F*ck DirectX, get OpenGl working properly, with support for all the major cards, and the games will come. It's not the coders you have to worry about, it's the distributers, publishers, and development managers.
Err, the Playstations hardware geometry acceleration is a specialised co-processor, tied to the main processor. You have complete control over it. I worry about the abstraction of functionality created by sticking an API in the way.
For example, we do some whole-world-warping stuff that you couldn't do with a simple 4*4 transform. It recquires some addition lookups, and math at the world stage of the transformation pipeline.
Of course if you're just drawing static teapots, and trees, there's no problem. Dull, but fast.
PSII is missing a handy (but expensive) blend mode, but other than that, all the internal buses run pretty fast, and are seperated. It has multiple data paths into the GS, including one from a dedicated transform unit.
Believe me, the big problem with the PSII isn't available power. It's low level complexity. Writing optimal renderers and transform engines is going to be a BIG BEEEATCH!
They ask us developers too. Couple of years ago they asked us if we'd use the existing pipeline if it was hardware accelerated.
"No", was the overwhelming response, "we want to do our own lighting, and wacky transforms, and skinned models with multiple bones at each joint, and your pipeline sucks for this."
"But" said the hardware guys, "we want to differentiate our cards from the others, and geometry acceleration is the thing to do!"
Two years later, and we've just had the first consumer card with geometry acceleration announced. I wonder if they've fixed the pipeline?
Personally I'm still using DX5. DX6's texture cache looks ok, but I'd written my own by the time it came out.
Tomb Raider, that'll be Core / Eidos, not really Sony. Remember, Sony make the hardware, and cream a royalty off of everyones games. As to the Tomb Raider clones, what can I say? They sell. Even my Dad loves Tomb Raider.
As to being the M$ of gaming, puhleeze?
Sega and Nintendo were getting fat and lazy. The face of the next generation prior to Sony getting involved was pretty unexciting.
> 5) Two years max before the PC will be able to surpass the capability having already been demonstrated.
Combined rasteriser & vram cards have already been anounced, now the only real bottleneck is the speed of the bus between the transform engine (processor currently) and rasterisers.
Card accelerated transformation is a nice idea, but it's going to be tricky to get it useable.
Besides, you've got to get all the IHVs, Microsoft, and the games development community to agree on something. It's not gonna happen for a while.
The bus isn't slow, and there are several of them, each specialised to it's own task. The DMA controller alone is sex on a stick. Oh, and 32meg of main ram in a console is huge. You should see what we get out of 2 meg.
However, it's not the be-all, and end-all by any means. There's a couple of gotchas, but then there always are. For example, there's a remarkably usefull blend mode missing, oh and it's gonna be a nightmare to debug the low level stuff.
It's the only way of debugging all those extra bits of silicon you have to program. This beast is complicated. Really complicated. Makes 80x86 look like a toy...;)
> Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.
Not strictly true. Sony will reject games for 'aesthetic' reasons. Their recquirements are long, complicated, and easy to break.
As to why more PS games than Nintendo, or Sega. Numbers, pure and simple numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC: Quicktime was an developed externally to Apple, and bought in.
Of course they've one a lot of work on it since, mostly good, some bad (new movie player, ugg!)
> If my memory serves me correctly Linux has been adopted as the development platform for the Playstation II.
...and as the OS for a future PS2 based workstation. I mean, why would Sony want to write an OS?
Think embedded!
F*ck DirectX, get OpenGl working properly, with support for all the major cards, and the games will come. It's not the coders you have to worry about, it's the distributers, publishers, and development managers.
Work those IHVs!
Surely 'Americans On Line', which, as an unreconstructed brit, I'd consider fair warning...;)
Does the ISO scene count as prior-art here?
Anyone else appreciate the irony in storing the patents in GIF format?
Actually there already is a PS2 emulator. It's part of the devkit, and no, it's not full speed, but it is the only way to debug the VPU/VIFs...
Err, the Playstations hardware geometry acceleration is a specialised co-processor, tied to the main processor. You have complete control over it. I worry about the abstraction of functionality created by sticking an API in the way.
