Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Fozzy on December 06, 2007, 03:17:17 pm

Title: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Fozzy on December 06, 2007, 03:17:17 pm
Would it be insainly difficult to put FS2 (well total conversions like Galactica) on a DVD that runs on a playstation 2

found some info about making PS2 Games...

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/ps2gp1/
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Inquisitor on December 06, 2007, 03:41:50 pm
a former SCP staffer looked at this a while back, if I recall, it would be complicated.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Polpolion on December 06, 2007, 07:37:07 pm
How about we port PS2 to FS2 instead? :p
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: spartan_0214 on December 06, 2007, 08:56:04 pm
Four words. Shut. The. ****. Up!

Honestly, hasn't there been enough blasphemy in regards to porting FS2 to a console. ENOUGH ALREADY!
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Unknown Target on December 07, 2007, 02:24:31 am
How about keeping it civil, spartan?


On topic: Meh, not a big fan of the idea myself.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 07, 2007, 04:07:08 am
what kind of crap can you plug into a ps2's usb ports? a keyboard and a good joystick perhaps?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: terran_emperor on December 07, 2007, 04:32:01 am
While id appreciate FS/FS2/ST:R/the Inferno series/Darius' Blue Planet series on PS2 - it ain't going to happen
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 07, 2007, 02:55:34 pm
AFAIK the max res you'd get out of a PS2 would be 640x480 or 720xsomething or another... that's the standard TV res.  Who'd want that??
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 07, 2007, 05:52:49 pm
Eugh... Still, might be good on a PS3 - High-Def FS2 on a 60" plasma. ;7
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: n0s on December 08, 2007, 04:54:04 am
Eugh... Still, might be good on a PS3 - High-Def FS2 on a 60" plasma. ;7

connect the plasma to your pc ;)
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: TrashMan on December 08, 2007, 06:21:40 am
Assuming you COULD port it to PS2, how would you handle all the controls? :wtf:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Inquisitor on December 08, 2007, 08:04:52 am
Correction, a former staffer looked at porting it to the ps2 linux kit, but alot of the same challenges would present themselves. Mostly around memory and graphics.

If a newer console were more open in terms of development, that might be realistic, but the PS2 has alot of limitations in memory and alot of specific issues with its "video card" that would be a pretty big deal to resolve with the SCP engine. You only have a limited amount of memory to work with, and that has to power the game as well as the graphics, so you end up doing alot of swapping, loading from disk, etc.

If anyone has a linux kit and wants to try again (the linux kit came with a bunch of architecture docs), I could possibly help test, but I think I am the only staffer with one and its well beyond my skills.

And keep it civil, if you want to whine about consoles, go do it in the gaming forum.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Mobius on December 08, 2007, 08:14:53 am
I don't like the idea but...is it impossible to import models, music files and such from a PS2 game and use them in FreeSpace?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: BlackDove on December 08, 2007, 08:22:33 am
That'd be illegal as far as I'm aware.

And I  don't see what'd be wrong with FS2 on PS2. It'd be a pain to DO, but whoever is willing to walk through fire is their concern.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 08, 2007, 08:42:13 am
Eugh... Still, might be good on a PS3 - High-Def FS2 on a 60" plasma. ;7

connect the plasma to your pc ;)
If I had one it already would be.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: IceFire on December 08, 2007, 08:53:36 am
Four words. Shut. The. ****. Up!

Honestly, hasn't there been enough blasphemy in regards to porting FS2 to a console. ENOUGH ALREADY!
Spartan, consider this a warning.  This sort of behavior is not warranted and I'd ask that you please keep such comments to yourself.  If you have nothing constructive to add to the topic let it be.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Mobius on December 08, 2007, 10:01:25 am
That'd be illegal as far as I'm aware.

I see, I dind't take that aspect in consideration.

And I  don't see what'd be wrong with FS2 on PS2. It'd be a pain to DO, but whoever is willing to walk through fire is their concern.

Is it possible to do something to port FS2 on PS3? The PS2 is becoming outdated.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 08, 2007, 11:57:24 pm
wasnt the ps3 dual cored with an array of vector processors added in? freespace would need to make uses of those cores to run any good on it. adding in multi core support to the code base would be a good idea anyway and would improve performance further on my system :D

the console should have interfaces for standard input such as usb. maybe you can use sdl or whatever for that. it natively supports most joysticks no matter what platform youre on, usb keyboards should be handled as well.

comes with a hard drive, theres your mod support :D

for performance you would need to reduce textures and use more aggressive lod-ing. as far as that goes, just normal map the retail models.

sounds like a pita if you ask me.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 09, 2007, 10:56:21 am
wasnt the ps3 dual cored with an array of vector processors added in? freespace would need to make uses of those cores to run any good on it. adding in multi core support to the code base would be a good idea anyway and would improve performance further on my system :D

the console should have interfaces for standard input such as usb. maybe you can use sdl or whatever for that. it natively supports most joysticks no matter what platform youre on, usb keyboards should be handled as well.

comes with a hard drive, theres your mod support :D

for performance you would need to reduce textures and use more aggressive lod-ing. as far as that goes, just normal map the retail models.

sounds like a pita if you ask me.
Pita? Is Mobius getting to you? You're starting to smatter your speech with Italian.

