PSX2 To Replace Your PC? 353
rosewood writes "It is always slightly funny to watch a major news agency like CNN delve into a high tech debate. This article gives some information about Sony's new Playstation 2 and their Emotion Engine that claims 6.2 GFlops at 300mhz. Sounds interesting, but is it really enough to start replacing computers?"
semantics ... (Score:3)
Depends. (Score:1)
horses for courses (Score:1)
If you can plug a printer, mouse & keyboard into a PS2 then i'll consider it for my next upgrade.
MSX To Replace Your PC? (Score:2)
They are all dead.
Dead. Deceased. Ceaced to be. Joined the Choir Invisible. Rung Down the Curtain and Pushing Up the Daisies. It is an Ex-Parrot!
Placement... (Score:3)
Nintendo.. (Score:1)
Linux on the psx (Score:2)
Set top boxes? (Score:1)
Where I can see this might be good is in the set top box arena. YOu can already send email with the Dreamcast, it seems a natural step to build web browsing functionality into a PSX style console. Throw in the better styling of the console / set top box idea, and the PC could well be replaced as a home device for entertainment.
Woohoo! (Score:3)
I suppose it would work out well for some people, but not for people who use computers for more than web browsers and email.
Idle time (Score:5)
Ok, everyone here whose machine is currently at 100% CPU usage, raise your hand.
Now lower your hand if it is seti - 98%.
Now lower your hand if it is distributed.net - 98%.
Anyone with a hand still up?
The realy question is not what its CPU speed is, but how fast its access to peripherals is. Anyone got any info?
Re:horses for courses (Score:2)
I don't think that this is going to replace too many desktops, but it will get people on the web that wouldn't be otherwise.
They should be looking at expanding markets, not worrying about whose markets they can grab.
FYI... it's not CNN's article... (Score:1)
Overstated (Score:3)
- "It [Emotion Engine] could provide the processing power for the PlayStation 2 to challenge cheap PCs as the entry-level device of choice for home access to the Web."
which is nothing like "they're going to replace PCs as we know it".Someone will want to port linux to it though... which will lead to hooking them up with that "B" word.
the competition? (Score:4)
Gateway Systems has issued a press release stating they have teamed up with Sonic the Hedgehog to help with their manufacturing "The guy is so fast - he replaced half our factory workers! If we could just get him to stop slamming into the gold-colored tiles on the roof we'd be all set." and Laura Croft to help with their marketing. "It was a natural fit," said the Marketing director in an exclusive interview.
But Gateway faces competition from startup VA Linux Systems, who has reportedly contracted with ID Software for their Quake guy. "He's going to be our legal department," said Eric Raymond while grinning evilly.
About time... (Score:1)
Playstation vs Computer (Score:2)
That's all I have to say. I'm banking on my computer for the time being.
"I may disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."
Re:semantics ... (Score:1)
stats are misleading. (Score:1)
Every gaming platform says this... (Score:1)
Perhaps this is not a parralel situation, but that's what I thought of.
You can (Score:2)
IIRC, IBM is starting to sell them off real cheap now...
Pope
why replace computers? (Score:4)
My guess is that it all started with Apple. Before that, computers were used just for business. Nobody had a need for a computer at home (an IMHO, very few do now). Instead, computers were used for complex calculations and such that people couldn't (or shouldn't waste their time) doing on their on. Now, everybody's got a computer so that they can print greeting cards, e-mail their Aunt Sue, or play backgammon on Yahoo! Games. They all think that it's economical because paper costs less than Halmark cards, e-mail is cheaper than postage stamps or telephone calls, and you don't have to actually own a backgammon board. Instead, let's spend a thousand dollars on a computer, twenty bucks a month for Internet, and we won't have to buy a Halmark card for $1.50 or a stamp for $0.32.
The truth is that most computers are used for nothing more than fancy typewriters that can check your computer. Very few people actually use their Gateway or Dell for anything more than you could do much cheaper with simpler equipment. Programmers (what would we program for?), Hackers (what would there be to hack?) and businesses are the only true computer users these days.
So if Sony wants their Playstation 2 to replace home computers, then by all means let them do it! I think that I'll be content with the four that I have as I write webpages. But then again, I just might not have a job if it weren't for all the people in the world who absolutely have to be on the Internet and have to have something to look at once they get there.
Brad Johnson
--We are the Music Makers, and we
are the Dreamers of Dreams
Dumb Terminal (Score:3)
While I'm not sure if the Playstation has the capabilities to run boring application-level (word processor, etc.) software, it certainly has incredible potential as a dumb terminal.
Computers are becoming more network centric every day. Remember the "Personal Computing" revolution? I don't either
If we could get a Playstation with an Ethernet jack, it might just make the best dumb terminal you've ever seen. Want the font for your terminal window 3d rendered and shimmering? The possibilities are endless. So long as the applications (or at least some of them) are hosted remotely...
One step closer to VR. Waiting patiently.
Anthony
Yes, hopefully. (Score:2)
As a scientist, I want to get a computer, OS and a software pack which are suitable for my needs, specialized for my computations and so on. It's nice to play Q3D, but this is an additional bonus, and anyway I spent more time in my life playing nethack then playing Q. I don't need them everything-inside multimedia-gamers-office-everything-computers. Linux changed my computer into something resembling much more this dream machine of mine, but it still isn't perfect.
Next thing: I don't want to be forced into a silly arm race just because of new-extra-cool features which enable some people playing a real-time 3D flight simulator on their laptops, with 3D sound and a 72x CD-ROM and God-knows-what else. I would like a nice, laptop-sized machine, good for typing texts when travelling and with a decent acumulator, and *cheap*. Guess what? You can't. Yes, there are them old laptops, heavy as a hog, with an accumulator able to get the machine running for an hour or so (if you're lucky). Harh.
Yes, hopefully there will be a specialized games-computer much better then a normal home-computer. So I don't have to buy it.
Regards,
January
Re:Depends. (Score:1)
i dunno - that box would be great for mechanical enginering, faster than a 2 year old sgi - cheaper than a low end pc - and durable enough to leap small buildings with a single drop-kick.
i do think the chip makers will start to realize the benefits of interoperability. if i could get a playstationII 'card' and my os could regard it as a gl rendering engine - that would realy be something.
fast grapics are a driving force in many fields. i think what we'll probably end up with is the technology - in a flexible package. link the hot new game machine with your 45" display, with your 10Ghz cpu with etc. firewire's getting there. fast ethernet may be good enough for a clean network - usb seems a bit slow though.
It has USB and i-Link (Score:1)
PSX2 *emulating* PC (Score:4)
This means that you can boot up your copy of Win '98 (yeah right
Cool stuff indeed. It might just serve as a low-cost PC alternative.
keyboard jockey (Score:1)
Replace computers? Of Course!! (Score:1)
In a couple of years, the 'desktop' computer won't exist. There will be lot's of computers- the ones you wear, the ones you pickup and use, the ones you walk up to and use. The one you sit down at will just be another variant of the above, not the other way around.
And Linux will be the dominant OS on all of them- because it's free (as in freedom), it has mindshare bigger and better than the *BSDs, or any other OS, and people will be free to create all these other uses for computing devices.
Richard Stallman's vision is realized.