For example, we do some whole-world-warping stuff that you couldn't do with a simple 4*4 transform. It recquires some addition lookups, and math at the world stage of the transformation pipeline.
Of course if you're just drawing static teapots, and trees, there's no problem. Dull, but fast.
Hello, geometry and lighting acceleration doesn't include shadow volume generation. Ergo, you still have to do shadows on the main processor.
> Do you have a Playstation 2?
I'm afraid I couldn't possibly comment.
> Do you also have a GForce256?
It's probably in the post.
I love being a games developer.
...and just maybe it'll be out by the time the NV10 hits the bargain bins....;)
Word. Mind you Sony aren't that much better...
PSII is missing a handy (but expensive) blend mode, but other than that, all the internal buses run pretty fast, and are seperated. It has multiple data paths into the GS, including one from a dedicated transform unit.
Believe me, the big problem with the PSII isn't available power. It's low level complexity. Writing optimal renderers and transform engines is going to be a BIG BEEEATCH!
They ask us developers too. Couple of years ago they asked us if we'd use the existing pipeline if it was hardware accelerated.
"No", was the overwhelming response, "we want to do our own lighting, and wacky transforms, and skinned models with multiple bones at each joint, and your pipeline sucks for this."
"But" said the hardware guys, "we want to differentiate our cards from the others, and geometry acceleration is the thing to do!"
Two years later, and we've just had the first consumer card with geometry acceleration announced. I wonder if they've fixed the pipeline?
Personally I'm still using DX5. DX6's texture cache looks ok, but I'd written my own by the time it came out.
pHill
My my, you are an ego driven defensive little scrote aren't you.
Tomb Raider, that'll be Core / Eidos, not really Sony. Remember, Sony make the hardware, and cream a royalty off of everyones games. As to the Tomb Raider clones, what can I say? They sell. Even my Dad loves Tomb Raider.
As to being the M$ of gaming, puhleeze?
Sega and Nintendo were getting fat and lazy. The face of the next generation prior to Sony getting involved was pretty unexciting.
> Also, the Playstation 2 is going to load all these wonderful textures from a CD each time the scenery changes if I have understood correctly?
Depends on how good the programmers are. Background loading on a properly designed machine isn't tricky.
> Wow. It will be like the opening doors sequences in Resident Evil...times 10!
Now that was a sloppy piece of code. Check Crash Bandicoot, that streams its levels on the fly.
> 5) Two years max before the PC will be able to surpass the capability having already been demonstrated.
Combined rasteriser & vram cards have already been anounced, now the only real bottleneck is the speed of the bus between the transform engine (processor currently) and rasterisers.
Card accelerated transformation is a nice idea, but it's going to be tricky to get it useable.
Besides, you've got to get all the IHVs, Microsoft, and the games development community to agree on something. It's not gonna happen for a while.
The bus isn't slow, and there are several of them, each specialised to it's own task. The DMA controller alone is sex on a stick. Oh, and 32meg of main ram in a console is huge. You should see what we get out of 2 meg.
However, it's not the be-all, and end-all by any means. There's a couple of gotchas, but then there always are. For example, there's a remarkably usefull blend mode missing, oh and it's gonna be a nightmare to debug the low level stuff.
Or so reliable sources have it...;)
It's the only way of debugging all those extra bits of silicon you have to program. This beast is complicated. Really complicated. Makes 80x86 look like a toy...;)
...or so I've been told...
> Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.
Not strictly true. Sony will reject games for 'aesthetic' reasons. Their recquirements are long, complicated, and easy to break.
As to why more PS games than Nintendo, or Sega. Numbers, pure and simple numbers.
While not in the path of totality, we caught about 95%. My impromptu pinhole camera showed the cresent rotate as the moon went past.
Nice, but overhyped.
> why couldn't these people use a goddamn steadicam
because steadicams are expensive, heavy, and unlikely to be in the possession of a student film crew?
It's really cheap, and it's not a PC.
They do look nice when stacked on a shelf.