
February Toshiba presented in San Francisco a high-powered MPU for
computer entertainment, the question arose as to "whether we should
announce at this meeting the next-generation Playstation?"
In the announcement at 3:30pm, it was stated that the development
OS for the next-generation Playstation is based on Linux; though,
details of the hardware are still unclear.
The CPU was increased from the rumored 250MHz to 300MHz.
Furthermore, according to SCE, sales might start in '99, which sounds as if it is difficult to meet. We try to get hold of more details about this
machine. Stay tuned!
-=- Just a random lambda hacker
When will we see someone commit to developing on it?
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
Two ways on PSX. 1: Internal dev kit; 2 big fat cards, with optional profiling waz, v expensive, 2-3k ukp +. 2: External action replay / SN style; SCSI card in yer PC plugs into back of small box attached to expansion port of PSX, cheap 150 ukp, discontinued, thank you Sony.
Either way, the libraries allow you read off of CD, or the PCs hard drive. Develop with one, test with the other. Figure the rest out yerselves.
I imagine PSX2 will follow a similar path, although you may not need a box, just a firewire card, at a guess.
> This development system is of primary usage to the programmer. Since when does any games company require its programmers to use any of the above tools?
Hey, guess what, I code games, and I need acess to most of the above tools to check and moidify original data.
You seem to be under the misguided impression that professional games programmers work in total isolation from artists, musicians, and designers.
Nope, about $300-$350, anything larger can be atributed to an extra zero appearing in the Yen price during translation. At least that's what I've been told.
a) WINCE is only *one* OS the dreamcast runs. In fact there are at least two operating systems out there for it (SEGOS and the WINCE port). The Dreamcast allows booting any old OS you want off the CD.
b) Dreamcast development is done on a variety of platforms. Windows is one of them yes, to allow easier porting of PC based games to the console.
c) The PSX has already been using gcc so a linux hosting enviroment is nothing special.
Games being developed under unix based OS's are nothing new (see DOOM).
--- I do not moderate.
Time to make a kick ass FF 8 playing beowolf cluster. Someone has to say it
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
I saw a Dreamcast a few weeks ago at Katsucon. I saw some fighting game, a Godzilla game, and a demo that had deck guns on a ship firing into the air.
I really wasn't impressed. The graphics were good, but not that much better than Playstation 1 or N64. The Godzilla game, in particular, looked REALLY REALLY polygonal, like the T-Rex in TOMB RAIDER. And, I have yet to see a game for it that I'd actually want to play. I hear that the Sonic game for Dreamcast is good, though.
PSX2 looks like more of a quantum leap forwards, versus a small evolutionary leap for Dreamcast. Though we'll have to see screen shots of actual games to know what it'll really do when it has to work hard.
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Duplicated stories? What about the stories that are never posted? About a week ago, I submitted the address to a BBC article describing the very recent Teleglobe transatlantic link failure. This caused the US to be inaccessible from Janet (the Joint Academic NETwork which connects all the UK universities) for roughly 24 hours. It probably affected quite a few slashdot readers, me included. It was never posted. However, www.doodie.com was.
Late last year, I also posted the address of a New Scientist article which was very positive towards Linux. It too was ignored.
Ford 'Mostly Harmless' Prefect
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Metrowerks announced Code Warrior for Linux in autumn, IIRC. They said it would be out in spring, and that this wouldn't be based on gcc, but that they would build their own compiler. It was on their website.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
It's probably too late to expect this is being read by you, dear AC, but anyway: Yes, AFAIK IIRC etc. it was supposed to be in spring 99
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
The original playstation development is done with playstation on a PCI card. A C API is used but I don't know too much more about it. I've got a Net Yaroze which allows me to write simple playstation games that are uploaded via a serial cable. It comes with a simplified library. If you want to see some (bad) source code using it you can go to
http://www.identicalsoftware.com/yaroid/
I have the source for my asteroid like game there.
The PSX2 is probably fast enough to _emulate_ a PSX in software. I'd doubt if the hardware architecture is even remotely compatible to the PSX and to make it so would warrant unnecessary cost (ok, the I/O coprocessor has the same R3000 core - big deal). What would make my day if it were powerful enough to emulate a Dreamcast...
-t.
Linux people may not know, but Metrowerks is /very/ highly regarded in the MacOS world. They write outstanding compilers, and in fact, their PPC compiler pretty much saved Apple's bacon when they switched from 68k.