Mastah of the Obvious (Score:1)
Peter Glaskowsky, a senior editor for Microprocessor Report, said Thursday that a PlayStation 2 will be fundamentally easier to use than a PC.
Give this journalist a prize! (Did he really need to quote somebody to say that?)
Not my computer (Score:1)
Re:horses for courses (Score:3)
I'd rather do the maintenance on Linux (no mother, you can't have the root password) but we've all seen that Intuit won't even develop new apps for the Mac, let alone Linux. Of course, they probably won't develop an app for this, but this is much more appealing to many folks.
As for those who have said "we've seen it before and they tanked". Well, yes and no. Yes, we have seen similar products before. And yes, they didn't sell. But why? First, techies weren't interested. Second, there wasn't much of a push by CompUSA et al. of the machines. Better profit margins/commisions on the Packard Bells, etc.
Also, we have an even less technically savvy audience gravitating towards computers. Two years ago, how many grandmothers were on the internet? Now, with proddings by their children and grandchildren, they are more likely to sign on. So the market is a bit more ripe these days.
But, there is still a problem. These machines are too hard to hook up for the grandmothers out there. So they will need the help of someone more familiar with the technology. And that person will say "why don't you just get a PC?"
To make these work, you need a distribution model similar to WebPC/TV (I am guessing on what follows. If this isn't WebTV's MO, ignore that part, and look at the idea) You buy it from Circuit City. You pay an extra $50 for in home installation. While waiting for the installer to come out, your paperwork for membership is processed. They come to your house, plug in all the fiddly bits. As soon as the machine boots, you enter your special ID number. This gets written to flash ROM. It automatically connects you to the Net, maintains upgrades, etc.
Or, if you didn't opt for the 'Internet Package', and just picked the packages for Home Checking, Offline Games, and Word Processing, then it installs/updates those packages, and the Circuit City installer can then unplug your modem.
We're not talking rocket science here. There is one sticking point, and that is us, the technically savvy. As long as we recommend against these types of machines, people will listen. The manufacturers either need to convince us to convince others (and, OSS not withstanding, having M$ go into a joint PS2/WebTV development will help. Remember, most computer users out there still proudly fly the Redmond flag) to use these machines, or they need to make them so easy that we are taken out of the picture.
How to do that? First with the install plan I mentioned. Second way: have a demo installation booth at Circuit City. Let potential buyers open a box (repacked and taped up after every demo) and hook one up themselves.
Re:the competition? (Score:1)
Cheap processor power.. (Score:2)
PSX2 Beowulf Cluster!
PCs are not alone! (Score:2)
Anything that helps to bring non-PC type computing to mass attention is a good thing. PCs really suck, I look forward to being able to buy an inexpensive computing device that does the job and doesn't allow me to waste my money on crappy upgrades that I really don't need, the better.
And what is the chance that MS will port Windows to PS2? Infinitessimally small I hope. What is the chance that Linux and *BSD will get ported to it? Pretty damn good, I hope. End the idiocy of PCs everywhere! Who knows, we might not have to put up with adverts claiming a CPU upgrade will increase the speed of your Inet connection ;-) And without the technical details of the hardware being required knowledge, we might not have to put up with people that don't know what they are talking about boasting to their colleagues about their computer - and getting it all cringefully wrong.
Extensible architecture (Score:1)
Although the PSX2 is forecast around $340 dollars, you then need to buy some more add-ins from Sony to make it a semi-practical computing solution:
1) Digital Display (You wouldn't like to wp on a 600line tv)
$110
2) Hard Drive (nothing like filling em up) - Sony 10Gb
$140
3) Keyboard+Mouse (also has to be Sony)
$40
4) Printer (for that paper-full office feeling)
$135
TOTAL $765 US
Its a bit pricey when you consider what kind of kit you could buy PC wise for that money....
However, I *really* like the idea of using the PSX2 (when I get one) as the centrepiece of my home entertainment system ie: Sony stereo, VCR and HDTV all controlled by the PSX2
Computers for Non-Elite: The PSX2 (Score:5)
But, with the right marketing and accessories, it could do everything that 80% of home computer users need in a computer. It will surf the web, do email, and play games. For way less than a PC, and no hassles with compatibility, no installation nightmares, no DirectX downloads, no problems at all.
I predict this device will sneak into America's homes and become the home computer that everyone envisioned in Sci-Fi books 20 years ago.
We here on
By the way, everyone thought the IBM PC sucked when it first came out. Remember?
Replace, nah. But augment... (Score:1)
What if you were able to use a PlayStation2 as the user interface to your Linux/PC box in a really well integrated fashion?
XWindows and really fast rendering with hard-/firm-ware acceleration without having to buy some ridiculously over priced PC card, and it can play some games too.
Think of doing VR without watching the screen update about as quickly as glaciers flow.
C'mon guys there must be a way we can USE this!
The second idea is unrelated but here goes:
How many companies sell Linux distributions?
And that's competition your honor...
How many companies sell Windows distributions?
And that's a monopoly your honor...
Now lets put that topic to bed, without its supper.
Re:Overstated (Score:1)
It does make sense though - why spend several hundred pounds/dollars just to be able to send a few e-mails? I think the machine looks very nice, but it would never replace my PC. But then, I'm not a 'home user'.
Fixed FLOPS (Score:2)
In other words, yeah, you can do alot of processing, if you're specifically trying to process what they're trying to accelerate.
Take a gigahertz X86 processor and toss 256x256 texture bilinear filtering at it, and it's gonna choke. Take a Voodoo 1 that has entire gate arrays devoted to doing nothing else *but* filtering 256x256 textures scaled to arbitrary sizes, and it'll do just fine. That doesn't mean a Voodoo 1 is by definition faster than a Gigahertz x86 chip; it means that a hardware architecture highly optimized for a specific type of processing can execute those specific operations or sets of operations much, much faster than software attempting to do the same with a more general architecture.
Gate arrays beat emulation any day of the week
What's interesting is that there's a rather large problem going on in the computer industry: General purpose processors are already quite fast enough to do almost anything that can be thrown at them, with the exception of those tasks that are wayyyyy outside of their design specifications. So you have servers at 10% load saturating their network bandwidth, but make that same server a rendering station and it could have ten times the power and still not meet demand.
Makes an interesting case for FPGA architectures which can dynamically rewrite the actual logic gates, and for directly programming Transmeta's surprisingly versatile Crusoes.
Incidentally, surfing web pages on a television sucks. Will PSX2 ship with VGA out? If so, it might have an interesting chance. By then, though, x86 webpads will likely be the standard.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
The PSX 2 is only part of the overall EE strategy (Score:2)
The PSX2 is a home system. Essentially, it's aimed at WebTV, Dreamcast, Dolphin, and AOL. That is their target user base for people that are going to use this as a device for connecting to the net. Not to say that I won't be connecting mine to play games, but still.
The new line of VAIO computers in late 2000 or early 2001 will feature some integration of this technology also. I would look for some very kick-butt video and audio processing on them.
However, they are also going after Sun, Fujitsu, HP, Dell, Apple, and the workstation market with a new line of workstations featuring a more powerful version of the EE chip in tandem with other processors. This I remember reading. This also looks very promising, especially if they can find a way to make Photoshop run like it does on a G4 in terms of processor optimization with the EE.
