The MOST UNBELIEVABLE IN-GAME GRAPHICS EVER. CG- QUALITY!!! On GC!!!!!!!!!

You guys should listen to Pretendo.  He obviously knows what he\'s talking about.

Originally posted by Pretendo
You see RSII uses at the least 5 effect layers per texture. Next RSII runs at a rock-solid 60FPS in 480 progressive scan-true 60FPS.

So first off, you really don\'t get a true 60 frames per second rate with PlayStation 2 as the hardware simply does not support it.

You read it yourselfs, the PS2 is not capable of doing true 60 fps games. (With the risk of starting an argument, I think this deserves a :rolleyes: )  You sounded pretty smart up until you said that Pretendo.

BTW, I am in no wait doubting the beauty of RS2.  It is going to be so sweet.  On that link you posted, it said that each ship was made of 30,000 polygons.  Is that just for that cutsceen, or is that in game too?

Originally posted by Pretendo
Well, I\'m not going to wade through this menagiré of posts, but I\'ll put it in a very simple context.

Star Wars: Rogue Leader Rogue Squadron II, simply cannot be done on PlayStation 2 hardware, without signifigant deductions from visual quality.

Lets take pick out one thing (out of many others) for example.

Layers per texture:
GameCube\'s hardware supports up to 8 layers of effects (SP-AA, Bump-mapping, HW-lighting, Radiosity lighting, etc...) per texture, in a single pass.

PlayStation 2 can only manage to add 1 layer of effects per texture, per pass.

You see RSII uses at the least 5 effect layers per texture. Next RSII runs at a rock-solid 60FPS in 480 progressive scan-true 60FPS.

So first off, you really don\'t get a true 60 frames per second rate with PlayStation 2 as the hardware simply does not support it.

Next RSII features extremely intricate levels features millions of items of geometry.

In fact if you take a look at the link below and read the short paragraph then view the thumbnail, you\'ll get an idea of what a cutscene is comprised of, nonetheless a full-blow trench run, on the heavily armed Death Star where you\'ll end up facing around 100+ TIE\'s on screen, add to that the thousands of laser turrets, incredible AI, and the level detail itself. The technical production values behind RSII are outright massive.

Click here

Next we\'ve got the effects themselves. PS2 utilizes the well-used but rather crude from of anti-aliasing-Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), GameCube utilizes Sub-Pixel Anti-Aliasing, a superiror form of AA which minimizes any \'blurr\' to a minimum and offers premium aliasing reduction. Then there are the lighting effects, forms of radiosity lighting, and mip mapping, which cannot be done on PS2 without shaving a lot here and adding a little there.

You\'ll end up in a damning circle if you think you can squeeze a game like RSII, effects, polys, frame rates, and all on PlayStation 2 hardware.

Believe it or not, PS2 can do quite a lot through micro-code.  Don\'t discount it just yet.. thats all i\'m sayin\'.

Layers per texture:
GameCube\'s hardware supports up to 8 layers of effects (SP-AA, Bump-mapping, HW-lighting, Radiosity lighting, etc...) per texture, in a single pass.

GameCube supports up to 8 layers of effects per texture in a single pass, correct. The PS2 how ever, might only be pushing one per cycle, but it can do this at VERY high speeds. Don\'t forget, the Graphics Synthesizer is hooked up to one 2560 bit wide bus which allows data to be transfered at speeds equal to 48 GB/s.

What you did write though does sound impressive, but I think it\'s a little lame to debate about "this game ain\'t possible" on PS2. Sure, PS2 might have it hard with some "bottlenecks" as it is with the 1 layer per cycle, but that doesn\'t mean that RSII wouldn\'t be possible at all. If you\'ve programmed, I am sure you know that there is always a different way to get to your destination.

One simple example is the AA: first generation games rased doubts about the AA capabilities of the PS2 - and yet they were developers that managed to go arround the original Hardware-AA procedure (Volition with Summoner).  The people that said this and that would not be possible in those days, is getting reality by the game. Just look at recent games and you will see that AA isn\'t an issue anymore on the PS2. Well, it isn\'t for me anyway.

Just trying to say, that the PS2 has its bottlenecks and so do the other consoles as well. But saying that this or that game would not be possible (and 1st generation) is just not right, especially because there is still so much of room left for improvement and the best is yet to come.

Originally posted by IronFist
You guys should listen to Pretendo.  He obviously knows what he\'s talking about.