If they really get a new compiler for Linux out the door, I for one would pony up the $$$ to check it out.
Just info,
JFB
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
The strange thing is that SN Systems & Metroworks are still being used for the psx development tools. Both have significant Wintel investments with their current toolsets. It'd be quite suprising to see them move to Linux.
I wish the news houses would stop pushing all the demo screenshots & start talking about the dev stuff, but then again the masses could care less what we develop in. Oh well, patience is a virtue.
-TF
Ya I can see the compiler not changing, the curious thing will be the debugger.
Especially since SN is using the same debugger (the new win one, not the old dos one) for the N64 & the PSX, It's suprising that they'd move away from this. On first guess I would have thought they'd just make the current debugger support the PSX2 as well.
More over this is just some musings, guess I'll drop a note to SN & see what they have to say.
-TF
Compile via a gnu compiler, link some psx libraries.
Run on a devkit which is essentially a psx on an IDE board (well 2 boards).
The executable & data are then burnt onto a CD & run off a blue box (psx w/o integrated copy protection) or a mod-chip'd psx. When sony manufactures the final discs the copy protection is put into the finals so the discs will run on a normal psx.
As for the new system, that's kinda up in the air, there's a few paths that can be taken from doing the same as now (ide/pci board), having a tcp/ip connection, etc.
The developers who went to the '50 millionth' party are arriving back in the states tonight / tomorrow so there will be alot more info soon hopefully
-TF
There, no you guys can stop complaining about why they never post Dreamcast news. Dreamcast runs and is developed on Windows. PSX2's will run whatever it is Sony wants, but the games'll be developed on Linux. So there, justification (after the fact).
So, someone tell me how video game development works. Do they have an API that they use (presumably) or is it mostly assembly? So, they write a program on Linux and then burn it to a DVD every time they want to see if it works? That sounds like a pretty slow development system. Or do they emulate a PSX in software on the Linux sysetm? How does this all work?
While as far as the PSX goes, you get the yaroze playstation dev kit, with has a pci card to put in your pc, hook it all up, and cross-compile to Risk 3000 Binarys, which is all big indian asm, so as long as that is your end product use what ever you want, C/C++/asm.
"What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
The PSX, is Risk 3000, big indian asm.
I can't see why they would go to something different.
"What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
I wonder what Atari developed 2600 games on back in the day...
--jwriney
John Riney III
jwriney@awod.com
This is the closest I've been to being aroused by hardware/software specs.
What is it with people who spout off numbers and benchmarks and stuff?
Its a secondary blessing that it beats DreamCast, and not a disappointment if it doesn't.
It boils down to games and support for the console; if its there, I'll play, if it isn't, I won't. If the PSX2 were only twice as powerful as the PSX, we would be well served, considering how long and useful the PSX has been with such old and dated technology.
Having DVD and 3d sound is really nice, essentially you get a DVD standalone for free when you buy the game machine.
Or you get a game machine for free when you buy the DVD player.
Suspension of disbelief does not require FFMovie quality graphics; I was able to play and enjoy FFVI when it was only measly sprites on a SNES. I will continue to enjoy well crafted games over beautiful games if I have to choose between the two.
Sure I'll appreciate all the benefits of the advanced hardware in the PSX2, but I'll mainly be getting it because(I hope) FFIX will be released for it, and FFMovie:RPG will be released for it...
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I never understood all the fuss over M$ anyway.
Complaining about underhanded and immoral business practice is one thing, but railing against M$ just because they're dominant seems stupid and particularly irrational.
I personally don't particularly like M$, but neither do I revile or hate them. It's never bothered me much that any company remain closed and proprietary, when it made sense to be. For example, patents for Transmeta won't be given away, despite the staunch interest in open source, intellectual freedom, etc.
On the other hand, I firmly believe that the Win32 API should be opened up and not kept under M$ control, necesarily. Essentially, M$ is such a large portion of the market, it would be a public good/service for the API to be open. This is ill thought out, and mainly personal opinion, of course..
AS
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Greetings,
Y'know, in reading the responses here, it's almost frightening how many other people have said, or shown by knowledge, that they are PSX programmers... I'm one also, fwiw.
Trippy. Offtopic, but trippy.
Cyberfox!