This PSX2 will not replace computers. It's not aimed at that in Sony's overall stragegy. It's squarely aimed at the low-end market of people that buy WebTV, AOL, or Dreamcast (or Sega SaturnNet Link ).
OBLIGATORY BEOWULF POST (Score:1)
-Elendale (*drool*)
A couple of thoughts (Score:2)
One is the quote: experts predict the high-tech processor will offer unprecedented gaming power They say this before any new release, all the console game companies do, It doesn't allways pan out. The Playstation one is not all that "Oohh' LaLa, and Sony said it was the greatest thing ever or some spin like that. I bought one for my kids and they want to sell it to the neighbors kid and use the money to buy more N-64 games.
But that kind of speed in a console is going to open up a whole new realm in gaming. Second was the DVD influence: Combine that with a DVD drive, and a modular design that will offer simple upgrades to Internet access.... I'm getting a little leary of DVD/Net connected anything. For one the technology is just advancing to fast to make it a sound investment and also Because a PlayStation 2 lacks a built-in storage device, he says new programs would likely run through the DVD drive. DVD Write will eventually come in to play and with it will come all the hassles with encription, keys, copyright infringement etc.
Should be an interesting product to watch though, I wonder how Sony will target market it to the non-gamer community. Those chips could have so many other uses.
Never knock on Death's door:
Low resolution, high processing power... (Score:2)
Hmm...
1) Get PSX2 that plays DVDs and a couple of games, and allows me to surf the web via dialup on my TV
2) Get that TNT2 Ultra or GeForce256 DDR for the same price, and realise that upgrade cards can handle some work..
" Peter Glaskowsky, a senior editor for Microprocessor Report, said Thursday that a PlayStation 2 will be fundamentally easier to use than a PC."
Yes, the PSX2 gamepad seems to be so much easier on the wrists as compared to a 101-key QWERTY keyboard.
"There are fewer ways for the average user to run into problems because read-only devices are harder to break, he says."
Considering the "average user" intelligence level (12:00... 12:00... 12:00...) -- he's right. They'll likely not realise they can't save any of their files
So we have an expensive chimera unit. Not gaming console (like the ever loveable Super Nintendo I own), and not a computer (like the ever loveable homebuilts I own), and does the gaming not as well as a powerful PC, and does the PC stuff not as well as a cheap PC with an ancient monitor.
"Success? Who needs it! We have the emotion engine."
---
Re:Linux on the psx (Score:1)
I've read in a long time.
It reminds me of the guy who experienced just
about every urban legend that can happen to a
single person (he was recovering from a rat in his
KFC, was unknowingly drugged, woke up in a bathtub
without his kidneys, lost his leg due to not
sending on a chain mail, tried to use a pay phone
to call 911 about his kidneys and leg but got
jabbed with an HIV infected needle, etc)
Why is it I'm never a moderator when I want to be
(and vice versa)?
It would be nice to be able to squirrel away
moderator points in our cookies for just such an
occasion?
Re:MSX To Replace Your PC? (Score:1)
PSX as a computer (Score:1)
Re:Dumb Terminal (Score:1)
Then a cd/dvd with a browser, a irc clien, a icq client and a telnet client on it. (Or possibly in flash memory for instant boot.)
With the games-performance promised by sony (if they are up to par) it would ba a perfect "home entertainment" machine.
If combined with deascent dvd/vcd/mp3 playback and a look that fits in the tv-bench, that is...
I would buy one. =) (Too bad Commodore was out too early with their CDTV.)
Thanks, but ... (Score:2)
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Select Start.
Daltorak
Re:Thats going to be ridiculously slow (Score:2)
"According to MicroDesign Resources, the processor can handle 6.2 gigaflops at 300MHz. A single gigaflop equals one billion floating-point operations per second. MDR says that makes the chip two times faster than a 733-MHz Pentium III"
Re:Overstated (Score:2)
Go to sourceforge.net, that project is already underway.
LK
They just don't get it... (Score:2)
PC gamers, though, enjoy pushing the technology. Stuff like getting inside the machine and overclocking it or installing the latest graphics cards. PC Gamers also love being able to create modded levels to exercise their creativity. One thing that will probably change is online play, which console gamers may pick up.
I'm going to probably switch to being mainly a PC gamer now, after years of supporting consoles. I don't like what Sega did to consumers when they locked out the import light guns for Dreamcast (you cannot play House of the Dead without a light gun. Minor game, maybe, but I like it.), and I don't like Sony's way of treating consumers with region codes and the latest DVD fiasco. So, for me that leaves Nintendo's Dolphin, but I haven't made up my mind on that one yet.
PC's on the other hand, have started to look really good for gamers, even more so than they have for years. Of course, the habit does seem slightly more expensive to support on a PC... but I'd rather do that than give chum to the Sony shark.
Oh, and I'm sick of the whole, "...will replace the PC line of reasoning." This is just old fashioned "conventional wisdom" that the "average joe" neither needs nor wants a PC, but wants to be on the Internet. PCs are great, cool and fun (yes, even fun beyond just games... though I fear to utter near-heresy like that) and I think people have been buying them because they want to, not because they are forced to because there are no alternatives. PCs are going to be just fine... they aren't going anywhere, and neither are consoles.
Re:keyboard jockey (Score:2)
Every decent player I play against plays with the mouse/keyboard combo, bar none..
Keyboard for all kinds of weapon switching, strafing, etc, and mouse for aiming..
Re:Playstation vs Computer - the reality (Score:2)
Hey... let's read a few reviews or the specs and rethink your rather uninformed rant.
The hardware is entirely proprietary,
Like those USB ports? or the FireWire (IEEE1394, isn't the IEEE a standards group?), or are you referring to the Type III PCMCIA slot?
meaning that the upgrade possibilities if you replaced your computer with a gaming console are ... limited.
Unless you slap in a few standardized PCMCIA devices... or chain a few USB devices... or drop your camcorder on the FireWire port.
Similarly, there are other strange quirks. Sure, all the new consoles will have keyboards and everything, but they require special internet service -- I highly doubt they're PPP compliant, and Ethernet compliance? Probably not, in all fairness.
Yeah, because you can't put a Ethernet card as a standard feature... oh, wait... they are going to ship with one. They say that they prefer that you use their broadband network optimized for games, but you can put a modem into one and dial into any ISP, or use DSL or a cablemodem. Funny... it sounds like they've got a Ethernet and PPP stack.
Lastly -- text on TVs is hard to read. It's getting better, but it will never be a computer monitor, because it's designed for an entirely different effect. Those of us who sit near our computer screens, for lack of a better `ergonomic' setup, can tell you that it looks vastly different from close up from a television.
So, until you can afford HDTV, just in case I'm remembering wrong about it having a VGA output (it just lists a multi AV cable), slap a HTDV converter on your monitor.
Oh, and it comes in a tower configuration when you buy the workstation model... or you can put the regular model and it runs the DVDs sideways.
Just in case you think I'm a rabid gamer, the last game system I owned was an 8-bit Nintendo. I have no clue what's come out since then, never seen a Nintendo 64, just recently found out that GameBoys are now in color. The specs and positioning for the PS2 (it looks like a sterio component!) are nice. I'm holding off on a DVD player for it.
