The Sony PS3 thread (apparently *still* obnoxious!)

[Duck Turkin]

Nintendo has, and for the forseable future will have IMO, the lions share of the handheld market though. I didn't really expect the PSP to outsell the DS because of the name badge on both consoles. Years of selling Gameboys has given them a certain kudos IMHO. More suitable games helped them too (although I only want one for Nintendogs really and see what happens)

Nintendo=Built a machine to run the next level of handheld games they wanted.

Sony=Shrunk a PS2 into a handheld and hoped for fun games to appear.

Do you see?

Yes, I think that's it. I've always wanted a portable PS2, and with the PSP I have basically got it. The games coming out now and in the near future make me very glad I got one. The loading times seem to be under control for the most part, which was definitely a serious flaw in some of the early PSP games. I have a lot more games for the PSP than for the DS.

I like the DS look, and it fits more easily in my pocket, but the majority of it's games just don't interest me. Mostly my wife plays it for the silly mini-games in NSMB or for Tetris (which isn't as good as the Gameboy version). I'll admit that there are finally some games coming out for it that interest me which I feel obliged to get so that I can dust off the DS.

As an aside, I've noticed in the Subway here more people with PSP's than DS's, although I'm not sure what that really means.[/img]

[Kronos]

Have to say, the biggest thing that put me off the PSP was the whole "dead pixel" bollox. But then thinking about it I only drive places, so a PSP didn't seam like it would get used that much, I haven't got anywhere to go

[Deckard]

I havent seen a PSP around Bristol for months - not on a bus or train and my 13 year old nephew says all his mates have sold theirs

[HGFB]

At one point I was seeing a lot of PSP use on my train to and from work. Now it's all DS use.

[teamonkey]

So is it like chip ram/fast ram divide on the old amigas then?

No idea.

AFAIK it's just that there's 256MB that the graphics card uses natively and 256MB that the CPU uses natively. Unlike a PC-based architecture, the PPU can quite happily shunt data to and from the graphics RAM with a relatively small overhead (compared with the PC's architecture) and the GPU can do the same with system RAM. The SPEs can't use graphics RAM themselves, but system RAM is blindingly fast for the SPEs. I've heard that you can stream data directly in to graphics RAM, but I've not heard that elsewhere.

On the 360 all memory is shared between the system and the GPU so you can partition it how you like, which is great, but a pretty huge chunk of that is going to be graphics data anyway. I think Sony are betting that around 50% of the data in memory at one time is likely to be graphics data, which I don't think is that unreasonable.

@MDY - I don't think it needs that much all the time. A game needs to be be created bearing in mind that the console can use a specified amount of RAM and CPU time. It can and will use less, but if asked the game needs to give up that amount instantly. On the 360 it's a maximum of about 32MB and 6% of the total CPU time; it won't use that much if the blade's shut and you're not downloading anything, but the game has to be ready to give it up at a moment's notice.

[Kronos]

On the old Amiga (bless em ) the custom chips and programs could use the chip ram, but the fast ram was only available for the processor to manipulate not the custom chips for A/V stuff so not exactly the same really, same kind of ethos coding for a PS3 though than compared to standard C++ PC stuff.

I'm guessing that when Cell+RSX is employed that the SPEs do their operations on the sytem ram and then the GPU shunts what it needs into the graphics ram? Which seams even more impressive as I thought the Cell could just directly manipulate the graphics ram.

[disciple]

That's not quite the same as "half the RAM" though.

Yes it is.

Do you add the amount of VRAM on your Video card when someone asks how much RAM your PC has got?

That reminds me of when we went to buy the Vic-20 way back. We were told by the co-op shop assistant that it had 3KB of ram but had 5KB when turned off!

[grue]

That reminds me of when we went to buy the Vic-20 way back. We were told by the co-op shop assistant that it had 3KB of ram but had 5KB when turned off!

SHY RAM.

[Duck Turkin]

Have to say, the biggest thing that put me off the PSP was the whole "dead pixel" bollox. But then thinking about it I only drive places, so a PSP didn't seam like it would get used that much, I haven't got anywhere to go

Yes, the way Sony dealt with the PSP dead pixels was crap. However, it was my first DS Lite (I since got it exchanged) that had a dead pixel. What I thought were dead pixels on my PSP turned out to be crap on the screen .

[Mayhem]

At one point I was seeing a lot of PSP use on my train to and from work. Now it's all DS use.

I have to agree there. Used to see quite a few PSPs and now I'm starting to see more and more DS being used instead...

[Kronos]

That's because the shite original DS has been replaced with the shexi DS Lite It's like a mini mac book for quirky games I tells ya

Anyway...back on topic...

Virtua Tennis 3, ummmmm why do all these virtual tennis players look like extras from House of the Dead?? (this includes rockstars table tennis). Why can't we have tennis players who DON'T look like they've just been pulled out of a grave and re-animated with Mr H. Wests luminous green syrum?

[Marius]

Nintendo has, and for the forseable future will have IMO, the lions share of the handheld market though. I didn't really expect the PSP to outsell the DS because of the name badge on both consoles. Years of selling Gameboys has given them a certain kudos IMHO. More suitable games helped them too (although I only want one for Nintendogs really and see what happens)

Nintendo=Built a machine to run the next level of handheld games they wanted.

Sony=Shrunk a PS2 into a handheld and hoped for fun games to appear.

Do you see?

Well, are they appearing anytime soon? But I must say that it was very clever of Sony making sure that the PSP gets flooded with titles people have already played to death on their PS2. Yes, it's certainly important to stamp out any signs of originality and creativity in the early stages. But they missed Loco Roco though. Probably an oversight, won't happen again.

[DeanoC]

I'm guessing that when Cell+RSX is employed that the SPEs do their operations on the sytem ram and then the GPU shunts what it needs into the graphics ram? Which seams even more impressive as I thought the Cell could just directly manipulate the graphics ram.

No SPU read/write XDDR and RSX just grabs it directly from there... no need to copy to GDDR (Rsx local ram) first

[Kronos]

Nintendo has, and for the forseable future will have IMO, the lions share of the handheld market though. I didn't really expect the PSP to outsell the DS because of the name badge on both consoles. Years of selling Gameboys has given them a certain kudos IMHO. More suitable games helped them too (although I only want one for Nintendogs really and see what happens)

Nintendo=Built a machine to run the next level of handheld games they wanted.

Sony=Shrunk a PS2 into a handheld and hoped for fun games to appear.

Do you see?

Well, are they appearing anytime soon? But I must say that it was very clever of Sony making sure that the PSP gets flooded with titles people have already played to death on their PS2. Yes, it's certainly important to stamp out any signs of originality and creativity in the early stages. But they missed Loco Roco though. Probably an oversight, won't happen again.

I do agree, but there are times when using the stylus input has been made a gimick over playability, WTF were Nintendo thinking making the star wing control via the stylus too Neither is perfect and if I was loaded I'd end up with a DS Lite and Nintendogs only and a PSP and Colin McRea 2005 only probably (never finished that one see). *meh* they both need their heads banging together seriously!

I have a gamegear, that suits me fine now that you can get Duracell batteries for about 50p each these days

[mightyzim]

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=69503

looks like the Sony Online system is already falling to pieces. Though they may fix it in the future.