Adventures in Game Development

[M_D_K]

The PSP is more powerful in terms of graphics/sound, processing, RAM, and storage capacity.

Wrong. The DC's powerVR can do things that the PSP's GU couldn't dream of. Anti aliasing, bumpmapping, and a few other things to name a few. The Dreamcast also has about twice as much available VRAM as the PSP (which is already not enough for ES).

The PSP and PS2 both have notoriously weak GPU's. The power of the two comes from being able to emulate things in software with the CPUs (which yes, the PSP and PS2 both have substantially more powerful CPUs than Dreamcast).

damn beat me to it.

But yeah the PSP's RAM(not VRAM) trups DC and it also has insane high speed bus speeds which allows for all the software emulation on graphics.

Basically DC wins in graphics card power, PSP wins in CPU and RAM.

If used correctly you would create some neat shit outside of system specs on both systems.

[Falco Girgis]

^ Werd. Exactly right.

[Meskito]

The PSP is more powerful in terms of graphics/sound, processing, RAM, and storage capacity.

Wrong. The DC's powerVR can do things that the PSP's GU couldn't dream of. Anti aliasing, bumpmapping, and a few other things to name a few. The Dreamcast also has about twice as much available VRAM as the PSP (which is already not enough for ES).

The PSP and PS2 both have notoriously weak GPU's. The power of the two comes from being able to emulate things in software with the CPUs (which yes, the PSP and PS2 both have substantially more powerful CPUs than Dreamcast).

I stand corrected, but to call the PSP or the PS2's GPU weak is a stretch. The lack of anti-aliasing is an unfortunate aspect of the PSP, and its graphics suffer as a result. I didn't know the PSP didn't support bump mapping...I'm pretty sure it does, I've read about it on some of the homebrew PSP sites.

By the way, the PSP 2 is supposedly going to have a much improved GPU. Rumors point to the PowerVR SGX55x.

The PSP has quite amazing graphical capabilities. Have you ever played the Ridge Racer port? Beautiful. There are also quite a few RPGs that look great for the PSP. Here's a pic from Star Ocean:



Do you think your game will require more advanced graphics technologies than that game does?

In any case, the main reason to port to PSP would be to reach a much larger audience.

[Falco Girgis]

The PSP's GPU is weak. It's a polygon cruncher with a super-fast framebuffer so that everything is done with the CPU. No fancy effects are done on the PSP or PS2's GPU, contrast that to the Dreamcast, Gamecube, and Xbox whose GPUs all handled everything.

Because of this design philosophy, the PS2 was able to do plenty of things the Xbox, Gamecube, and even Wii couldn't. Look at Shadow of the Colossus. Look at the filtering in Okami (which the Wii could not pull off). This is not because of a powerful GPU, this is because all of the effects were emulated on the CPU with super fast framebuffer access.

The PSP and PS2 both do have weak GPUs. They make up for it and more with super-fast framebuffer access and fast CPUs (and vector units) doing things that the GPU on other consoles normally do. So yes, PS2 and PSP can have very pretty graphics (and do lots of fancy things), but this is not from the GPU. The question is not about whether the graphics are good (because they are), it's about why the graphics are good.

And yes, there's a good chance that some day ES might wind up on PSP.

By the way, guess what also had a PowerVR chip? The Sega Dreamcast. The iPhone and all of these nextgen handheld GPUs are built off of the DC's PowerVR2.

[Meskito]

By the way, guess what also had a PowerVR chip? The Sega Dreamcast. The iPhone and all of these nextgen handheld GPUs are built off of the DC's PowerVR2.

I don't know much about GPUs as you can tell lol, but apparently you're a fan of PowerVR, since you're using the Dreamcast, that's why I mentioned that the PSP2 may feature it.

And btw, I loved Shadow of the Colossus. Such a unique game. It hardly changed at all, and there was almost nothing in it besides the boss battles, but it was gorgeous and challenging. It reminded me a little of the supposedly unbeatable simulated reality game that Ender beat in Ender's Game; the point of both games is to figure out what to do next (most notably, the giant 'boss' in Ender's Game was very similar to the bosses of SotC).

[Falco Girgis]

God yes, SoC was amazing. Xbox, DC, GC, and Wii could never dream of those graphics. I read an entire paper written by the lead programmer talking about all of the dirty little tricks the PS2 did (fake HDR, fancy software shaders for fur, etc).

[M_D_K]

God yes, SoC was amazing. Xbox, DC, GC, and Wii could never dream of those graphics. I read an entire paper written by the lead programmer talking about all of the dirty little tricks the PS2 did (fake HDR, fancy software shaders for fur, etc).

Link??


EDIT: this one?

[Falco Girgis]

Yes. The funny thing is that SotC had about he poly count of a typical Dreamcast game too and looked that good.

[Bakkon]

I fully support this SotC circlejerk.

[Jae]

Any news on the new video ?

[dandymcgee]

Any news on the new video ?

First post in five months. A new revolution video would be just as well received though..

[hurstshifter]

Any news on the new video ?

The team has taken a respite from the AiGD series to work on Elysian Shadows: Revolution. Check out episode 1 if you have not already.

[Robotwo]

They must release a update soon

[eatcomics]

I'm waitin for a new episode! Come on! I'm starting to go through withdraw! Or at least give us a status update

[Falco Girgis]

Status update: The engine rewrite is basically done. We have a lot of things to show off.

But Kendall has a huge assembly project due, I have an assembly project, a networking project, and a QT project due every week now. College is starting to kill us.

We work on ES whenever we have a minute to spare, though. And yes, we have started recording ESR2. And no, we don't know when it will be done.