Links:
Sony Japan (specs are in english:) http://www.scei.co.jp/ps2/hard.html [scei.co.jp]
--
Evan
to clarify a few things. (Score:2)
1) it has 2 USB ports. with an adapter, it'll support up to 127 usb devices... plug in that mouse, and watch it work (more on this later).
2) Video Games almost always use peak performance out of a system. If you don't believe me, read some interviews with the people of Naughty Dog, or Polyphony Digital, who created Crash Bandicoot 1/2/3 and Gran Turismo 1-2, respectively. that Emotion Engine is gonna be getting a pretty good butt-whoop'n in the begining, and totally maxed out to peak performance when the software demands (Polyphony Digital has already talked about wanting to make the system bleed.)
3) it will support normal Televisions and HDTV. the hell with small resolution, you'll be more than happy with HDTV, Daniel-san.
...and now for the software end...
1) IT RUNS LINUX. all you freaks saying "port linux to it and I'll use it" are in need of a SERIOUS swat with the clue stick.
2) because it runs linux, I'm pretty sure that there will be ways to flash the PS2's BIOS so that it supports more peripherals.... i.e. USB Mice, USB Keyboards USB Printers (mmmm.... HP 970cxi), USB Scanners, and.... heh... prolly that N64 to USB adapter too.
3) Breakpoint (the man behind Project Unreality - the first N64 Emulator) is actually working on a PC-to-PS2 emulator.... he summed it up quite well by saying "Imagine a 3DSM rendering farm running on REALLY FAST computers"
now, on to the demographics of the average PS2 user
1) The average PS2 owner is going to be between the ages of 14-23, as this is who's buying the most games. Most of this age group either has a computer, or is going to get one in the near future. Most won't have a DVD player, and will be more than happy to use that as an excuse for purchasing/getting someone to purchase the PS2.
2) more people will jump on the "We can surf from the couch with WebTV" market. You see, most of these 14-23 year olds live at home, and their families will be using this as a web terminal (probably a major way to con the parents into getting one). No matter what one thinks of net surfers without computers, this is gonna become more widespread... so get used to the idea.
3) since GCC is being ported to the PS2, I'm thinking that there will be a few more people out there wanting to create their own PS/2 games, and have a comparable system to run/compile with. No longer will aspiring Game Creators have to spend $400 on a Net Yaroze to make half-baked games... no. they'll use their 3,000 PC!
4) speaking of games... now that Quake 3 Arena is being ported to the dreamcast, don't be surprised if Q3A and Unreal Tournament pop up on the PS2. John Carmack and Tim Sweeney have both mentioned the large possibility of porting the games.
but I really don't care... I won't even consider owning a PS2 untill Bleem, LLC kicks sony's large corporate ass in court....
My floppy drive, ok. My hard drive, never. (Score:2)
Oh yeah, like I want a computer without a hard drive. No more mods for Quake & Unreal, No more custom levels or skins. It may make a cool DVD player and arcade station, but it can't even replace the gaming functions on my computer, nevermind the useful things like Browser plugins. You can't even download patches...
-----
Re:Idle time (Score:2)
The PSX2 is all about games, and this is why its important to have a fast CPU.
Re:semantics ... (Score:2)
They can produce a game for a PC, and this has to be able to run on an almost infinite range of specifications. Different graphics cards, different sound cards, different control interfaces, different resolutions, different speeds. That's one reason why you get so many patches for games. They don't work with graphics card X, or sound card Y, or on machines with a processor speed more than N.
Or, they can write the game on a Playstation 2. It's got the power, and the graphics potential, to carry the game off. And all machines have a fixed, standard architecture. They have the same graphics chip, the same sound chip, the same control interface. There is one single standard they can stick to.
That makes their job much easier.
One thing to note, is if people switch to the PSX2 for games, they won't need to upgrade their PC so often, so PC sales might slump and the breakneck speed of processor development might slow down.
How many people out there are buying new, faster PCs just to play Quake III?
Re:Woohoo! (Score:2)
Another perspective on the matter (Score:2)
Most people who debate in the matter of "Consoles" replacing desktops than I've talked to tend to miss a couple of things.
There is a reason why Linux isn't currently running on the desktop of CEOs of fortune 500 companies. What that reason is, isn't the matter here, its the fact that it exists. Can you *really* see Microsoft dumping desktop/servers. They could port their software to consols, but Microsofts attempts at porting tend to be less than sucesful.
Another point that is mentioned more, but not enough is viewing device. 17" monitors may be small compared to your 28" at home. But just try *reading* that 28". So it looks like for now, the legacy monitor will remain (Till something else with sharp clarity comes along (read: LCD, Plastic that glows, etc).
I suspect that Consoles won't replace PCs, and PCs won't replace consoles. PCs will on the whole get smaller, however, there is a possibility of having many small devices, like consoles, that do different things. A Games computer, an Office tools computer, Development computer, an Internet Computer. However, that won't happen till each device can communicate perfectly with every other device, preferably wireless. And the protocol and standards for such devices are open.
I suspect if the console was more Open, and you could play the same game on many different machines without having to go buy another copy, it could begin to replace the PC. But thats sounding more and more like a PC. One reason why they won't be more open is consoles can do such cool stuff because they are specifically designed to do it, and the games and specifically designed to work on one console, and the hardware is generally known at the time of game creation.
As far as I can tell, in the near future (say 5-10 years), consoles will remain primarily games only device.
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Re:MSX To Replace Your PC? (Score:2)
On the other hand, it's true that 99.9% of computer time is spent on idle cycles, when handling word-processing or basic spreadsheets. That's one of the reason SETI@Home and Distributed.net do so well - there's plenty of surplus computer power out there.
As for game effects, look at Elite, Frontier: First Encounters, Virus 2000, or Zarch. These games drained every last bit of computer power there was, and used any and all resources available. If current game writers did this, you'd be looking at games orders of magnitude superior to anything out there.
Whilst I agree that optimisation is a good idea, and that the PC design is a horrible heap of junk, I also think that underpowered processors will kill themselves off, when/if the next Real Killer App is written.
The network computer is alive as well. (Score:2)
Browswer based apps are already here. They're still wimpy, but in a few years consumers and regular office workers will be able to accomplish everything they do now via a computer with a web browser.
The NC's not dead. It's just the PC became the NC.
Read the specs, please... (Score:4)
But if you look at PSX2 specs, you'll see it has USB ports (Keyboard, mouse, scanners, printers, Modem/ADSL, even *GASP!* floppies), a FireWire port (Video, but even big and fast HDs), and a Type III PCCard/PCMCIA Slot where you can plug lots of things, from HDs to Video Cards. And all these devices are/should be STANDARD PC PERIPHERALS, not Sony proprietary dongles.
And all this without knowing for sure what PSX2 can do by itself. Is it limited to TV video freqs, or can it do better? Will it have some expansion capabilities (RAM, internal devices) or not?
Maybe after all PSX2 will be able to replace some (lots of?) PCs, since it's not very different from what PCs are becoming these days (think of the new all-usb machines...), and as someone stated in the article, it won't fsck itself up every two games you play "since it doesn't have an HD" (since it doesn't have an idiotic OS on it, i'd say
Even Linux-wise the thing is really cool, because its processor is MIPS4000 compatible and its developement system is Linux-based, so it should be easy to port Linux to it, if Sony itself doesn't do it.
If Sony doesn't do something VERY wrong and stupid with this thing (think Commodore...
