Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis • Hacker News Board

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#61

Post by pixelrevision » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

jstimpfle wrote: post #38

pjmlp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Short answer, Parkinson's law. When I browse the Web, open my Windows File Explorer, open Photoshop, open Visual Studio, open just a graphical application that needs GPU acceleration, or do whatever thing that should not be an issue, I find that Parkinson's law very much applies. htt…

Legacy products like visual studio and photoshop also suffer from age. Those codebases are both over 20 years old and have a gazillion features that customers start to rely on. Add in that and codebase that old will be slower to make changes on then something fresh and you end up where they are.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#62

Post by bloopernova » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

miskin wrote: post #53

silvestrov wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2000 times better graphics than a ZX81.

It's a matter of perspective. When one witnessed it from times of Pong until now, it is maybe much easier to appreciate the whole journey. I still find myself trying to save bandwidth on my internet connection that was very scarce resource not-that-long-ago. When I see people listening to music via youtube, unnecessarily transfering all that video content that nobody really watch, I want to cry :). Same with programm…

How comparable is an ESP32 to a Spectrum 48K? (apart from memory, the esp has many times more to play with)

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#63

Post by Koshkin » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

ddoolin wrote: post #2

It's crazy to see just how far they've come from the first console to the latest and all the lessons they've learned along the way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg (Some Playstation 5 architecture highlights).

Well, as much as I would love to share the excitement, all they've come to is what essentially amounts to another gaming PC. Not sure how 'far' this is, but clearly all innovation happens now on the PC side. (It almost seems now that the fact that the earlier Playstation models and other consoles had the custom architecture that was different from PC may have had to do with the need to provide enough power in a smaller package.)

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#64

Post by diegoperini » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #51

fxtentacle wrote: post #46

It makes me feel nostalgic to read about the times when people still tried to understand the hardware and make things work amazingly well despite harsh resource limits. Nowadays, even simplistic programs take ages on a device 1000 times more powerful. I had time to read this article because restarting our ruby development server is so excruciatingly slow. It seems the craftsmanship aspect of computer programming is g…

> It seems the craftsmanship aspect of computer programming is getting lost, and all that remains is the large leverage that one can use to drive profits with software. Too many lazy/greedy developers fighting against users and operating systems (coughelectroncough)

Or maybe software is just more widespread than before and it's no longer an exercise practiced by a few selected (by hard-work, luck, you name it) "experts". It is completely understandable if these new wave of developers care their time budget more than efficient hardware utilization.

This is the tendency for any craft that gains popularity over time. We can only advocate best practices by making them accessible, approachable and applicable. We can then hope the crowd listens and if they don't, that's ok, it's their loss (or not if their audience doesn't care).

A good analogy is, you don't have to build an earthquake resistant building if you are gonna use it to store some metal junk (carpenter tools, gardening tools etc). It's not a house and there is no danger even if you live on top of an active fault line.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#65

Post by MaxBarraclough » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

inform880 wrote: post #55

Razengan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems the craftsmanship aspect of computer programming is getting lost, and all that remains is the large leverage that one can use to drive profits with software. Too many lazy/greedy developers fighting against users and operating systems (coughelectroncough)

I understand that Electron apps tend to be a resource hog, but what other options for software create as many cross platform opportunities with as much work? I think for every single greedy developer/company there's another small software project only able to get off the ground because of the maximized opportunities. This is coming from a relatively new full time developer who's trying to get a small side project off…

JavaFX?

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#66

Post by 0xcde4c3db » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

idoby wrote: post #27

Is "page-flipping" basically double buffering or am I missing something?

I hadn't heard the term in a while, but I believe page-flipping more specifically means that the buffer roles can be switched in hardware (e.g. by changing a "framebuffer start address" register in the CRTC or RAMDAC) instead of requiring a buffer to be copied (e.g. via a DMA or blitter operation). Both schemes are double-buffered in the sense that you're never actively rendering to the same buffer that's being scanned out, but page-flipping has significantly less overhead.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#67

Post by pixelbath » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

flipacholas wrote: post #44

snvzz wrote: post #5

Neat article, content wise. I wouldn't call it in-depth because it's very high level, but it is neat. The presentation could be made much better by getting rid of those tabbed sections and just making the article one long page.

Thanks. The reason for the tabs is that each article has many sections (CPU, graphics, audio, etc) so I imagined some people may be more interest particular sections than others. For this, if you find something interesting, you can use the tabs to read more about it. Otherwise, you only have to scroll down a little bit. This behaviour is only found when viewed on a desktop pc by the way, mobile users will see a long…

I liked the tabbed sections, but I feel like they could use some differentiation from the rest of the content. For example, in the "limitations" tabbed section, I had to scroll down and flip through the tabs to determine where the tabbed content ended. Separating this out a little more would make it apparent that "changing this tab only changes this content," something along these lines (rough in-page mockup): https://imgur.com/D2lhOwV

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#68

Post by arvinsim » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #46

It makes me feel nostalgic to read about the times when people still tried to understand the hardware and make things work amazingly well despite harsh resource limits. Nowadays, even simplistic programs take ages on a device 1000 times more powerful. I had time to read this article because restarting our ruby development server is so excruciatingly slow. It seems the craftsmanship aspect of computer programming is g…

I don't think it's about developers caring less.

I think it's because businesses have figured out that it is most cost-efficient to throw powerful hardware on problems rather than spending money on bespoke solutions or specialists in most cases.

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#69

Post by arvinsim » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #60

inform880 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that Electron apps tend to be a resource hog, but what other options for software create as many cross platform opportunities with as much work? I think for every single greedy developer/company there's another small software project only able to get off the ground because of the maximized opportunities. This is coming from a relatively new full time developer who's trying to get a small side project off…

> I understand that Electron apps tend to be a resource hog, but what other options for software create as many cross platform opportunities with as much work? Is laziness a good excuse for poor software? For wasting the time and resources of every one who uses the application? For disregarding the conventions of the host platform including any user preferences and accessibility features?

The flaw in your arguments is that good and fast software is usually not the main goal nor the priority of people who drive software aka businesses

Re: Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis

#70

Post by kabes » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

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.

While hardware is a lot more performant now, game devs are still pushing the boundaries, I'd say even more than back then. Modern triple A games like red dead redemption 2 are a giant collection of such tricks.