Show Posts
1
Nintendo Gaming / Why we get so few/such bad ports
« on: April 17, 2003, 02:09:03 AM »
It occured to me that one reason why the PS2 gets games and the Cube doesn't is that the architecture of the PS2 is so weird. Given that the PS2 is ahead in user-base it makes sense for a developer to target the PS2 first.
A game written for the PS2 is likely to take advantage of the PS2's vector units - that's pretty much essential in order to get reasonable performance out of the PS2. Because the PS2 vector units are so flexible any code written for them is going to be very hard to port to a fixed function GPU like the GameCube's. A port to the Xbox is likely to be easier because its programmable vertex shaders are more similar to PS2 vector units than the fixed T&L engine in the GameCube.
If this is a reason why we Cube fans get so so few ports or the few we get are so bad?
A game written for the PS2 is likely to take advantage of the PS2's vector units - that's pretty much essential in order to get reasonable performance out of the PS2. Because the PS2 vector units are so flexible any code written for them is going to be very hard to port to a fixed function GPU like the GameCube's. A port to the Xbox is likely to be easier because its programmable vertex shaders are more similar to PS2 vector units than the fixed T&L engine in the GameCube.
If this is a reason why we Cube fans get so so few ports or the few we get are so bad?