Ciao,
Rob!
-- since English isn't my native language, corrections are welcome! --
Re:semantics ... (Score:2)
I couldn't disagree more. The console gaming market and computer gaming market are largely different markets & genres. Last years IDSN report showed huge disparities between the two markets (console gaming is mostly 18 and under, while computer gaming is mostly 18 and older). Additionally, people play very different games on the two. Console games for the most part have traditionally been "twitch" games, be it sports, action, adventure, combat, etc. with the Final Fantasy series as the big exception. RPGs and quest-type adventures usually do much better on PCs, for example.
I mean, how many people play Tekken 3 on their PC?...not many. How many people play Quake on their console?...not many (as someone pointed out). How many people play Starcraft on their console?...none! The console system is just NOT suited to certain games (such as Sim and Strategy type games).
Someone raised this point: They can produce a game for a PC, and this has to be able to run on an almost infinite range of specifications. Different graphics cards, different sound cards, different control interfaces, different resolutions, different speeds. That's one reason why you get so many patches for games. They don't work with graphics card X, or sound card Y, or on machines with a processor speed more than N. Or, they can write the game on a Playstation 2. It's got the power, and the graphics potential, to carry the game off. And all machines have a fixed, standard architecture. They have the same graphics chip, the same sound chip, the same control interface. There is one single standard they can stick to.
The flaw with this argument is that while it is true for the most part, the fact is that game developers can't push the envelope of modern technology with consoles after a couple of months after the console release. Where as new graphics cards are always coming out allowing computer games developers to push the graphics limits, and similarly in memory, disc space, etc...
In any case, I don't think the console is going to be replacing the PC anytime soon at all. NTSC resolution is pathetic. The interfaces to most consoles is highly limited (mouse?...keyboard?). And the Internet multi-player games?...well, despite being MANY years behind the times, we'll see...maybe they'll at the least catch up...surpass?, I'd be surprised.
Yawn (Score:2)
Deepak
--
Deepak Saxena
Very Risky Comment... (Score:2)
The topic is "Will PSX2 replace the PC?". Obviously, a relevant subtopic would be "Will the Slashdot audience support the PSX2 replacing the PC, or for that matter being a success?"
IF you agree this is a valid sub-topic, then I am amazed that noone has yet brought up the (now political/social) issue of DVD. Remember, the PSX2 is amoung other things, a DVD player. Not by an option, but by default. And a lot of people that I see drooling over the PSX2 in this convo are also very passionate in other fora about boycotting DVD, and all who back it, about boycotting the MEDIA companies in cahoots with the DVD CCA (of which, in THIS case, Sony is BOTH). So, regardless of whether you believe the DVD makers or the DVD content providers should feel the pressure from us, realize that Sony is in both camps and therefore, if you believe that we should resist funding the pockets of those who are trying to squash our freedoms, Sony, like it or not, should be a prime target.
I agree I'm as bummed as the next guy to admit that, the PSX2 looks like it will be one kick-ass machine, but on principle, I will not support it until the DVD issues are resolved in a manner acceptable to the principles and freedoms at stake.
And as such, at the moment, I as a Slashdot reader cannont in good conscience wish the PSX2 to "Replace the PC", or even have success.
Just my 2 cents.
A few points (Score:2)
Second off, while TVs are not an ideal display device, if there isn't a monitor adapter somewhere for them, I'll be extremely surprised. That makes things a lot more readable. But strangely enough I think we're really going to end up waiting for the flat panel market before people really start dumping their televisions for plugging their consoles into.
Third off, no need to assume that people will just have one of them in the house. These things will drop to the $150 and even to the $100 range in time. That makes having two or three affordable to a far wider audiance. That leads to the next point.
Fourth off, yes, they are limited compared to PCs, but envision a home network of PSX2 boxes linked by ethernet to a Linux box that serves as a file/printer server as well as gateway. Not that I envision that PSX2 boxes will be usable in a configuration like that, but my vision of home computing is that PC's will eventually evolve into home servers while the consoles become the home network computers that plug into them. The PCs can run Linux (or even some icky OS) and be the servers that run continuously plugged into the Net as well as being the focal point for commonly used devices such as printers. If Sony was really thinking though, they'd copy Apple and produce their own version of the Airport. That would encourage multiple PSX2's in one house and increase their sales through easy wireless networking.
The fifth point is that it has been pointed out that PCs did a lot of damage to the minicomputer market by eroding it from below. Exactly the same thing is happening now to the PC market. PC folks are scoffing in nearly identical fashions to what the minicomputer folks said about PCs.
However, the sixth point is that there is going to be trouble here. All Sony has to do is put a Java virtual machine on their PSX2 and that destroys their whole economic model. Sony makes money by charging a fee to developers who produce and sell software on their consoles. The moment someone puts a Java machine on, which allows anyone to code and load software and run it on a PSX2 without giving a cut to Sony, everything falls apart.
In time, we're going to see the collision between the PC free development model (and bitch all you like about Microsoft, they don't try to control who writes what on their machines) and the console controlled development model. I think in the end we'll see a bump up in console prices and the PC model taking over. It probably won't happen from a traditional vendor, or if it does, through a court case.
So in short I see these things shoving PC's up into the high end server market, where the modularity of the PC and its flexibility are a real advantage. However in colliding with the PC market they are going to be changed by the more robust PC economic model. A home will have a console plugged into the big screen television and associated stereo system (eliminating the need for an MP3 box in the stereo rack), but there will be a couple of others in the house for personal network computer use and networked game play.
Re:semantics ... (Score:2)
Sony doesn't want PSX2 to replace the PC... (Score:3)
The PSX2 will be the core of Sony's "home entertainment universe" (remember their new commercials about how all their stuff is interconnected? What's missing? hmmm...). It is designed as the gateway unit for all of your home multimedia equipment, this includes your PC if it is equiped with 1394 oops I mean firewire oops I mean iLink Sony's proprietary protocol built on top of 1394.
Sony has come out publicly to state that PSX2 is a settop box, which is not the same genre of equipment as a game console. PSX2 is Sony's bid to completely and totally control your living room.
There's a company called Bleem that makes PSX2 emulation software for the PC. They made about 4 million in sales last year. Sony has spent about 10 million so far trying to shut them down. Why should they care when they sell their consoles at a loss and Tekken3 was their highest grossing product last year? Becuase if you can play playstation games on your PC you don't need a playstation, or the PSX2. The PSX2 is what will enable you to take your Sony camcorder, and plug it into your home network to connect to your Sony TV, Sony VAIO computer, and your Sony microwave, bathroom scale and toothbrush.
So of course you will see all kinds of releases about how great and wonderfull emotion engine is and how PSX2 (*cough*with-iLink*cough*) will make everyone's lives easier and better and make you more attractive to members of the opposite sex.
Patiently I await Dolphin or NUON.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
Daily Radar has a good article (Score:2)
I can already do that with my rock (Score:4)
Rocks. They're not just for breakfast anymore.
consoles on the chopping block - relax! (Score:2)
I agree that lots of claims have been made to indicate the emminent demise of the PC, but the key factor here is that technology is on a steady course of advancement. All things must change. The fact is, PCs are amazingly adaptable (excluding the processor - which still has a development track).
