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1

General Gaming / RE:psp specs revealed

« on: August 13, 2003, 09:57:52 PM »

Originally posted by Cap:

Quote
while i dont know what gc's raw polygon specs would be, i know that they released realistic figures of 6-12 million polygons a second with all effects on. that number has already been surpassed by rogue leader at launch. the psp polygon numbers are as i understand it , theoretical, in that that would be the maximum number of polygons the system is capable of with NO effects. i'm only going on what i have read about both systems, so someone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong. i dont think the psp is anywhere near the gc in terms of power though, becouse wouldnt that put it on the same level as the ps2? didnt sony mention it will be capable of about 1.5 times the power of the ps1?

You're not reading what I said or understanding it completely.

Again,

PSP seems to be around 1/2 has powerful as PS2.   that is still MASSIVELY more powerful than PS1. While PSP is probably not really as powerful as the GameCube,  it  IS *miles* ahead of PS1 or N64. The PSP is more powerful than -Dreamcast- in every area except amount memory (PSP's memory is faster than DC's though!)--And Dreamcast is at least 10~15x more powerful than N64 or PS1.

N64's fp performance = 100~200 mflops - polygon rate: 160,000 with effects & textures
DC's fp performance   = 1400 mflops - polygon rate: 3-5m with effects & textures
PSP's fp performance = 2600 mflops - polygon rate: 5-10m with effects & textures ?


I do realize PSP's 33m polygon per second rate is theoretical, much like PS2's 66m polygon rate. If PS2 gets 10-20m in actual games, PSP will probably get 5-10m pps. Even if PSP only got 3-4m pps, that would still be on par with Dreamcast and WAY ahead of PS1's 180,000 or N64's 160,000 pps  (with texture & effects) .    


btw, fyi, here is GameCube's polygon stats, including raw polygon rate.  Information comes from cube.ign, and they got the information from Nintendo's official GameCube Hardware Overview documentation.

http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/index.html


Polygon Rate

1 vertex color + 1 light + 1 texture - 20M polygons/sec
no vertex color + 1 texture - 26.4M polygons/sec
1 vertex color + no texture (gouraud shading)  - 32M polygons/sec  

2

General Gaming / RE:psp specs revealed

« on: August 11, 2003, 05:48:17 PM »

no, obviously I have not programmed for PSP.

I am simply saying the PSP specifications are closer to current generation consoles than they are to N64.

3

General Gaming / RE:psp specs revealed

« on: August 11, 2003, 05:26:22 PM »

PlayStation Portable Specs

CPU Core
MIPS R4000 32-bit core
128-bit Bus
333MHz, 1.2V
8MB eDRAM main memory
2.6GB/sec Bus Bandwidth
I-Cache, D-Cache
2.6GFlops, FPU, VFPU (Vector Unit)
3D-CG extened instructions
Media Engine
MIPS R4000 32-bit core
333MHz, 1.2V
128-bit bus
2MB eDRAM sub memory
90nm CMOS manufacturing process
Graphics Core 1
2MB VRAM
5.3Gbps bus bandwidth
3D Curved Surface + 3D Polygon
Compressed Texture
Hardware Clipping, Morphing, Bone
Hardware Tessellator
Bezier, B-Spline (NURBS)
- reduce program, data,
- reduce memory footprint & bus traffic
Graphics Core 2
Rendering Engine + Surface Engine
256-bit bus, 166MHz, 1.2V
2MB VRAM
5.3Gbps bus bandwidth
664M pixels/sec fill rate
Max. 33M polygons / sec
24-bit full color
Sound Core
VME (Virtual Mobile Engine)
166MHz, 1.2V
128-bit bus
5 billion operations / second
3D Sound, 7.1 Channel
Support ATRAC3 Plus, AAC, MP3
Reconfigurable DSP engine
Media
UMD; Universal Media Disc, 60mm diameter
660nm Laser Diode
1.8GB Dual Layer
11Mbps transfer rate
Shock Proof
Secure ROM by AES
Unique Disc ID
Display
4.5" TFT LCD with 16:9 widescreen display
480 x 272 pixels, 24-bit full color
Communication
Wireless LAN (802.11) [Hotspots, Home Server, ...]
IrDA infrared wireless communication [PSP, Mobile Phone,...]
USB 2.0 [PSP, PS2, PC, ...]
Memory Stick
Controller
- directional pad, analog stick
- circle, cross, triangle, square, L1, R1, Start, Select buttons
Misc
MPEG4 AVC Decoder
Rechargeable Lithium ion battery
AV input / output
Headphone output
Launch Schedule Prototype: E3 2004 in May 2004
Title Lineup: Tokyo Game Show 2004
Worldwide Launch: Q4 2004
ProgrammingSimilar to the Original PlayStation
PSP Libraries
Middleware
Sample Code
Simple Programmable Field
* Media Engine and VME/AVE are not user programmable.