You read it yourselfs, the PS2 is not capable of doing true 60 fps games. (With the risk of starting an argument, I think this deserves a :rolleyes: )  You sounded pretty smart up until you said that Pretendo.

hilarious...i think pretendo is confused with the progressive dvd playback scanning that the ps2 doesnt support...thats only for dvd playback...games have nothing to do with that...

i guess nba street is really running @ 30 fps...and ffx and mgs2 and so forth.....

Originally posted by IronFist
You guys should listen to Pretendo.  He obviously knows what he\'s talking about.

You read it yourselfs, the PS2 is not capable of doing true 60 fps games. (With the risk of starting an argument, I think this deserves a :rolleyes: )  You sounded pretty smart up until you said that Pretendo.

BTW, I am in no wait doubting the beauty of RS2.  It is going to be so sweet.  On that link you posted, it said that each ship was made of 30,000 polygons.  Is that just for that cutsceen, or is that in game too?

Lemme go on to further explain myself.

When PS2 renders a scene it is rendered in an interlaced form, you in essence get half a screen, it\'s like blinds opening and closing and it leaves blank lines in between. So the hardwares only drawing half the picture.

With progressive scan, the whole scene is drawn and there are no scanlines visible whatsoever (hook a VCR up to and HDTV set (not decoder) or an LCD projector and you\'ll see what I mean).

I don\'t think I\'ve explained that well, but I can get some demonstration pieces.

i know this...which is why im pist at the ps2 cause i have a high def ready tv with component video which means the progressive scanning wouldve looked nice on my tv...but the ps2 doesnt do it so im screwed...but this doesnt mean that games dont run at 60 fps cause they do...a game rendered at 60 fps has nothing to do with whether or not the ps2 scans it interlaced or progressively...the game will still run at 60fps meaning its smoother....but to my knowledge,  there arent any game consoles thatll be using this progressive line scanning..not even the xbox from what ive heard...its only for dvd playback when this progressive line scanning comes into play....

progressive scanning means the dvd player is displaying the frame in 1/60th of a second as to the 1/30th of a second for interlaced....when a game is rendered @ 60 it means that there are 60 frames of animation per second...whether or not its decoded as interlaced and progressive is up to the dvd player...but doesnt stop games on cd or cartridge to be rendered at 60 cause f-zero on the n64 is running at 60 and so was turbo prop racer on the p2x....n64 being cartridge and psx been cd...

Originally posted by Watchdog
There is a flaw in a lot of people arguments.

Just because the GC and Xbox are easy to develop for, DOES NOT mean that the games will not get any better.  That is wishful thinking on the part of us PS2 owners.  Most consoles have been easy to develop for and for each of those consoles, the last generation of software was remarkably better.

The point I\'m making is that just because PS2 is tougher to develop for doesn\'t mean that one day the graphics will be on par with the other systems.

All systems will continue to improve graphically; the only difference is that the PS2 will be a pain in the neck of developers.

I\'d have to disagree with you there.

Instead of focusing time, money, effort, and valuble resources coding, testing your code, coding some more, and then fighting with the hardware, you could put that into gameplay and save some big bucks in the process. This is something I\'m sure larger publishers/developers shouldn\'t have >to much< trouble with, but then again they\'d be better off with a console easier to develop for.

As for visual achivements, I\'m sorry to but it so bluntly, but PlayStation 2\'s a bit behind the others, sure it\'s CPU (when fully tapped (as in proper use of the vector units) is more powerfull than Xbox\'s, but it lacks a bunch of on-hardware algorhythms such as, real-time texture decompression, a spector of visual effects, and many other usefull code-sets which would be much easier to work around if they where hardware based. Add to that the lack of a good amount of RAM for virtually any purpose and 1 texture layer per pass, it\'d be impossible for PS2 to catch up in the later generations. Even though games out right now generally look the same, it\'s because many of these titles are ports that first appeared on PS2 and the developers are to lazy to fully tweak their graphics engines for whatever platform they\'re developing for *cough*EA.

youre right pretendo...sony f*cked up on this one...they couldve had themselves an almost perfect console had they put more effort in the texture department and anti-aliasing...although they have a way to stream textures which would save memory,  the resolution on them isnt as high as the dreamcast,  xbox or gamecube therefore they will always look blurrier....it sux but in due time,  xbox and gamecube games will look better if developers do their job right because the hardware capabilites of these newer consoles are superior.

You mis-read my post.  The PS2 is not nearly as powerful as xbox or GC--CPU included.  So in essence, I\'m agreeing with you.

All these buzz words that Sony fed us are BS if you ask me.  All these "hiden" features and abilities is Sony\'s way of covering up their shoddy system archetecture.  The PS2 is a good system, but it is outclassed by the GC and Xbox.  I\'m confident that I\'ll get another year out of it (2 max) before the GC and xbox start out pacing it in terms of graphics and games.