Does anyone remember the amazing quotes the media gave the PSX version 1? That beast has a measly 4 MB of RAM (the new ones); it hit the streets initially with 2 MB!! Face it, consoles will always alternate between leading the pack and bringing up the rear. The lack of upgradability forces companies like Sony and Sega to shoot as high as possibile when introducing a platform. The last thing console games want is to have to upgrade their system. That is the beauty of the console, no?
But look where the first mighty hype machine is now. It's a dinosaur. (The key that Sony has known all along is that performance is important, but to console players, the games matter most, so new PSX ver1 games still rock.)
Computers will catch up to the PSX2, but in time. Let Sony have their heyday. They're shooting for the living room, not the teen's room (Apple) or the office (everyone else). They happen to have a great idea whose time has come.
I still want one -- bad!Re:semantics ... (Score:2)
see http://psx.ign.com/news/7154.html [ign.com] and http://www.ps2web.com/cgi-bin/artic le.asp?id=98 [ps2web.com] for more details.
Re:keyboard jockey (Score:2)
Here's what I use:
Mouse down: aim/Look up
Mouse up: aim/Look down (I use reversed control because I am used to the flight-simulator way of doing thing)
Mouse left/right: Turn left/right
The crosshairs on the screen end up being like a mouse pointer, but in 360 degrees. There is simply no substitute.
Left mouse button: fire. (point click and kill interface)
Right mouse button: next weapon.
My unorthodox keyboard setup:
Left shift: Run forward
Left ctrl: Run backward
A: sidestep left
S: sidestep right
left Alt: secondary fire
space: jump
Do you actually play using a joystick?
Consoles WILL NOT replaces PCs anytime soon. (Score:3)
Game genres on PC and Dreamcast [firingsquad.com]
RTS are not very enjoyable on consoles. Check out Warcraft II for the PSX, if you don't believe me. At least the Dreamcast has 640x480 resolution.
Most consoles also don't come with a keyboard and mouse. Playing Quake without a mouse and keyboard? Yeah, right.
Don't get me wrong. Consoles have their place. (Look at the amount of R&D Sega, Sony, and Nintendo are spending on the next generation consoles.)
Consoles were designed for one thing. Play games.
PC's are more expensive because they are more versatile. Sometimes gaming is better on PCs, sometimes not. Soul Caliber on the DreamCast blows me away with the graphics and gameplay. Age of Empires II on the PC does likewise.
Arguing which one is better is pointless. They were designed for different purposes.
But what do I know, I'm just a game developer.
Cheers
Michael,
3D game programmer
Re:semantics ... (Score:2)
--
Re:PSX2 more likely to replace DVD player (Score:2)
At the low-end, yes, and particularly among people who don't already have a DVD deck. However, mid and higher end DVD people want features that PSX2 can't handle (such as megachanger, component video out, progressive playback, etc).
Still, this device should really help DVD go from manic growth to true explosion... And if the new users are shephereded in correctly, there'll be mounting pressure for DVD features, Anamorphic transfers, and lower prices.. This is a plus for DVD owners as long as the cattle don't ask 'why are all these people stretched out?'...
Personally, I have a 200DVD jukebox. And I'll be getting a PSX2.
Your Working Boy,
Re:how is crusoe that much better than an emulator (Score:2)
In the long run, I see code directly compiled to or written for the Transmeta processors. FX/32 was never the killer app for Alphas; Linux is.
As for FPGA's, we've heard alot of hype but surprisingly little results--a more efficient image capture board here, a bunch of hype about a FPGA programming language there...I'm in the post-hype, I'll believe it when I see it mode for those things.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:semantics ... (Score:3)
For a certain segment of the population, yes it will. Most of the folks I know at this point own at least one computer in their house. About half of them use at least one of those machines primary for checking email and browsing the web (one of my three is primarily used by my wife and our neighbour to check email and browse the web). For these folks it will replace the computer.
Even with the advent of $500 computers, they still take up space and are slightly more expensive than the PSX2, which just might be enough incentive for those folks who want to check email and browse to buy a game machine for that instead of a computer, even if they have no real interest in games. The price point of the PSX2 will make it competition for even webTV+. With the ability to play a game, IF you wanted to, it might even steal some of the webTV market.
Like it or not folks, the people like us (slashdot readers, while not all power-users, are at usually at least competent computer users) are a smaller and smaller percentage of the computer market today, and growing smaller day by day. The Grandparents and aunts and uncles who used to call us to figure out how to program their VCRs are getting computers today so they can get in on this "internet thing". The PSX2 is a viable alternative for a LARGE number of these new users.
My father told me recently that he was considering getting a computer so that he could surf the web and send and receive email. This is the same man who had to have me go to his house to show him how to hook up his home entertainment center. Do I really want to answer phone calls and explain to him how to set up/configure his computer and keep it running? Need you ask. I'd be crazy to tell him to get a computer. If WebTV were a bit more mature I just might consider recommending one to him, though even I, a gadget freak, would be hesitent to recommend a one trick pony like that. If PSX2 is capable of doing all the things that have been talked about. I'd tell him to buy one. I'd tell my grandmother to buy one (and her VCR still blinks 12:00)
The point is that PSX2 will be a valid replacement the PC, but not for everyone. It will
never breplace a general purpose computer for those who need the versatility, but the number of people who really use the versatility and power of the computer they have is shrinking daily.
I'll give up my comptuer when they pry my cold dead fingers from the keyboard and many of you will agree, but we are a shrinking market folks
just my $.02
Definitely an interview topic (Score:2)
How about this guy [ign.com]? The quote that caught my eye was "we had a four month jump on most developers." And doesn't the PS2 use Linux in some form or another?
Flipping CDs like a madman (Score:2)
And the likelihood of having a fully functional web browser along with a news reader and email client in the limited memory space of the PSX2 is highly doubtful....
Esperandi
Plus, isn't 2D slower than polygons on this thing? I mean, its not made for 2D stuff... and I've never seen a proposal for a 3D GUI that didn't suck
Re:Have you lost it? (Score:2)
Seriously, though. I have a 200 Mhz computer. An AMD K6. I didn't pay a cent for it because it was so obsolate, and I'm quite happy about it (the CPU consuming computations like sequence searches I do using a Convex, so don't "PC purist" me).
Anyway, you seem to have missed my point. Which is: OK, we had a nice technology race, but this is my station, and I want to get out. Other words: the race was nice, it brought us here where we are, now the specialization / radiation and so on shall begin. You seriously think that a little of optimization in one of the many tasks computers are good for would not speed up the things you are working at?
I'm not a PC-purist, and I don't believe that people fall in one of those two classes. What I long for is a scientific computer, which has as little to do with a Windows - based, popular PC as a Sony Playstation with such a computer. With an OS which suits my needs. You are now in a position of an amphibian, who says: "who needs reptiles? only because we were amphibians we could get out of water! when you are a reptile you cannot go back to water, so forget it!".
Oh, just forget it.
January
Motivation for HDTV? (Score:2)
And once you've got HDTV sets (at least the 1024 level), then you've got acceptable mininum resolution for doing web surfing and/or gaming.
These consoles, acting as smart terminals & working with a subscription service over a DSL-speed line, could very well provide all the functionality that your "average" family could want out of a PC, and be a hell of a lot cheaper than a typical PC as well.
