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posted 08-16-2000 12:52 AM              

Well, obviously FSAA is more important than edge antialising - if you go that route, it kinda loses the point of a Z buffer; you have to render everything front to back to get the correct edge effect. However, just because it isn't right there as a bullet point in the product specs doesn't mean it isn't there. There are some tricks you can play with the read-output circuitry that can give you very similar effects for effectively free. However, it does require some know how, and we are still in the process of acquiring that. My understanding is that Volition has applied some of this knowledge to Summoner, with some very effective results.

As with any new machine everyone has a 'ramp up time' in terms of getting familiar with the hardware, what it does, how to get the best out of it and so on. I'd say for most PC developers this is going to be much steeper than for those who are used to getting close to the metal. With the PSX2 its exacberated by the fact that it has some on the face of it strange architecture. PC developers are not used to having to program Vector Units directly, or dealing with DMA channels, or streaming texture info directly into video ram - there are API's to do all that for them. There is some understanding required, and concepts that are not instantly graspable in all their nuances by those facing something like this for the first time.
However. Will this put people off? Possibly. I mentioned the number of PC developers that were originally interested in developing for the PSX2 that have since dropped out. Is this due to the 'hardness' of building for the PSX2? Is it due to one or two blend modes missing? Is it due to the restrictions of a 4 meg video ram? Is it due to the Microsoft X-BOX juggernaut that is attempting to do to Sony exactly what Sony did to Sega? It's hard to tell right now.

Will it hinder making a good game? I doubt it. If you develop correctly, get some stable tech in place and build content on top of that there is no reason at all for arguments about the hardware making a game 'bad'. Yes, the tech will in all probability take longer to develop than it might on the XBox, but in the end, it will be worth it. Remember, the PSX2 will be here a year before the Xbox is, and as Sega has proved, you can do a lot in that year to prolong your consoles life. And Sega doesn't have that enormouse Sony budget behind it.

Something to bear in mind is that engine builders like Epic with Unreal Tournament and Monolith with the LithTech engine are banking on this 'ramp time' in order to sell you their products. If you really don't like the time it takes, or the money it takes to aquire the amount of in house knowledge you have to build to create your own engine, then you can licence theirs (for a small fee of course) and take the load off. However, and I hope I don't piss anyone off at Epic or Monolith by saying this, but I'm firmly of the belief that a purpose built engine around the intended hardware, to do exactly what you need it to do is always going to be faster than an "all singing all dancing" engine, especially one produced on a PC. Remember the discussion we had in point one about virtual memory, and the need for avoidance of this on the PSX2 and you begin to see why.

That's not to say these engines have no value. God knows they do. They represent an investment of time and learning that is hard to reproduce. But as Jason Hall himself put it "With an Unreal Engine game you get a FPS. With a lithtech engine game, you don't. People say a lithtech game, what is that?". Well exactly. If the engine is trying to be all things to all people, then it's most assuredly going to have some serious extra code in there to deal with lots of circumstances that your game simply won't want to deal with. On the other hand, if you wanna get started quickly, then a licenced engine is definitely for you.

Access to the metal. With my background in Arcade development, where it was all done in hand crafted assembly, knowing *exactly* what is going on inside the VU's and so on is really nice. Knowing how the code works at the lowest level means you can really craft the code, rather than just write a C function and have little clue what the compiler is doing to it at compile time. The number of PC coders I've seen that had no idea that a recursive string check algorithm is a bad thing to do for run time speed is staggering, but that's what high level PC development does to coders.. they never see the metal and there is so much between their code and the actual processor that it's hard for them to envisage what's going on.
Also, it's nice when you've finally figured out what the hardware does, and how to get it to function. The next project you don't have to spend a month figuring out what all the new nVidia opengl extensions do, and how you should integrate them into the renderer you wrote last year that still has software rasterisation in it. You can re-use chunks of code, like mem card access wholesale, and not worry about what the latest jump in technology is. The direct programmability of the VU's is *really* nice. There are *many* things you can do with this that, and while I won't go into details, I'm sure there are many people out there that are just rubbing their hands at the potential.

