PS2 Version 4 and VRAM

I heard that the version 4 PS2 has 32MB of VRAM compared to 4MB on the previous versions. Unfortunatly I have not been able to confirm that. I even emailed sony about the rumor and their reply neither confirmed nor denied it. Can anyone shed any light on the subject? One reason I ask is because I was playing Starwars Starfighter, and I read a few reviews complaining of slowdown, particular mission 7... But when I played it I didn\'t notice any slowdown at all, maybe I was just too caught up in the game to notice though... I don\'t know.

Thanks in advance for any info.

-Ramon

Well I don\'t have any info but I can tell you for sure that rumor is completely false. Sony would never do something that stupid. If they were to go and make an upgraded version of the PS2 they would lose tons of customers. People would be so p1ssed at them.

Trust me, that rumor is fake.

Who ever said that probably thought the new version of namcos arcade board which uses the PS2 architecture but with 32mb of memory.  The arcade board has a version number of some sort so somebody probably just misread or mistyped or something.

Ah the wose of E3 it brings the Rumours out you See......

NO there wont be a Version with more memory , and Yeah Starwars Starfighter dose slowdown.

the only "Up Grades" will be

Hard Disk Drive and the Internet Adaptor.

[nO-One]

Won\'t happen.If Sony we\'re to do this.It would go against they way the PS.2 is designed.Developers would store the textures instead of streaming them.

And new games wouldn\'t work on older PS.2\'s

Originally posted by nO-One
Won\'t happen.If Sony we\'re to do this.It would go against they way the PS.2 is designed.Developers would store the textures instead of streaming them.

And new games wouldn\'t work on older PS.2\'s

Yeah What he Said too .

PS2 dose not need more memory, it needs a nice HDD and Internet Adaptor .

Originally posted by dbv23
Who ever said that probably thought the new version of namcos arcade board which uses the PS2 architecture but with 32mb of memory.  The arcade board has a version number of some sort so somebody probably just misread or mistyped or something.

Yes, I remember there was another thread a few weeks ago.People said the news were about a new arcade board.

I actually heard about this before E3... Have any of you seen this article???

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/17528.html

-Ramon

I was the one that started the thread awhile back.

The 32 meg as far as I can tell is for the arcade board.

They have just changed the new version to 0.18 micron or something whatever that means.

I think its just cheaper production costs for them. Shouldn\'t effect the home user in anyway.

if they did this,,, i would personally walk over to sony corporate offices and start smacking some stuff DOWN!... makes no sense....why in the world would they leave millions of ps2 owners with 4megs and some with 32?

Yeap, I have to agree that is the system 246 arcade board which was often use by namco and I heard about it use the same ps2 graphic chips and cpu except more vram.  Can\'t remember how many but probably 32mb.  ps2 have only 4 and will stay 4 mb of vram.  yep, it was very hard for any games run higher than 640 x 480p @ 60hz at 32bits of color with some texture storage and other graphic effects dued to 4 mb of vram.  I still can\'t understand why 32 bits of color, i am pretty sure it a waste of memory of vram.  24 bits is the best it can get, 32 just waster some more memory.  Hopefully, programmers know that and please use 24 bits...yep, i am whinning.  streaming textures is another thing I have no clue about.  Does it really work really keep me skeptical.  If only Sony have included some more mb of vram than their graphic could have been far much better and easier for programmer with a fraction of a time to makes game.  Also, ps2 can do like what seems to be 2.4 megapixel fill rates or something like that.  I am not sure.  then it drop to 1.2 and xbox said something about .6 pixel fillrate is what ps2 can do.  It really confuse me.  oh yeah, i heard something about swapping 32mb of the main ram to the 4mb of the vram could be possible but really hard to dued.  something to do with keep track and not to mess it up...

Well here is the article I was talking about for anyone who\'s interested....

"Sony and Toshiba are migrating the PlayStation 2\'s Emotion Engine CPU over to 0.13 micron fabrication process. The shift will also be applied to the console\'s Graphics Synthesiser (GS) chip.

Last month, Simplex Solutions, which developed the GS for Sony, unveiled the next generation of the part, fabbed at 0.18 micron. The reduction in size from 0.25 micron enabled Simplex to increase the chip\'s on-board video RAM from 4MB to 32MB.

Simplex Solutions representative, VP Aurangzeb Khan, said that Sony was happy with the yields of the 0.18 micron part. Despite changing the process, the second version of the GS is twice the size of its predecessor. The shift to 0.13 micron should allow Sony and Simplex to get the size back down again.

It should also allow it to increase the Emotion Engine\'s clock speed, boosting the PlayStation 2\'s performance. That will be essential to help keep Microsoft\'s Xbox at bay, particularly since Sony wants to ship 20 million PS2s during its next fiscal year, beginning 1 April. Xbox is expected to ship with a 733MHz CPU. Emotion Engine currently runs at 300MHz. ® "

-Ramon

the article is old and full of half truths

the PS2 specs you see now will not change besides chip size which just makes it cheaper to manufacture

I think the 32mb vram you are talking about is a developer\'s version. Because i remember browsing through a website somewhere in ign and it was talking about some news on a developers version of the ps2 with the same kit as the new online kit that\'s coming out accept that it is alot larger than normal ps2 from the screenshot and the with extra softwares and stuffs. I don\'t think you have to worry about it because if you are talking about that version of the ps2 then you will never see it at the public heh. well also on the side note that ps2 i saw on the news has 64 mb ram too heh.

Having 32mb of embedded memory would probably make the price of the console sky rocket, its definately not cheap to make - also if that is done it removes quite alot of the desire for the developers to go and find ways to push the hardware in the way it was designed instead of sticking all the textures theyll ever need in the synthesisers memory.

They cant up the clock speed either since that would break alot of the timing critical tricks used when software is coded to the metal, infact it all sounds like theyre looking at fabricating workable GSCube components, werent they meant to have a 32mb frame buffer?

- http://ps2.ign.com/news/22490.html

-bd