Web-enabled applications and PSX2 (Score:2)
We had a discussion on
In my work I'm often faced with web-enabling legacy applications for companies such as banks and insurance companies. And if you take the web paradigm to the next level by putting it in the context of a dynamic dashboard, where a user is presented with the appropriate functionality based on user preferences and permissions, then suddenly it starts to come together really well.
OK, you say, fine, but where does the PSX2 fit in?
Well, it's got a browser, right? And it will have broad-band capacity, non? Fit that into an application service provider context, and hey presto, you have a serious PC contender right in your living-room.
After all, when you get down to it and look at individual users, they would most likely be just as happy to use Word2001 Web Edition (and yes, MS has ASP plans for the Office suit) from the convenience of their living room as they are to do it from the PC. When it comes down to it, all you need to do is to boot up the PSX2, load the browser and you're off.
The only real thing holding this evolution back today is that too many applications today have a very tight coupling between underlying functionality and UI, making it very difficult to make them ready for web-presentment. I do belive, though, that the era of desktop use of software is coming to a close, and there will need to be a push for applications and suites to be accessible over a network through a web-client interface. And that has a very nice fit within a broad-band ASP strategy, where a vendor offers applications to its subscribers.
But then again, what do I know?
FPGAs vs. GP vs. custom (Score:2)
It turns out that there are a lot of trade-offs here.
FPGAs are indeed much slower than custom integrated circuits. There are a variety of reasons for this, which are beyond the scope of this reply. Typically the speed difference is very substantial (FPGA is typically 5x-10x slower). You also have serious density problems (FPGA has 5x-10x fewer effective gates than a custom IC). This is enough to make FPGAs slower for almost all problems. A few very specialized problems might be better solved on a large FPGA array than an a custom (or even general-purpose IC), but most problems aren't in this category.
Where FPGAs _are_ useful is in quick prototyping and validation of new IC designs, use as "glue logic" on boards, and for processing where performance isn't critical and you aren't shipping very many product units (custom ICs are only practical in lots of 10,000+).
Now, there is the question extending general-purpose processors to contain "lots of specialized functional units". This is useful... to an extent. It depends on what you're doing, and how many units you try to add.
Remember that a functional unit that isn't being used is dead weight - adding silicon and cost. If you have a dozen types of functional unit, each used for a few of the tasks you use your computer for, but each sitting idle most of the time - then I would argue that you have a computer that's 5x or 10x more expensive than it needs to be. While a custom functional unit is considerably faster than a general-purpose processor emulating the same operations, this speed difference isn't huge. On a good nicely-optimized superscalar processor, it might only be a factor of 2 or 3 (unless you're doing something really ugly, like emulating FP in integer or emulating quote notation numbers). So, for most cases, you'd be better off emulating the desired functions, paying 5x less, and living with a processor that was 2x slower for specialized tasks and just fine at everything else.
Exceptions exist. SSE and 3DNow are good examples. While most general-purpose operations don't benefit from SIMD floating-point operations, several common applications do (most notably games). If enough demand exists for a feature, it becomes practical to add a functional unit to handle it. You just have to be careful not to let this get out of hand.
Summary: Adding many new functional units would not be cost-effective, but adding one or two that make sense works very well. FPGAs can't compete with this, though they're useful for other things.
Bilinear filtering in software. (Score:2)
While I agree that custom hardware will dramatically outperform general purpose hardware at dedicated tasts, I question a couple of your statements here.
Firstly, there is a world of difference between a custom integrated circuit and an FPGA. FPGAs have very hefty overhead. While you can build custom logic with them, the slowdown just from using an FPGA will offset the advantage from this in the vast majority of cases (not all, but most). Click on "user info" above and see my previous post on the topic for a more detailed discussion.
Secondly, a 1 GHz general purpose processor can handle texture filtering just fine. Work through the number of operaitons required.
Nastiest case: each pixel drawn to the screen is from a different region of the texture.
Operations needed:
- Extraction of texture coordinates.
Left as an exercise, since you seem to be focusing on filtering. In the absolute worst case, this involves four multiplications and four additions (one 2-element vector subtraction and one 2x2 vector-by-matrix multiplication to convert from screen coordinates to texel coordinates). Finding the origin vector and matrix in the first place are irrelevant, as that's done once for the whole polygon.
Total operations needed: 4 fast, 4 medium (multiplication is slow compared to addition, but fast compared to division).
- Filtering of the texture.
Here's a naieve algorithm that still works pretty well:
Step 1: Truncate texture coordinates, retaining only the fractional components. Call these p and q.
Operations required: Two fast operations.
Step 2: Blend pixel values, for each colour component. Formula is:
result = q(ap + b(1-p)) + (1-q)(cp + d(1-p))
Operations required: Extracting (1-p) and calculating it only once, this needs 4 fast operations and 6 medium applications (multiplication is slow compared to addition, but fast compared to division). You also need four texel fetches.
Total number of operations required: 6 fast, 6 medium.
Total operations for both steps: 10 fast, 10 medium.
Fast operations happen once per clock. Medium would happen once every 3-4 clocks without pipelining, but can happen once per clock also with pipelining. We should have enough filler instructions for bit-twiddling and loads/saves to avoid stalls. Speaking of which, quadruple the instruction count; we need to shift, mask, and convert to floating-point for each colour component of each texel (whole texel is loaded as a 32-bit word, once and only once).
Some of these instructions can be issued simultaneously due to superscaling, but there are also a handful of other instructions for loop control and so forth, so we'll call it even. Memory latency should be completely masked - we only do four fetches and one store per pixel drawn to the screen.
This gives 80 clocks per pixel written to the screen, or a fill rate of about 12 megapixels per second in the worst case using naieve algorithms, for your 1 GHz processor. This gets you around 30 FPS at 640x480, assuming an overdraw of 1.3. Not beautiful, but pretty decent, given that this is non-optimized code doing bilinear filtering.
A real game coder could easily produce a loop that does bilinear filtering in half the time that my illustration version does.
A real game coder working with SSE could produce a loop that gets a factor of three speed gain over *that*, as all of the colour components could be filtered in parallel.
To conclude, while I agree with the gist of your argument, I think you might want to re-check your numbers
Re:horses for courses (Score:2)
Which means Sony can market this thing many different ways. It's a DVD player! It's a game console! It's a much simpler web browsing tool! And it all costs about the same as a high end DVD player!
Since Sony was one of the largest sellers of VCR's in the past, what makes you think that they won't grab (or are already) a large chunk of the DVD player market?
"Gee honey, after spending all this money on our new fangled DVD player, do we have enough money for a new computer? What? You mean this darn fangled Sony machine is ALSO a computer? Hot damn!"
My aploligies to anyone who actually talks like this. Point is, your average run-of-the-mill citizen who doesn't feel like spending $1000+ for a computer alone, will eat this up!
Calculation error. (Score:2)
Erk. For one colour component.
Add another 12x4 clocks per component for the additional components. Total is (8+12+12+12)*4 per pixel, or about 180 clocks. 80 clocks would be with SSE doing the component calculations in parallel.
This seems slow. I'm going to have to try coding this to see what I can really get. An UberCoder, as mentioned, can certainly get a factor of two or three by using superscaling to issue several operations at once.