I was on this end with the genesis too.  It was a great system, but slowly it began to show its age and the SNES started to look better and better.  After a while it became aparent that 3rd party developers did SNES ports to the Genesis as an afterthought and the quality just wasn\'t there.  After that it wasn\'t long before the SNES was in the lead (in terms of system sales desipte being incredibly far behind when it was released.)

I am not really comforted by the lead that Sony has.  Sony sold this many consoles in a year and a half.  It is not inconceivable that the xbox or GC can match that (or at least post impressive numbers--preorders alone for the xbox are impressive).  Especially since the PS2 will not be able to go toe to toe with these newer consoles in a year or so I just think the casual gamer--motivated by graphics alone--will go with a newer system.

I also think that like the snes/genesis race, numbers sold is not an accurate figure in terms of active PS2 owners.  I purchased a SNES after it became evident that the better games were coming out for the SNES.  After that I didn\'t buy anymore games for the Genesis.  Therefore, even though I was counted as a Genesis owner, I no longer patronized the system.  This may not be the case now, but as PS2 owners buy GCs or Xboxes, it may become a factor.  The past generation was won by exclusives, but this generation will be won by graphics because there are far fewer exclusives this generation.  Once devs release games for multiple systems and the PS2 is the worst looking version, I can\'t see the casual gamer going with the PS2.

I realize this is not a popular opinion around here, but I can\'t think the PS2 is untouchable.

Everything back to normal, ay?

I don\'t wish to be rude but you people handing down word about what the PS2 can\'t do are full of crap. The reason I say so is from reading statements made by developers who work on and are very excited about the possibilities the PS2 represents rather than some tech groupie or grunt ragging on Sony for not getting it right. I\'M excited about what I\'ve seen to date on the PS2. The xbox and GC have a long ass way to go to look better enough for me to begin to care.

PLUS I have plenty enough reason to believe the PS2 will keep up in its own way with any improvements that could be tweaked out of the other two consoles. All three are looking close at the moment, which wasn\'t supposed to happen according to all the coc-ky-talkin-know-it-alls six months ago. And please don\'t even drag Sega\'s sorry butt in here. They were beat by their own lousy track record of making short lived consoles before the DC was even released.

Games speak louder than words. Sony is roaring right now, screw how much better the other two **might** look in a year or two and anyone whose stuck with only that pitiful point as ammo to debate with against the PS2.  Pretty common of late

Uhhhh... THIS ain\'t too shabby either:) Check out Fastsons thread in the main forum. This is a real-time in game PS2 shot. The developers claim a 60fps rate also:)

Originally posted by CygnusXI
Uhhhh... THIS ain\'t too shabby either:) Check out Fastsons thread in the main forum. This is a real-time in game PS2 shot. The developers claim a 60fps rate also:)

Could that be procedural... hmm?  Definatley one of PS2\'s strengths.

Actually it was suposed to be the other way around.  GC and xbox titles weren\' supposed to be able to match 2nd and 3rd gen PS2 titles.  Before any console was released, preliminary specs were out there and every games journal around did comparisons and there seemed to be no clear winner.  They went one step further and said by the time the new consoles are released everything should be rosey.  Most even went as far as saying the Xbox has very little chance at all.  

It doesn\'t look like that now.  Already we are seeing the new consoles out perform PS2.  You\'re right, it\'s not enough to have me lusting for a new console, but everyone here (except me and PS2 haters) refuses to acknowledge any deficiency in the PS2 hardware or software and it\'s pissing me off.

I\'ve read so much crap about how bad GC and xbox.  Everyone is taking pot shots, posting sales numbers and flaming anyone that has a different opinion.  This is all just a little too far--completely dismissing the fact that the PS2 has some serious competition is ridiculous.

Look, I want the PS2 to succeed as much as anyone--and let\'s be honest, the PS2 has a big enough user base to sustain itself until PS3--but the facts are the facts and Sony does not look untouchable anymore.

Originally posted by Watchdog
Actually it was suposed to be the other way around.  GC and xbox titles weren\' supposed to be able to match 2nd and 3rd gen PS2 titles.

Well that\'s a new one on me, especially after reading all the spew of self-appointed experts evaluating console specs on boards like this one. If genuine authorities were saying PS2 should look better than the other two by the time they launch I must of missed it. Either way, I checked out Fatson\'s thread with more pics of Outcast and honestly can\'t see how the PS2 is falling short of the others in any way. And you\'re pissed because why... other PS2 fans don\'t think those pics should be more beautiful?