Mips Vs Arm

[Tobriand]

Actually, I imagine what'll happen is that first Sony will close all the holes as they stand.

Next some (probably small) company with a really awful game will think to themselves "this game is not going to sell to anyone - its so crap" and then take a glance at the homebrew scene and have a brainwave, including somewhere in their game's code the ability to execute other stuff.

Someone finds this (a la the Project Gotham Racing trick with the Xbox iirc), and voila, homebrew is open again. As long as it looked like a mistake (e.g. the ability to play mods of some description - or even to install patches to the game) they wouldn't get in *too* much trouble, and they'd be guaranteed as many sales as there are people interested in homebrew on the PSP. Not a great deal, but if you have a truly godawful game, then it might work .

EDIT: Typo

 

[gaterooze]

:lol:

If you really believe that you have some issues

 

[Tobriand]

Well, ok, its a little far-fetched, but it would be a way to make absolutely certain your game was bought by everyone interested in homebrew - at least, after all the holes were patched. Of course, assuming there were comercial games that people into homebrew also wanted to play (else they'd presumably just leave the firmware downgraded and never buy another game that might sneakily upgrade it.)

But seriously, can you see why it *wouldn't* work in terms of guaranteeing you a few sales regardless of the game quality?

 

[Prothall]

If it's caught fast, Sony might flip out and recall every unit, effectively ending any profit on the developer's side.

 

[gaterooze]

But seriously, can you see why it *wouldn't* work in terms of guaranteeing you a few sales regardless of the game quality?

​

Rental.

And Sony would remove the developer's licence immediately. Just not worth it for anyone to even try to pull something like that.

 

[Blah]

And after the developer is gone, UMDs will shift around throughout Ebay, becoming a sought-after high bid item for uber-pspheads.

 

[Epicenter]

The way I look at it, until the ARM9s in the GP2x can be benchmarked on their bus with their RAM against the PSP, there is no good way to be sure of their relative performance. However, I will say that the ARM9 architecture IS extremely efficient, and likely does beat out the MIPS processor used in the PSP even at a higher clockrate since it is an older R4000 core, and unlikely to be the same architecture as that used in the PocketPC CPU cores benchmarked in the chart the OP linked to. That's a real apples-to-oranges comparison as it stands.

I have no doubt the PSP will destroy the Gp2x in floating point operations because the GP2x has NO innate hardware floating point support-- it can only use FPU Emulation. However, this becomes enormously less important for 2D games were most calculations involve things like simpler coordinate pairs for sprite movements and physics, not complex decimal values and decimal coordinate triplets for points in 3D space and 3D physics as you'll find on PSP titles. For what it's worth, I prefer 2D games and feel games on handhelds for the most part belong in 2D.

More importantly than any of that, the power inefficiency of the R4000 core is a huge part of why the PSP gets a mere ~4 hours of gameplay operation on one charge and the GP2x is able to sustain 7 hours according to the specs, possibly more. Using a higher amperage lithium ion cell or extremely high-rated AAs this time may rise even more. ARM9 processors sip the battery-- the 920t/940t use just ~0.25mW per MHz resulting in a miniscule power consumption level at 200 MHz (on a 130nm manufacturing process no less!) The screen's backlight will use far more power than both CPUs together. This isn't the case with the PSP, where the CPU draws such ridiculous amounts of power that raising it to its RATED speed of 333 MHz depletes the battery even FASTER than 4 hours.

On a system like the PSP or GP2x, power efficiency and battery life matter much more than playing the prettiest 3D games. Isn't that what PCs and home consoles are for?

 

[Radek]

The way I look at it, until the ARM9s in the GP2x can be benchmarked on their bus with their RAM against the PSP, there is no good way to be sure of their relative performance. However, I will say that the ARM9 architecture IS extremely efficient,

Let it rest.

We should not really compare the GP2x to the PSP but GP32!

and likely does beat out the MIPS processor used in the PSP even at a higher clockrate since it is an older R4000 core, and unlikely to be the same architecture as that used in the PocketPC CPU cores benchmarked in the chart the OP linked to. That's a real apples-to-oranges comparison as it stands.