Re:semantics ... (Score:2)
Yep. Is the PSX2 going to completely replace PCs? No. Only a moron would think so at this point. That is not its goal or purpose. It might have the potential to replace the PC for many users, but that is because those users don't need a computer, they need something simpler.
replace computers as primary gaming devices? absolutely.
Yep, again. It is very amusing to see the knee-jerk reactions of many Slashdotters who have obviously never used a Playstation. People get very defensive of their chosen platforms and often refuse to see the value of a different one. For about 90% of the games I play, my PSX is an ideal machine. I mostly play the prolific RPGs, occaisional fighting games, and rare puzzel games on it. If I want to play Warcraft, Starcraft, or Civ II I can go to my PC and play them, but most of the games I play are easier to deal with on the PSX.
Why you might ask? Because of a very simple limitation that is more impotant to your average gamer that high philosophical ideals, or even "coolness" of the game. Money. Let me say it again: Money. The biggest game players are high school and college students. Have you ever known a large percentage of this group to be able to buy a whole new computer system every year or two so that they can play the latest cool games their friends are playing? I haven't. I made do with my P75 until a couple of months ago, because I had more important uses for my cash until I graduated and got a real job. When my PC got pathetically slow and I stopped being able to play recent games, I switched to console gaming and found myself quite pleased. I got hooked by Final Fantasy 7, and found that it is actually easier to find really good games for my PSX than for my slower PC. The controller takes a while to really get accustomed to, just like a mouse does in many game uses. You get good with what you use. I missed the Quake phenomenon because my PC was too slow, but that is not a major danger with a console. An excellent game for the PSX can cost as little as $20 if it is a year old and many of them are better written (programming-wise) than most new computer games. Why do I say this? Take a look at any of Squaresoft's recent games (like FF8) and consider the fact that these games push the envelope for most PC programs on a system that is about 4-5 years old.
Add to this the fact that the PSX2 is a backwards-compatible full-functioning DVD player, and you have a win-win combination. People will be able to buy a PSX2 for $200 within one year of its release, have a prolific game base, and have some sort of web access that will refine itself as it goes. Console systems like the PSX2 are much more software intensive that hardware intensive because the hardware is fixed, so you get some real innovation to make games better, not just faster number crunching. All the peripherals you could want are lined up and ready to go. All Sony has really done is blurred the line between where consoles end and PCs begin.
You don't have to like a new technology. You don't have to buy it. Don't trash it because you don't know about it and don't want to, though. It makes you look very childish. This will be great for some people, bad for some others, and totally ignored by even more. Find out about it if you are interested and vote with your wallet after you know what is going on. *Sigh* Done preaching.
B. Elgin
Re:Computers for Non-Elite: The PSX2 (Score:2)
Giga Flops not a good performance indicator (Score:2)
There is nothing preventing Sony from putting a set of completely unrelated set of instructions together to acheive this figure. Don't trust Giga Flops.
The only benchmark you should trust is one such as SPEC. That one tests the all around ability of the chip and is useful since we use a variety of applications.
As well, I don't think that figure is much greater than what an Intel,Alpha or MIPS chip could acheive if the same benchmark was used.
I will play the Playstation but I am not prepared to through away my computer.
Re:Low resolution, high processing power... (Score:2)
Valid, but the TV is closer to 512x384 in terms of capabilties, thanks to the 1950s design it uses. HDTVs do, of course, do more. But this "downsampling" argument reminds me too much of the Voodoo3 "it uses 24-bit rendering internally."
As for it being a gaming machine. Well, it's a very expensive gaming machine. Needlessly so, IMO. I can understand it playing DVDs and CDs, as you could just buy the unit for that, but the powerful graphics chip is too powerful. They are subsidizing it with the prices of the games, something I cannot stand. It's bad enough when games are 50$, but when they are subsidizing the unit, they end up at 75$ or more, thanks to draconian licencing.
I say, because they have tried to make it do so much, it will do nothing as well as it could have, and cost too much in the process.
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Re:Cheap processor power.. (Score:2)
(It'll happen any second now.. I've wired my Doomsday Device up to a Unix box. It's set to trigger the device on the first ping timeout to Ebay.)
Re:Low resolution, high processing power... (Score:2)
It's sick the amount of triangle envy they are trying to elicit with this console. The chip for it costs 100$. Why not market it on a PCI board, and make millions? Because they also want to have the CD, DVD, and gaming all tied into a slick black console. An expensive black console.
I just don't see the purpose. Clearly they've not designed something that is modular and upgradable, like a PC. There's nothing to justify the cost, except the "firstest-with-the-mostest" attitude of the developers.
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Re:No level 2 cache (Score:2)
Yeah, but games on consoles can typically fit their main rendering code completely in the cache. (e.g. PSX-1 only had 2meg of RAM and 1 meg of VRAM)
The PSX2 also uses 800Mhz RDRAM and the graphics processor uses embedded-dram with a 48gigabyte/sec bandwidth.
Re:PSX2 more likely to replace DVD player (Score:2)
Yawn. High end DVD players are a rip-off. You can pay up to $1000 for items like progressive video, meanwhile, I can go out and buy a $79 DVD-ROM and get superior video on a 21" monitor. I have to chuckle at the people buying the high-end DVDs to hook them up to NTSC TV's, and getting such great features such as, gasp, de-interlacing. Wow.
Anyway, the PSX2's DVD-Player is upgradeable, and since the decoding in done in software by the Emotion Engine (not hardware like expensive DVD players), you could easily upgrade it to progressive-out via software later, especially since some PSX2 models will have DigitalTV/HDTV out.
Re:Computers for Non-Elite: The PSX2 (Score:2)
It's not about if it's going to "kill" the PC, the question is "Can a home do all the computing stuff it wants with just a PSX2?" - I tend to think it will be possible. Games, WWW, e-mail, "home acounting", essays/assignments - should be all quite do-able. Will it be easy to pull off? I've no idea. Does it matter? Not at all. It's just a tool in a huge collection of tools. It will either do the job or not.
Re:Another case of MSX syndrome? (Score:2)
Oh come on.. (Score:2)
History Repeats (Score:2)
It's time to recognize that the "connectionless" mode of the Web was crucial in getting the infrastructure boot-strapped, but that high rates of interaction are about to become important once again -- and not simply for "games".
Once we admit the existence of a solid connection to well balanced client-server functions the Sony Playstation becomes an obvious evolution of the old Plato graphics terminal -- only 100,000 times more cost effective.
PS: Control Data could have deployed Plato to the mass market at $40/month flat rate including terminal rental and amortized their system costs in 3 years -- and that was in 1979. However, Bill Norris's vision wasn't fashionable among Wall Street analysts nor among middle management at CDC (who thought of it as a corporate elite training system). I should know, I was among the 5 or so people who had put together the technologies for the mass market Plato system based on the Cyber 750's and the then new extended semiconductor memory systems that would support thousands of interactive users on a single mainframe. Too bad we all had to wait 20 years to repair the damage. Too bad it has to be the Japanese to do it for us.
Re:PCs are not alone! (Score:2)
There are _no_ upgrades for PlayStation. It has only the best kind of upgrades - improved understanding of the hardware on the part of the programmer. Compare Ridge Racer 1 to Final Fantasy 8. They look like they run on completely different machines.
Perhaps PS2 will break through that price/performance point at last. But for now, Do not underestimate the power!