The Raw Power of this machine has to be seen to be believed. Right now we are seeing a bunch of straight playstation port games, with higher poly count models. It's the next generation games that are really going to tap into some of what this machine is capable of, and I have a feeling that the Japanese developers have the drop on us American guys on that. And lastly, I really like all the expandibility in terms of options - firewire, USB ports (that was a *very* smart decision on the part of Sony), PCMCIA slot etc etc. I have a feeling that some very cool third party addons are only months

Lack of stable virtually anything. The PSX2 has a ton of "gotcha's" and caveats for doing virtually anything. Some are hardware related, and there's not much you can do about that except learn them, accept it and design around it. However the number of 'features' in both the sony libs and the compiler we use - Codewarrior for those that are interested - makes development sometimes less than all it might be. When 'malloc' doesn't work properly, or you can't print out floats without the system crashing hard, then there are definitely times when you look back at PC development longingly. As a developer I'm definitely of the mind "give me what little works correctly, and forget the rest". If malloc doesn't work correctly in all cases, then take it out, and tell me I have to write my own. At least then I can see what's going on and fix it if it breaks.
The whole linux base thing for the tools doesn't thrill me to be honest either. I asked one of the sony america guys why this was done, and he just looked at me and said "Because Sony Japan said so", with a large pained expression on his face all the time he was speaking. That says it all for me. I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but Linux and me just don't mix. We had to set up a linux workstation to get the PSX2 kits we have flashed, and that was an experience in pain. Linux requires you to know a ton of little mnemonics, which I hate at the best of times, since I keep forgetting them, and while much is made of the stablility of the operating system, the same cannot be said for some of the GUI's I've tried to use. Don't even get me started on Gnome.

Then we can start getting into the docs provided by Sony. I'm of two minds here. From what I can gather about halfway through the translation process of one library, SCEA gets the next library drop. So what do they do? Finish up the last lot, or start in on the new ones? Mostly it would seem the latter. I can understand this, but as a developer it reduces me to many phone calls and emails trying to figure out what I should be using and when. And when it's not going to work correctly. And where is that stencil buffer??

[This message has been edited by darendt (edited 08-16-2000).]

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posted 08-16-2000 01:00 AM              

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In the darkness you will find light, In that light you will find peace...

Posts: 876
From: Mount Vernon, WA.
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posted 08-16-2000 01:07 AM              

The PS2 hardware is strange and difficult at 1st. Familiarity brings intrigue and possibility.

quote:

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The Raw Power of this machine has to be seen to be believed. Right now we are seeing a bunch of straight playstation port games, with higher poly count models. It's the next generation games that are really going to tap into some of what this machine is capable of, and I have a feeling that the Japanese developers have the drop on us American guys on that.

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[This message has been edited by ddaryl (edited 08-16-2000).]

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posted 08-16-2000 01:11 AM              

I'm done...

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In the darkness you will find light, In that light you will find peace...

[This message has been edited by Soul Reaver (edited 08-16-2000).]

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posted 08-16-2000 01:18 AM              

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In the darkness you will find light, In that light you will find peace...

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posted 08-16-2000 01:22 AM              

He he, 1:03 am. You wouldn't last a minute with my life. I am lucky if I can get to bed before 4:00 am. I am going to try to get to sleep earlier tonight though because I am sore all over(and I have no idea why!). I think it is because I was wresling with someone twice my weight yesterday (AND I KICKED HIS BUTT, TOO! ). Usually I don't get sore when I wrestle, but maybe that could be the cause. My body needs to recover from all the pain I have now.

Back to the topic...
I think the way the PS2 is set up (with low memory and really fast streaming capabilities) will let developers do about anything they want to. It will take time and hard work before they fully understand the "tricks" of the system. The US launch titles already show that the developers are getting the hang of the PS2. I think that very soon we will start seeing games that we could only dream about before.

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posted 08-16-2000 03:58 AM              

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Oh i gotta get on that internet, im missing out on everything!!!

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posted 08-16-2000 08:21 AM              

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posted 08-16-2000 09:00 AM              

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Your village called... their idiot is missing.

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posted 08-16-2000 09:10 AM              

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Oh i gotta get on that internet, im missing out on everything!!!

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posted 08-16-2000 12:59 PM              

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"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
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