I have no doubt the PSP will destroy the Gp2x in floating point operations because the GP2x has NO innate hardware floating point support-- it can only use FPU Emulation. However, this becomes enormously less important for 2D games were
most calculations involve things like simpler coordinate pairs for sprite movements

Most emulated machines don't have a fpu either. It would only matter for quick ports of Quakes (as Qs are fpu intensive). But even if you have to do a floatpoint maths you can do with intengers (plus some tricks) thought it's not that easy like with a fpu.

But anyway... for a really math intensive tasks (video playback, scaling, alphablending) the GP2x has a dedicated hardware. So lack of fpu isn't that bad in case of GP2x.

and physics, not complex decimal values and decimal coordinate triplets for points in 3D space and 3D physics as you'll find on PSP titles. For what it's worth, I prefer 2D games and feel games on handhelds for the most part belong in 2D.

This is a personal opinion.

Yes, I'm tired of typical 3d games too and even started one topic about this.

More importantly than any of that, the power inefficiency of the R4000 core is a huge part of why the PSP gets a mere ~4 hours of gameplay operation on one

I haven't a knowledge about this to comment but imho this is overstatement. The PSP uses battery battery so fast because it has a bigger hardware. The bigger lcd, the bigger chips (and more of them), the UMD drive - all of these adds to the power consumption of the PSP.

charge and the GP2x is able to sustain 7 hours according to the specs, possibly more. Using a higher amperage lithium ion cell or extremely high-rated AAs this time may rise even more. ARM9 processors sip the battery-- the 920t/940t use just ~0.25mW per MHz resulting in a miniscule power consumption level at 200 MHz (on a 130nm manufacturing process no less!) The screen's backlight will use far more power than both CPUs together. This isn't the case with the PSP, where the CPU draws such ridiculous amounts of power that raising it to its RATED speed of 333 MHz depletes the battery even FASTER than 4 hours.

On a system like the PSP or GP2x, power efficiency and battery life matter much more than playing the prettiest 3D games. Isn't that what PCs and home consoles are for?

​

I can imagine a someone who want play an 3d game on the handheld. Then PSP is the best choice and it can not be denied. At least it is for now. This doesn't mean the GP2x will be unable to do some "3D" but this isn't a purpose of it.

 

[Cyclops]

We should not really compare the GP2x to the PSP but GP32!

Its been done to death the GP2X is a better machine than the GP32. Its going to be a good bit of kit.

Yes, I'm tired of typical 3d games too and even started one topic about this.

Regardless of 3D vs 2D games I think that the GP2X will be having more than enough FPS in fact I think the GP32 is started to get more than enough. It was nice to see doom sites pointing out GP32 sites with WAD files on them. I hope this continues with the GP2X, and grows into a better shared resource. I'd be surprised if quake/bor/mugen don't get a little out of control on a device with cheap storage.

I haven't a knowledge about this to comment but imho this is overstatement. The PSP uses battery battery so fast because it has a bigger hardware. The bigger lcd, the bigger chips (and more of them), the UMD drive - all of these adds to the power consumption of the PSP.

The main point is more than that. The point is it doesn't utilise the hardware it has got becuase the battry life sucks so bad. I suspect with later PSP this will improve. A PSP+ as it were.

I can imagine a someone who want play an 3d game on the handheld. Then PSP is the best choice and it can not be denied. At least it is for now. This doesn't mean the GP2x will be unable to do some "3D" but this isn't a purpose of it.

I think the PSP will get little to nothing ported 3D time that the GP2X will not get. Most of the stuff available is sudo-3D anyway. Really it should not be of interest apart from a shared resource between WIN/Linux/X-box/Dreamcast/GP32/PSP anyway. I think this is an area which everyone will benefit from. I personaly am lookinf forward to Wolf3d/Spear of Destiny/doom/hexen/heretic/Duke nukem/marathon/Shadow Warrior/hexen II/quake II/Dedicated 3D engine + Lots and Lots of Lovely Mods on my GP2X.

I think the difference in these instances will not be the chips/bus/3D etc it will be down to control. That is which device has better control for fps games, and to tell the truth I have no idea. I have heard nothing but complaints about the PSP and getting diagonals pulled off, but then I see from woogals post that he is resolving 12switch joystick issues.

Basically I think homebrew 3D is a mute point, and I think everyone will benefit sometimes I love open source.

