Architecture of the Playstation 2
copetti.org
Architecture of the Playstation 2
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Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#2Note this is part of a series: https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#3I find it fun that the essence of the PS2's Vector Unit 1 is reborn in DX12/Vulkan's "Mesh Shaders" https://www.geeks3d.com/20200519/introduction-to-mesh-shader...
TLDR: Where the GPU's traditional geometry API mostly worked 1 independent vertex at a time (with a few unsuccessful extensions), Mesh Shaders are a more free-form, compute-shader-like approach where you can load as much arbitrarily-structured data as you can fit in a fixed SRAM then compute however you like and output triangles directly to the rasterizer. Pretty much exactly like the VU1, but with Shader Model 6 syntax.
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#4This reminds me of my homebrew days making custom Guitar Hero 2 tracks. There was a great modding community (scorehero.com) around. This was before DLC was a thing, so if I wanted more content, I had to make it myself.
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#5The PlayStation 2 is actually one of the original reasons I got interested in the computer engineering space. The EE chip is a sort of who's-who of optimization techniques - hardware decoding, vector processing, VLIW architecture (for the VUs), memory bandwidth tailored to keeping the huge amount of functional units busy with a constant stream of math to do.
At some point I got a port of Debian (BlackRhino GNU/Linux) running on my PS2 - slowly, off a USB 1.1 thumbdrive, as I lacked the hard drive / network card adapter. Never got too far with it owing mostly to lack of the network, but in spite of being a 1999 console, it ran X11 at 1080i just fine.
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#6Note this is part of a series: https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/
Nice! I loved the Mega Drive one [0].
This series is so cool! Its full of details on sprites and architecture. I admire the work that was put on this.
[0] https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/mega-drive-genesis...
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#7The PlayStation 2 is actually one of the original reasons I got interested in the computer engineering space. The EE chip is a sort of who's-who of optimization techniques - hardware decoding, vector processing, VLIW architecture (for the VUs), memory bandwidth tailored to keeping the huge amount of functional units busy with a constant stream of math to do. At some point I got a port of Debian (BlackRhino GNU/Linux)…
Nice. I have a Red Hat Linux port for PS2, but haven't booted it in almost 20 years thanks to missing a sync-on-green monitor.
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#8I remember reading some story way back with some ... Sony exec? Someone saying that there were people writing engine code in Excel to be able to track the co processors and get the timing right.
Does anyone know of the truthiness of such a story? I'm learning FPGA design and even there, when timing is pretty controlled, people end up recommending design patterns where you gate stuff similar to how you would do it in general software design (expecting one branch to go faster than the other, etc)
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#9Dont forget that there are (homebrew and/or abandonware) sdks out there: for the PSP, PSX and other consoles.
Re: Architecture of the Playstation 2
#10For homebrew exploits, there was also a new one discovered and implemented last year, called FreeDVDBoot. The newest model of the PS2 Slim fixed the memory card exploit, and this new exploit doesn't require a modchip or any other hardware modification.