"The Playstation 2's CPU, jointly developed by Toshiba and SCE, is an enhanced version of the device described at ISSCC. The device has floating-point performance of 6.2 Gflops..."
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990302S0026
Compare that to:
"Intel said Merced would achieve 3-Gflops extended-precision floating-point performance and 6-Gflops single-precision performance."
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990226S0012
Richard
This is true.. Sega has even said that they would rather developers not use the Windows CE on the Dreamcast, and instead use Sega's own OS and libs for development. Windows CE was pretty much there just for ease of porting games from Windows to Dreamcast, but now Sega doesn't really want anything to be ported like that.. As for what games are designed on, I've heard that Sega itself uses some flavor of *nix, but their development software is not limited to *nix environments..
Now, as for Sony, everything I've ever bought that has the Sony logo on it has broken rather quickly, or was defective before I even purchased it, so I've stayed away from their products..
I've always hoped in the past that Sega would
come out on top, for the sake of nostalgia,
while using Sony products, but no more!
I am now 100% behind Sony, and I hope this new
Playstation rules the video gaming world even
more than the current Playstation.
Companies can talk a big game, but until they really throw their support behind Linux, it is hard to know who to trust. A lot of companies seem to provide half ass support for Linux, while not really making any quality products for it. It is refreshing to see Sony doing this.
< rant> Now, if I could only do serious java programming under Linux...</rant>
I miss my Atari 2600.
--
Beef
"Raging Moderate" of the
Put the keyboard down, and slowly walk away.
--
Beef
"Raging Moderate" of the
nothing in the article indicated that sony would be developing quality products for linux. they could be bunk junk. too early to tell yet
This has already been the case for years for the serious players: the artist tools ran on SGIs, the development boxes were DOS or Windows based. Now things are coming full circle, with NT being the platform of choice for the modelling packages and Unix (Linux) as the development platform. Developers are used to dealing with this situation, I assure you.
This follows reading a coupla threads, and doing a bit of looking around.
1. Backward compatibility: The I/O processor in the PSX2 is the old chip. They're guaranteeing no improvements to old games, 'cos they're just interfacing that chip it so that it will be running the old games (apparently). Not software emulation, good old 100% hardware. It'll take the old controllers, too; a lot of the demos were done with dual-shocks hooked up.
2. DVD capability. So far, they're still undecided about DVD movie support; It *does* have MPEG2 (used for texture compression, interestingly) and DVD-ROM, AC-3/DTS sound support, so it would certainly kick some serious hiney if they did, but they haven't implemented the interface and are unwilling to go on record either way yet. I'd imagine it would depend on how much they want to compete with their own products.
3. Interesting tidbits: it may not ship with a modem. But, I/O wise, it will apparently include PCMCIA (not sure about # ports or anything),IEEE 1394 (FireWire), and USB capability. Graphics: NTSC, PAL, HDTV and VESA compatible. Software-lib wise, they're also going to be trying to provide extensive physics libs for real time rendering, and avoiding motion capture. Criminy.
4. One comment had a Sony rep saying they'd be using their own proprietary stuff for internal OS, as they didn't want to use "inefficient" external stuff. Seems fair, they need a RTOS. Doesn't trying to make Linux go on that HW sound tempting, tho?
I hope I have only decreased the UD ratio.
Sources:
Australian Playstation Review Page- psx2 news
Gamefan
Sony Playstation pages
Wyrd, dude.
>Why? because the software we people use to
>make games does not currently run on Linux.
>Ie,
>Softimage, Maya , 3D Studio Max , Lightwave
>Nichiman , Photoshop , Fractal Painter
>Debabilizer , Sound Forge , Premire
>etc, etc, etc.
This development system is of primary usage to the programmer. Since when does any games company require its programmers to use any of the above tools?
Sure, the musicians/graphic artists etc use the tools above, and they can continue to use `doze.
The programmer however only needs Linux, and a development kit.
>Every current game developer would complain
>because they would each need two machines.
>One machine to make/edit data and one to host
>software development on
Nonsense.
There is no reason why one Linux box couldn't do both tasks.
You seem to be under the misguided impression that games programmers are involved in the creation of things other than code. Sure this happens on occasions, but I think you'll find in a vast majority of development houses, everyone has _one_ function.
They use a hardware kit. A add-on card plugs into the motherboard...at least that's what I had heard.