 

[Blah]

Just skip floating point emulation altogether and modify the code to use fixed point. It will still work, it will be much faster, and a little less accurate. The accuracy loss doesn't make a noticible difference on a relatively small, low-res screen with software rendering.

The only thing is its a lot of work to rewrite the code to use fixed point.

 

[Radek]

Just skip floating point emulation altogether and modify the code to use fixed point. It will still work, it will be much faster, and a little less accurate. The accuracy loss doesn't make a noticible difference on a relatively small, low-res screen with software rendering.

The only thing is its a lot of work to rewrite the code to use fixed point.

​

Yes and fpu is mandatory today in the pc's software because it's easier to develop for. And floatnumbers aren't about accuracy but available range. With intengers you can of course do fractions as well but you have a fixed range. It's something what must be dealt manually and nobody like it. (me too)

 

[Blah]

In the implementation of a software renderer, the floats are about accuracy.

 

[Radek]

In the implementation of a software renderer, the floats are about accuracy.

​

Yes! But it's depends on the implementation strongly. Many people when hear 32 bits floatpoint assume that it's has a better "accuracy" than an 32 bit intenger. This is not always true as 32 bit float will have only (at least on the x86) just 25 bits of mantissa.

I would rather extra fast intenger hardware than a so so fpu. It'd would be harder to program but results would be so much better.

Then we have all this 64-bit hype we are hearing lately... when most of the demanding software for pc is fpu dependent and those 64 bits are actually improvement for intenger ALU and addressing.

If I had chance to develop my own cpu it would be 8-bit fully pipelined unit with high clock, multiple "cores" for a vector like operations and built in hardware scheduler and support for data driven processing (like in typical dsp chips). Not unlike in the general concept as the 6502 but more advanced.

 

[Epicenter]

I haven't a knowledge about this to comment but imho this is overstatement. The PSP uses battery battery so fast because it has a bigger hardware. The bigger lcd, the bigger chips (and more of them), the UMD drive - all of these adds to the power consumption of the PSP.

Please explain to me how a chip's physical size makes it use more power. I mean WHAT?! The manufacturing process alters power consumption but size does not.

 

[Radek]

I haven't a knowledge about this to comment but imho this is overstatement. The PSP uses battery battery so fast because it has a bigger hardware. The bigger lcd, the bigger chips (and more of them), the UMD drive - all of these adds to the power consumption of the PSP.

Please explain to me how a chip's physical size makes it use more power. I mean WHAT?! The manufacturing process alters power consumption but size does not.

​

If you had two chips made at the same process, with the same clock but lets say the first had 10mln. tranzistor and the second 20mln. (twice the chip's die area), then they power consumption would be the same?

 

[Series-8]

A Supercluster of 6502's? you could probably stick... lets see about 5000 gates, I think.
The largest chips now are just reaching 200 Million transistors.. 40K cores, not including interconnects and other junk. Good luck programing them all

Also why power usage goes up with smaller gate sizes is because as transitors get smaller they loose more power, and as more energy leaks out heat is generated.

a 90nm will be more efficient than a 65nm, but a 65nm will have much more room for transitors.

I hear its such a problem that around 40nm is the lower limit. Moores law's goona go splat into a brick wall around 2015.

 

[trooper]

C-One (Commodore One)

C64 on serious SPEED.

CPU/Speed

· The main processor of the C1 is a 65c816 processor running at approximately 20 MHz. The 65c816 is a 6502 compatible processor with a 24 bit address range and extra instructions that access the full memory range are added to the 6502 core. The C-One has a processor slot for any other 8-bit CPU such as a real 6502, Z80, 6809 or even the Z8S180. Pinouts and footprints are also documentented to the public.

· Software throttle for classic 64 speeds.

· The system bus runs at up to 105Mhz, the 50/60 hz CIA clock of the system is provided by internal circuitry.

SuperVIC Video Capabilities

· VGA monitor output

· up to 128MB multimedia memory for graphics, music and copper data

· Max Resolution 1280x1024 Sync settings from 60hz-? (depends of resolution)

· Maximum of 256 colors out of a palette of 65,535 in regular and linear modes

Etc.

http://c64upgra.de/c-one/

Trooper

 

[gaterooze]

Now that C-1 is my kind of hardware...