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Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

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Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#21

Post by newswasboring »

mikorym wrote: post #16
kozak wrote: post #11

What's amazing is that it had only 2 MB of RAM, that's at least 2000 times less than a cheap phone has today. In fact, that's less than a moderate quality mobile phone photo as stored on disk.

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is , you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB o…

yeah but modern programmers are also solving harder problems. Compare games from early consoles and today, the scope is vastly larger.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#23

Post by pjmlp »

newswasboring wrote: post #21
mikorym wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is , you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB o…

yeah but modern programmers are also solving harder problems. Compare games from early consoles and today, the scope is vastly larger.

Like shipping Electron apps.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#24

Post by pjmlp »

mikorym wrote: post #16
kozak wrote: post #11

What's amazing is that it had only 2 MB of RAM, that's at least 2000 times less than a cheap phone has today. In fact, that's less than a moderate quality mobile phone photo as stored on disk.

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is , you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB o…

Which is why I find so ironic that many still think only languages like Assembly, C or C++ have a place in IoT on devices like ESP32.

Sure, we used Assembly when performance was the ultimate goal, but also plenty of high level languages, including stuff like Clipper for database front ends.

512 KB with a couple of MHz are already capable of doing a lot of stuff, one just needs to actually think how to properly implement it.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#25

Post by pm321 »

mikorym wrote: post #16
kozak wrote: post #11

What's amazing is that it had only 2 MB of RAM, that's at least 2000 times less than a cheap phone has today. In fact, that's less than a moderate quality mobile phone photo as stored on disk.

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is , you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB o…

"back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is, you had to have the smallest program to calculate it"

A floating point division on two three digit numbers used to be used as a good enough approximation to 𝛑.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#26

Post by foota »

newswasboring wrote: post #20
dzeix35wc363CzC wrote: post #4

For anyone interested how it was developing for the original PSX (and therefore under hardware constraints) How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o Immensely interesting video! "Old" hardware makes me feel so humble regarding what we have now. Hardware limitations back then really pushed developers towards novel approaches and solutions.

On the same note, I discovered this[1] yesterday. An explanation of why things looked a warped in PS1 games. The explanation actually blew my mind. I had heard the term zbuffer before but didn't really know what it did. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8TO-nrUtSI

That was cool, also check the comments for a neat thread by someone that worked on an early PlayStation game!

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#28

Post by junke »

glandium wrote: post #6
dzeix35wc363CzC wrote: post #4

For anyone interested how it was developing for the original PSX (and therefore under hardware constraints) How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o Immensely interesting video! "Old" hardware makes me feel so humble regarding what we have now. Hardware limitations back then really pushed developers towards novel approaches and solutions.

Extended version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSHj5UKSylk

Andy Gavin (in the video) was also responsible for the development of GOAL, Game Oriented Assembly Lisp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp)

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#29

Post by saagarjha »

pm321 wrote: post #25
mikorym wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is , you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB o…

"back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is, you had to have the smallest program to calculate it" A floating point division on two three digit numbers used to be used as a good enough approximation to 𝛑.

3.14159 is often a good enough approximation for pi.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#30

Post by MaxBarraclough »

pjmlp wrote: post #24
mikorym wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is , you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB o…

Which is why I find so ironic that many still think only languages like Assembly, C or C++ have a place in IoT on devices like ESP32. Sure, we used Assembly when performance was the ultimate goal, but also plenty of high level languages, including stuff like Clipper for database front ends. 512 KB with a couple of MHz are already capable of doing a lot of stuff, one just needs to actually think how to properly implem…

Given the security track-record of those languages, I sure hope not.
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