N64's fillrate is something well below 100M pixels/sec, probably like 30-40M pixels/sec -  and N64's floating point performance is around 100 MFLOPs for the CPU and 100 MFLOPs for the RCP (graphics processor)  

PSP's fillrate is 664M pixels/sec. and floating point performance is 2.6 GFLOPs.
Dreamcast has a 100M Pixel/sec fillrate and floating point performance of 1.4 GFLOPs.  

GameCube's fillrate is 648M pixels/sec. so PSP not only has a higher raw pixel fillrate GC, it needs to use less because its screen is lower res than Gamecube's display on a tv, or that of any console.  

In terms of polygon performance and fillrate, the PSP and Gamecube seem very close.
in fact, PSP is somewhat higher in both.  GC's raw polygon spec is like 25 or 30M polygons (I forget the exact figure) PSP's  is 33m polygons. pixel fill rate of PSP and GC seems nearly identical on paper, although Gamecube's fillrate includes trilinear filtering, dont know about PSP. even so, this is damn impressive for a handheld.

The only area where Dreamcast and Gamecube beat PSP is in amount of memory, but again, PSP will be more efficient because it needs to fill less pixels/less space, because of its smaller, lower resolution display compared to a 640x480 screen.

PSP is not only a massive, massive leap beyond GBA, its also a huge leap beyond N64, and conciderably more powerful than Dreamcast in most areas.  PSP is closer to Gamecube than it is to N64.  

And these are just raw specifications. not some over-blown hype.  PSP is not God, its simply a powerful handheld. I have every reason to believe that Nintendo will surpass PSP with its own next-gen portable in 2004 or 2005.    

4

General Gaming / RE:psp specs revealed

« on: August 11, 2003, 03:55:19 PM »

Grey Ninja, where did you get that information about Nintendo64 pushing 600k - 900k
polygons? that simply isnt true. that would make it more powerful than Sega's Model 2 arcade board that drives Virtua Fighter 2 and Daytona USA, or Namco's System 22 board that drives Ridge Racer.  N64 does more like 160,000 polygons with texture mapping and features on, not 900,000 or 600,000.  maybe it does that many flat shaded, but not with texturing and FX.


As for the PSP, it looks like it is going to be roughly 1/2 has powerful as the PS2, with some graphics features that even PS2 does not have.  that would make it at around 10-20 times more powerful than N64 at least.   the PSP is going to be closer to Dreamcast
performance.  In fact, more powerful than Dreamcast in most areas, except amount of memory.  

PSP's pixel fillrate is over 600 million pixels/sec - that's more like GameCube's filllrate (648M pixels/sec) but since PSP has a lower resolution than GC, that will mean it has to fill less space, its like having more fillrate to work with.

And 33 million polygons/sec is likely a peak figure, much like PS2's 66M polygons.  but that is a helluva lot more than N64's peak polygon rate, which is well under 1Mpps.