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Why PS4 downloads are so slow

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Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#171

Post by nabla9 »

MBCook wrote: post #104
jdormit wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Steam Link, and I get all the benefits of PC gaming from my couch. It's a pretty seamless best-of-both-worlds situation.

You also get the downside of having to maintain/upgrade the PC, which is one of the things I was happy to leave behind when I became a console-only gamer.

> downside of having to maintain/upgrade the PC

Easy solution:

You can treat your PC like a console. Just clue everything so that you can't maintain and upgrade it.

Now you have PC that is like a console. Buy a new one when this is not good enough.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#172

Post by coolsunglasses »

djhworld wrote: post #153
coolsunglasses wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game is more graphically intensive than you might think and the people that care about this kind of game very much value a solid 60 FPS frame rate.

Works at 60fps on Nintendo Switch though, which isn't exactly the most powerful machine in the world.

Not just works, it's 100% solid on the Switch outside of the mode-7'ish bonus game with no stuttering or frame drops.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#173

Post by TulliusCicero »

jhasse wrote: post #134
quazeekotl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yet somehow it ran at 60fps 20 years ago on hardware that was 10000 times slower hmm

The game includes garphics which wouldn't be possible on the Mega Drive / Genesis. For example alpha blending or lots of sprite rotating. Also Sonic on the Mega Drive had multiple framerate drops, e. g. when you lose lots of rings.

It would've been possible on the Saturn, and on the Dreamcast at 60 fps, easily. How much more powerful are even mediocre modern PCs compared to the Dreamcast?

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#174

Post by hd4 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #71

Its bizarre because I bought something from the PlayStation store on my PS4 and it took DAYS to download. The strange part of the story is that it took so long to download that the next day I went and bought the game (Battlefield 4) from the shop and brought it back home and installed it and started playing it, all whilst the original purchase from the PlayStation store was still downloading. I ask Sony if they would…

If you're in the EU, it's worth checking consumer laws. Valve and Sony and others have been allowed to ignore local laws too much until now.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#175

Post by badthingfactory »

andrewstuart wrote: post #71

Its bizarre because I bought something from the PlayStation store on my PS4 and it took DAYS to download. The strange part of the story is that it took so long to download that the next day I went and bought the game (Battlefield 4) from the shop and brought it back home and installed it and started playing it, all whilst the original purchase from the PlayStation store was still downloading. I ask Sony if they would…

I got a PSTV a few years ago and was itching to play some old Metal Gear games one morning. The PSTV is advertised as being able to play Vita games, so I purchased them through the PS Store on my PSTV. The game downloaded and was ready to install and I got an error that said the game was unplayable in my region on that device. I was annoyed, but figured I would get my money back. I contacted customer service and they said games were not refundable. They allowed me to purchase and download a game on a device it was unplayable on and then refused to give me money back. I was never able to play the games I bought.

A few months ago, my account was hacked and someone charged $50 to my card. I contacted support and they told me "normally all sales are final, but they would do me a one time courtesy and refund the money since my account was indeed hacked." WOW THANKS FOR BEING SO KIND SINCE THIS WAS CLEARLY MY FAULT.

Sony no longer receives money from me.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#176

Post by Lorkki »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #173
jhasse wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game includes garphics which wouldn't be possible on the Mega Drive / Genesis. For example alpha blending or lots of sprite rotating. Also Sonic on the Mega Drive had multiple framerate drops, e. g. when you lose lots of rings.

It would've been possible on the Saturn, and on the Dreamcast at 60 fps, easily. How much more powerful are even mediocre modern PCs compared to the Dreamcast?

Saturn would most likely choke on memory requirements, given how much is going on in the levels, as well as lack of transparency support. Symphony of the Night was the state of the art 2D platformer for that hardware generation and it has frequent loading pauses, despite being much more static.

Dreamcast would probably work, given enough effort by people who know the platform inside and out. But then, a much lower barrier to entry is probably a significant reason as to why Sega was willing to fund another 2D Sonic game in the first place.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#177

Post by cdevs »

dcow wrote: post #116
cdevs wrote: post #114

As a developer people seemed surprised I don't have some massive gaming rig at home but there's something about it that feels like work. I don't want to sit up and be fully alert - I did that all day at work I want 30 mins to veg out on a console jumping between Netflix and some quick multiplayer game with less hackers glitchin out on the game. It seems impressive what PS4 attempts to accomplish while you're playing…

But it's just one app and boom 7kb receive window. The author goes into how terrible the impl is. I'm sure it might seem crazy if you're not familiar with kernel networking. Also I hope you get more than 30 min of free time each day (=

I know my comment came off as putting the article down but I always have praise for anyone on the hunt for issues of why Firefox does this or why PS4 does this. I shoot for 30 mins of game time but we all know how that turns into 2-3 hours when I ment to start some programming side project. Games are the devil.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#178

Post by amluto »

xorblurb wrote: post #43
sharkbot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be wrong, but my understanding of some sound cards is that they have essentially a single memory buffer that they are reading from when instructed to play a sound. Most sound cards let the OS split the buffer into two halves and raise an interrupt when one half of the buffer completes playing. Interrupt prioritization doesn't help much, because the sound data is likely being generated from user mode, and the…

Needing to wake up usermode is not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle; under Linux you can use a PREEMPT config. Storming a network card having unwanted consequences can also be mitigated: under Linux you have some network device driver that use an hybrid interrupt/polling approach with the NAPI. Combining both should theoretically allow a system to generate sound smoothly in the described conditions.

IMO you shouldn't really need to wake user mode that often. Just let user code buffer the output samples well ahead of the hardware needing them and have the kernel do the copies when needed.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#179

Post by khedoros1 »

whipoodle wrote: post #166
khedoros1 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except step 5 needs two variants, then: "Oh, I see why it happens" and "Oh, I see that it doesn't, so let's find a way to communicate better with the user".

There are a lot of ways that things can go, but starting out with the disposition that either the bug report is wrong or the other machine is somehow made of worse silicon than our own, is rarely helpful.

Agreed. The direction I was going is this: If there's a bug report, then there is a problem. The problem might be the bug that was reported, or it might be that you surprised the user/tester in a way that they perceived as being a bug. Obviously something needs to be improved, even if it's just communication with the user, rather than changing the behavior of the program.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#180

Post by Drdrdrq »

Pulcinella wrote: post #154
Drdrdrq wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...life's too short to worry about who our corporate overlords are This is not what freedom of choice is about (to me). What I care about is the amount of power they yield over my experience. In Linux their power is low. Windows? Mac? Too high for my taste.

I don't disagree that this I inportant to you. Right now my infant child wields "absolute power" over my life so the convenience and time savings of a console is worth it to me.

Touché. :-D
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