PS2 Version 4 and VRAM

the rumor is partly false, the PS2 will NOT recieve a memory upgrade, the PS2\'s used for arcades WILL be upgraded for arcade purposes only

[nO-One]

Originally posted by know-it-all-wanna-be
streaming textures is another thing I have no clue about.  Does it really work really keep me skeptical.

It does work,and the PS.2 can stream a heck of alot of textures around.

The biggest drawback is that  the scene needs to be redrawn with every frame because it\'s not stored.This is what is bugging programmers they don\'t like to have to constantly redraw the scene,when they could just buffer it.And those 4megs weren\'t intended as Vram (I can\'t remember why it\'s there).

But because Sony didn\'t include any code library like they did with the psx the developers had to figure this out by themselves.Their solution was to lower the textures resolution from 640x480 to something like 640x240 and use this little 4 megs as Vram.

As you can see with the newest games they seem to be implementing texture streaming thus the graphical quality is improving

"And those 4megs weren\'t intended as Vram (I can\'t remember why it\'s there)." - nO-One

This is the way I understand it. The 4mb Vram is a cache for the instruction set. Instead of storing Textures in the ram and running the instructions over them (which tells them where to go) like a PC does, it stores the instruction set for the level in there and streams the textures over them. This is only possible since the PS2 has a much much larger bandwith for textures than x86 archetecture.

The full explanation is over at http://www.arstechnica.com somewhere if you wanna look over it.

to no-One

since you said streaming texture is possible on ps2, does that means it will be possible on xbox?  If I am not mistaken, the designer of the ps2 probably added the extra 4 mb of vram because it was getting cheaper...it wasn\'t meant to be there, he just added 4mb of vram as an extra for ps2 since it was cheaper than before...or something like that.
another curious question, which is easier, streaming texture or just use the damn vram memory?  and is swapping memory from 4 mb of vram to 32 of main ram hard?

[nO-One]

The X-Box is designed more like a PC,but is uses the memory more efficently.It has a UMA (unified memory architecture),64 megs of shared ram.It\'s designed to store the data,whereas the PS.2 was designed from the ground up to stream data.

It is easier to use those 4megs as vram,but it\'s not designed to be used as vram.Read SonyFan\'s post.

And the bus between the EE and the GS on the PS.2 is 3,2gbps and once in the GS the data has a massive 48gbps to move around in.
But all the components in the X-Box use the same memory with a 6,4gbps bandwith (more than enough to move data)

And the PS.2 uses rdram memory running at 800Mhz,while the X-Box uses standard sdram memory (I\'m not sure what kind of memory the X-Box uses,so correct me if I\'m wrong)

And read my first post about changing thise 4megs for 32

SonyFan,are you an Ars reader? I haven\'t read that article for a long time,so I need to brush up.

Know-it-all-wannabe read the Ars article.It explains alot.

Naw, I\'m not really an Ars reader, but I\'ve browsed over a couple of articals they put up about the PS2\'s archetecture. I\'m just trying to dredge up what I can remember of those articals.

And yeah, at peak preformance the PS2 can transfer textures in the Gigabyte range. But that amount is severly limited by the access speed at which the PS2 can read the textures off the DVD. The guys at Volition said you can improve that preformance by using the MPEG2 compression which can compress at ratios as high as 80:1. But then again, since the PS2 is designed to stream data the realistic ratios at which data can be decompressed on the fly is around 6:1 or 8:1.

So really, if used really effeciently, the PS2 can theoretically push more textures than ANY console in this generation. The bad thing is, the Xbox and GC still beat the PS2 since they can multilayer textures and (as far as I know) the PS2 can\'t.

[Bobs_Hardware]

Sonyfan says:
The bad thing is, the Xbox and GC still beat the PS2 since they can multilayer textures and (as far as I know) the PS2 can\'t.

that right, the PS cant do multitexturing, so theoretically, if the GameCube and XBox were only using one layer techniques, then PS2 could easily outperform (if used at capacity). But seeing as GC and XB can do up to about 8 layers in one go, it makes things much easier. PS2 can do this, but it has to be done seperately, using up 8x as much power in the EE. However, even with the MASSIVE power of the EE compared to the GC CPU and the PIII, its bandwidth is extremely inefficient, and might not be able to handle that much texturing. (sorry if i explained it incorrectly)

but the funny thing is, developers keep surprising us with the PS2

[BizioEE]

Originally posted by SonyFan


And yeah, at peak preformance the PS2 can transfer textures in the Gigabyte range. But that amount is severly limited by the access speed at which the PS2 can read the textures off the DVD. The guys at Volition said you can improve that preformance by using the MPEG2 compression which can compress at ratios as high as 80:1. But then again, since the PS2 is designed to stream data the realistic ratios at which data can be decompressed on the fly is around 6:1 or 8:1.

So really, if used really effeciently, the PS2 can theoretically push more textures than ANY console in this generation. The bad thing is, the Xbox and GC still beat the PS2 since they can multilayer textures and (as far as I know) the PS2 can\'t.

May you give me any URLs ?
...it\'s so interesting...I know PS2 can do 8 pass technique via Software...and I asked Prof 2 or 3 months ago about reading Textures off the DVD....but nobody answered me....

Just go to the link I provied above and look up any info you can on the PS2\'s archetecture. The bit about using MPEG2 compression is a bit harder to find since I read it from a Daily Radar interview with the Volition guys. You might wanna try Volitions site to see if they\'ve said anything more on the subject.

The single pass maximum textureing I got from IGN\'s system compairison chart. (IGNXbox Faq).

[nO-One]

They can implement multi-layer texturing in software mode.

The thing that I wonder about is,can they make the VU\'s do all that work,instead of doing it slowly in software.