But yeah, single core is phased out, we'd do well to go multi-core.

And the PS3 has eight cores, all clocked at 65 Mhz or something.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Mobius on December 09, 2007, 01:34:29 pm
Since when "Pita" is Italian? :wtf:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Unknown Target on December 09, 2007, 01:46:23 pm
Pita would be Pain In the Ass, cole ;)
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Flaser on December 09, 2007, 02:58:49 pm
IMHO porting to the PS2 could be a real hair-pulling experience.

The reason why the reverse is pretty hard to do, is because the PS2 actually has several job-specific co-processors. Putting all the strain on the CPU would be not so feasible, finding what to do with the other processors would be even harder - and the whole complex is pretty closely synchronized.

So yeah, a newer, more open and PC like console could be better...

...IMHO the X-Box would be the best of the bunch, since it's practically a small PC on the inside.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 09, 2007, 03:17:10 pm
Since when "Pita" is Italian? :wtf:
I thought it was.
Pita would be Pain In the Ass, cole ;)
He didn't have it all caps, so I couldn't tell. You generally do that with acronyms.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 09, 2007, 05:23:00 pm
YOU generally do that with acronyms, i do not :D
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 09, 2007, 05:29:25 pm
Loner.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 10, 2007, 01:59:56 am
YOU generally do that with acronyms, i do not :D

Incorrect syntax, human.  Acronyms are capitalized.  Such as PCMCIA.  Can you tell me what that means?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 10, 2007, 02:24:57 am
personal computer memory card international association

and dont accuse me of being human, my humanity died long ago.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 10, 2007, 02:48:23 am
YOU generally do that with acronyms, i do not :D

Incorrect syntax, human.  Acronyms are capitalized.  Such as PCMCIA.  Can you tell me what that means?

It means that you just used at least one sentence fragment while lecturing someone else on grammar. :p
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Herra Tohtori on December 10, 2007, 02:48:45 am
FS1 could probably work on Yellow Dog with Wine, since that didn't use hardware accelerated graphics (IIRC). With FS2, that approach could be a bit harder because with Yellow Dog, you don't get any hardware accelerated graphics out of PlayStations. Porting the game to use PlayStation's architecture would be a task so gargantuan that I shudder to even think about it.

I don't know if it would be possible to run retail FS2 with Wine and some Glide/D3D emulation - probably very slowly, if at all. FS2_Open is right out of question, without hardware acceleration there's no point at all to even try.

And I guess you could port at least some of the FS2 media to a FS1 installation. How well it would work, I have my doubts; for example beam weapons wouldn't work, there wouldn't be nebula missions and other little things would be "missing".


But then again, a PS with a Linux is no longer a PlayStation, it's a low powered computer badly suited in what it has been forced to do, IMHO. And the games it plays are no longer PS games... :rolleyes:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 10, 2007, 02:59:35 am
personal computer memory card international association

and dont accuse me of being human, my humanity died long ago.

People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

:lol:

if you're curious, it's actually *checks*: Personal Computer Memory Card International Association , which they have smartly changed to just "PC Card"  XD  Wonder why.

It means that you just used at least one sentence fragment while lecturing someone else on grammar. :p

Well, as I'm not actually a droid, I was attempting humor.  *peers closely at WMC's skin* - thought so.  A cybernetic organism: living tissue over a metal endoskeleton!!  :shaking: Ruuuun!!  :snipe:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 10, 2007, 07:45:24 am
its amazing how far off topic this thread has become.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 11, 2007, 01:20:53 am
Well, as I'm not actually a droid, I was attempting humor.  *peers closely at WMC's skin* - thought so.  A cybernetic organism: living tissue over a metal endoskeleton!!  :shaking: Ruuuun!!  :snipe:

:blah:

Well, I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords. :drevil:

And, uh, a PS2 port of Freespace 2. Yeah. :nervous:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Wobble73 on December 11, 2007, 05:27:55 am
As for Pita being Italian, maybe he was thinking of Pitta bread!  :lol:

And even porting FS2 to the Xbox 360 would be hard I believe as they only have 10mb graphics memory (IIRC).  :nervous: :shaking:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 11, 2007, 02:04:22 pm
As for Pita being Italian, maybe he was thinking of Pitta bread!
That's what it was, and pita only has one "t".
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 11, 2007, 05:01:14 pm
are we still on this?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: colecampbell666 on December 11, 2007, 05:21:38 pm
I'm pretty sure - no.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 11, 2007, 10:54:45 pm
As for Pita being Italian, maybe he was thinking of Pitta bread!  :lol:

And even porting FS2 to the Xbox 360 would be hard I believe as they only have 10mb graphics memory (IIRC).  :nervous: :shaking:

Umm.... no  EDIT: Just read it, actually, yes... technically.  But it shares with the main memory.  (It's physically impossible to do that kind of GFX with just 10MB, sorry.)

