Architecture of the Playstation • Hacker News Board

Re: Architecture of the Playstation

#111

Post by hypertele-Xii » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

flipacholas wrote: post #103

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your citation contradicts itself. The polygon jitter exists for lack of floating point unit. While it's possible to emulate the necessary precision, it's uneconomical without the acceleration provided by a dedicated processing unit. Without floating point, the PSX isn't fast enough to render complex scenes in real-time accurately; Hence the jitter.

I don't mind being wrong and I will correct the article if needed. That being said, I'm interested in debating this, what if the PS1's GPU had implemented some sort of sub-pixel precision and edge antialiasing? Do you think the lack of floating-point vertex coordinates would have been noticeable? (I'm assuming the 'jitter' means the sudden jumps when polygons move slowly).

I have no idea :)

Re: Architecture of the Playstation

#112

Post by anthk » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 12:05 PM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #87

insin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth revisiting some of your favourites in an emulator - these days PSX emulators can do perspective correct texturing to fix the jiggling and warping, which combined with internal upscaling makes games which were badly affected by those shimmering textures feel much more "solid". Here's the first track in Ridge Racer Type 4, for example, which looks so much nicer without the track and wall textures wobbling ab…

Except for the pixely UI elements, upscaled Ridge Racer could pass for a launch PS2 title.

And draw distance.

Re: Architecture of the Playstation

#113

Post by mtrower » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

Tsiklon wrote: post #8

bluedino wrote: post #4

The PSX did not age well. I noticed this at a friend house, while looking for something in the garage we came across his old system and games. We could not resist taking it back into the house and setting it up. The first thing I noticed was how long the load times were. And how noisy the machine was when reading and seeking on the discs. The next thing was the primitive texture mapping. Polygons 'jiggling' and 'spar…

I find that the PSX (and PS2 to an extent) look better on a legacy CRT TV, the video artifacting while still present does not appear as unsightly as it does on an modern LCD. Perhaps this is down to my nostalgia for the system

Nah, a lot of things from that era (including filmography) just look better on the era-appropriate display hardware. CRTs have totally different properties and design considerations; trying to display content made for CRT, on LCD, often just presents the worst of both worlds.

Re: Architecture of the Playstation

#114

Post by mtrower » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #57

Synaesthesia wrote: post #46

It’s always blown me away that the PS1 had a 33mhz chip and 2MB RAM. I know it’s a specialised machine, but still. I think by modern standards though it’s very evident in most games, with the draw distance being so low.

It's a flawed comparison, but those specs seem a lot worse than PC specs at the time. The Playstation also didn't cost $2,000.

My Pentium from 1996 had a 133mhz processor and 8Mb of onboard EDO RAM (you could upgrade, but that’s what it came with). A 1994 machine would have been weaker, but still much stronger than PS hardware.

The PS was a specialized machine though. Don’t discount either the benefits of developing and optimizing for a single set of known hardware, rather than a wide wide array of PC hardware.

Re: Architecture of the Playstation

#115

Post by Talanes » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #112

Talanes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the pixely UI elements, upscaled Ridge Racer could pass for a launch PS2 title.

And draw distance.

True, if it were a ps2 title the level would start out like that, and then suddenly open up to show off how much better they can do outdoor environments now.

Re: Architecture of the Playstation

#116

Post by deergomoo » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

Tsiklon wrote: post #8

bluedino wrote: post #4

The PSX did not age well. I noticed this at a friend house, while looking for something in the garage we came across his old system and games. We could not resist taking it back into the house and setting it up. The first thing I noticed was how long the load times were. And how noisy the machine was when reading and seeking on the discs. The next thing was the primitive texture mapping. Polygons 'jiggling' and 'spar…

I find that the PSX (and PS2 to an extent) look better on a legacy CRT TV, the video artifacting while still present does not appear as unsightly as it does on an modern LCD. Perhaps this is down to my nostalgia for the system

Anything that only has analogue out really—it's only games for 360/PS3 and newer that were really designed with LCDs in mind. Anything older is best played on a CRT, although that's impractical for most people and becoming harder with every passing day.

That said, as much as I love playing old games on a CRT, I'm in a PAL region, and in today's world of high-refresh rate screens 50Hz is nausea inducing.