Core: Have you worked on other consoles previously, such as Dreamcast or PSX? If so, can you compare your experiences as a whole in developing for them as opposed to developing for PlayStation 2? How are the consoles similar? What sets them apart?
Criterion: The two machines [Dreamcast and PlayStation 2] are similar in the sense that you have roughly the same amount of CPU processing power, and the graphics chips have similar drawing functions.. What sets them apart is that the PS2 has all the extra vector units that you can move all your geometry processing and animation onto, freeing up the CPU for physics and AI. Also the PS2 encourages you to keep your data moving round the system, and that makes for more dynamic worlds. If you are uploading textures to video memory each frame anyway then there’s no reason not to use an MPEG movie instead of a static texture.
Katie Lea, SCEE: The Cambridge studio has been part of SCEE for some time now and for this period of time we have worked exclusively on the PlayStation (and now PS2). Prior to this as an independent development house we have worked on many other game platforms. I honestly don’t believe there have been any more problems learning to work on the PS2 compared with any of the other platforms that we have come into contact with.
James Busby, SCEE: Previously I have worked on PlayStation projects (MediEvil and MediEvil 2) and the biggest change is in the amount of work involved in creating a game. PlayStation 2 represents a huge leap in performance over PlayStation and that makes everything you would normally do to make a game that much more involved. More interaction and greater depth is expected from PlayStation 2 titles and that naturally creates a lot of work for programmers. The size of project teams has to grow in order to handle this complexity, and the end result is that if you are not organized in the way you develop your game, you will have problems. This is not an issue specific to PlayStation 2 -- as gaming platforms become more powerful the inevitable result is that the effort put into developing games for them will have to increase.
Dean Ashton, SCEE: As well as working on old 16-bit machines (SNES and Amiga), I\'ve been working on PlayStation titles since 1994. Since the middle of last year I\'ve been working on PS2 though. I\'d say PlayStation was quite tricky to write for, as there were very limited machine resources (RAM, VRAM), and the rendering systems were restricted too (texture warping, for example). We tended to write more assembler on PS1, whereas now we\'re using a combination of C++ and Vector Unit microcode. One of the reasons for the move to C++ is the fact that it makes the development of individual systems much more manageable. And with teams being so much larger now, this is pretty important. There are still parallels with PlayStation though, in that our rendering systems still need low-level attention, it\'s just that it\'s shifted from renderers written in MIPS assembler on PlayStation, to renderers written in VU microcode instead.
Developer X: Speed and a very flexible development environment. The environment is so general and flexible that I could even compile programs on the PS2 itself if I wanted to!
BioWare: We did MDK2 for both Dreamcast and PC -- this was a great opportunity for us as we learned the difference between PC and Console development. It was a real pleasure to work on the Dreamcast. Sega was very good with technical support, and the system had some excellent technical features. In particular, the sound and texture compression were absolutely awesome. PS2 is a whole new beast. As [we] mentioned, we’re going to need to learn a whole bunch of new tricks to really push its performance -- the biggest difference is that it is completely different!
Core: What’s your experience in working with Sony’s TOOL proprietary development kit for PlayStation 2?
Criterion: The TOOL works really nicely as a shared resource over the network. We are really impressed with it. The built-in Web Server is a particularly cool way to administer it. And it comes with an excellent set of documentation, in the same way that a consumer device would. We also think the casing is cool. It’s so cool that we bolt all of systems into a steel casing chained to the floor! We use both Linux and NT, both have their advantages. We use whichever is appropriate.
Developer X: It’s a very well rounded working environment.
James Busby, SCEE: They\'re great. On PlayStation the development kit consisted of a couple of huge circuit boards that you have to physically wedge into your PC, with all the associated hassles that come from doing anything hardware-related with your computer. The new TOOL kits are entirely stand-alone -- plug them into your local network and off you go. No taking the case off your PC -- heaven!. Of course, another cool feature of the kits is that several people can share them across the network, which makes it a lot more practical to give everyone on your project frequent access to a development kit.
Dean Ashton, SCEE: It\'s certainly a lot easier to setup than the old PlayStation development systems. It\'s good how people have a choice about which development environment to use too. Developers can either use the SCEI supplied tools under Linux, or pony up for some middleware solutions for use under Windows 9x/NT (either from SN Systems, or from Metrowerks).The documentation is pretty thorough, and there\'s a reasonable collection of sample programs and conference notes to refer to.
BioWare: We didn’t have a ton of Linux experience on the MDK2 Armageddon team and floundered for a day or two until the MDK2-A Line Producer pointed out he was a Linux kingpin -- this helped an awful lot. Like all development stations, they were a little finicky in the setup stage, but once tweaked to perfection they work marvelously! I have to say it is unquestionably the prettiest development station I’ve ever seen -- it looks really cool -- like a PS2 on steroids!
Core: If you could request that SCEI alter one aspect of the PlayStation 2, either a component, an aspect of the retail unit itself, or something to do with the development kits/process, what would it be? What do you feel, from a developer standpoint, is PlayStation 2’s greatest asset?
Criterion: Next time, could they do a VAIO makeover of the development TOOL, it would be awesome in purple! The greatest asset is flexibility -- people will be finding new ways to push this hardware for years to come.
Developer X: The PlayStation 2 has several great assets; a separate bus and processor for IO and sound operations, and the on-the-fly geometry modification that I mentioned earlier. Its floating point power, if fully utilized is pretty awe-inspiring too. I do wish it had a remote control thrown in however.
James Busby, SCEE: Make the TOOL kits a bit quieter -- the hum of all those little fans can send you mad after a while! As for PlayStation 2\'s greatest asset, I would say the graphics architecture. PlayStation 2\'s hardware is a deliberate trade-off -- limited VRAM space in return for phenomenal rendering speed. You can get round the problem of limited texture space with a bit of creative effort, but if you don\'t have the raw horsepower there isn\'t a lot you can do about that. When other gaming platforms with more conventional hardware have reached their peak performance, PlayStation 2 will still be getting better.
Dean Ashton, SCEE: As an SCEE employee, I guess I should say that I wouldn\'t change anything…(smiles) As far as what PS2\'s greatest asset is, well.. probably the developers working on it. Without decent titles on the way nobody would want to buy the machine. And then I\'d be out of a job!
BioWare: We’d want to see more texture memory -- you can do a lot with polys but combining a lot of textures with a lot of polys is pure magic! We think that the PS2 has two great assets -- the number of polys it can push, and Sony’s marketing machine.
[More coming]