Quote from: http://hardware.teamxbox.com/articles/xbox/1144/The-Xbox-360-System-Specifications/p1
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
   
    * 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
    * 2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total
    * 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core; 3 total
    * 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
    * 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
   
    * 9 billion dot product operations per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
   
    * 500 MHz
    * 10 MB embedded DRAM
    * 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines
    * Unified shader architecture

Polygon Performance
   
    * 500 million triangles per second

Pixel Fill Rate
   
    * 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA

Shader Performance
   
    * 48 billion shader operations per second

Memory
   
    * 512 MB GDDR3 RAM
    * 700 MHz DDR
    * Unified memory architecture

Memory Bandwidth
   
    * 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
    * 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
    * 21.6 GB/s front-side bus

Overall System Floating-Point Performance
   
    * 1 TFLOP

Storage
   
    * Detachable and upgradeable 20 GB hard drive
    * 12X dual-layer DVD-ROM
    * Memory unit support starting at 64 MB

I/O
   
    * Support for up to 4 wireless game controllers
    * 3 USB 2.0 ports
    * 2 memory unit slots

Optimized for Online
   
    * Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, Gamer Profile for digital identity and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies or listening to music
    * Built in Ethernet Port
    * Wi-Fi Ready: 802.11 A, B and G
    * Video Camera Ready

Digital Media Support
   
    * Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
    * Stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras, Windows XP PCs
    * Rip music to Xbox 360 hard drive
    * Custom playlists in every game
    * Windows Media Center Extender built in
    * Interactive, full screen 3D visualizers

HD Game Support
   
    * All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
    * Standard definition and high definition video output supported

Audio
   
    * Multichannel surround sound output
    * Supports 48 KHz 16-bit audio
    * 320 independent decompression channels
    * 32-bit audio processing
    * Over 256 audio channels

System Orientation
   
    * Stands vertically or horizontally

Customizable Face Plates
   
    * Interchangeable to personalize the console

Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 12, 2007, 01:14:12 am
the xbox 360 was ment to use real time generated procedural graphics, which are fed directly to the gpu in real time, rather than loading and storing big data all in memory like pc games do. the video memory is all frame buffer, theres not enough to do anything else other than maybe storing shader programs. even then the frame buffer would need to use compression to handle hd resolutions (ntsc's 720*480 would use 8.9 megs of uncompressed memory).

im pretty sure programming a game on the 360 would throw out all classical conventions of game design out the window. rather than building the world by xforming your models to world space, storing it, and xforming the whole world to camera space, storing it again, the world is probibly done in sections, then overlapped right onto the frame buffer. first ground, then buildings, then trees, then characters,ect, each following the old convention. i dont think freespace is set up to handle it.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 12, 2007, 10:03:22 am
Erg... I thought the XBOX 360 Elite could handle HD, though?  hmm... wikipedia 360 article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360)... wikipedia 360 hardware article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware).  It can... but I guess its GFX mem is still small and uses, as Nuke said, a different technology that PCs do.  I goofed.  XD  So... plug your 360 controller into your PC, and enjoy, I guess.  (360 & XBOX controllers plug into your USB ports & auto-install drivers on XP SP1 & higher ;) )
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 12, 2007, 09:04:14 pm
well its entirely possible the frame buffer is compressed. could use dxt1 which could be de/compressed in real time. that would allow an 80 meg frame buffer which would be plenty of frame buffer for the highest hd res. im not sure if thats the way it is or even if its possible. the xbox 360 does with its cpu power what a computer does with its expansive memory. the tv refresh is also slower so the cores have time to do extra work. data in the backbuffer would need to be much more abstract. since you cant store it you got to crunch it and pass it to the next component so it can do its work.

so while core 2 is transforming a model to camera space, core 1 is getting the next model to world space, ready for the next core to do its processing on. then when the model is in camera space it goes straight to the gpu for rendering. pc games tend to batch everything so rather than doing a whole lot of little transforms, it does a couple big ones.

this cpu hell in modern consoles is nothing new. the sega saturn had a very complex array of processors. two risc processors, 3 gpus, another risc for controlling the cdrom, 2 sound processors, and 2 other special purpose processors. compared to the playstations 1 risc processor, 1 sound processor and 1 gpu, it was a race car.  the single processor playstation only won over merely because it was easyer to program. most of the programmers of the day were still used to writing single cpu programs, so the playstation got all the good games. while the saturn got relegated mostly to 2d arcade games.

now that our computers and consoles have multicore processors and sometimes multiple gpus, its about time to rewrite the book on game programming.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Flipside on December 17, 2007, 06:17:40 pm
I'm going to unlock this topic on request, because the conversation seemed to be heading back where it was supposed to be, however, this is not a thread to discuss the relative merits of consoles, those always end in disaster.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: spartan_0214 on December 17, 2007, 06:21:51 pm
If FS2 somehow made it onto PS2, the SCP programmers would go on strike. :nod:
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Unknown Target on December 17, 2007, 11:13:42 pm
Since the SCP programmers would be the ones putting it on there, I doubt they'd go on strike.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Inquisitor on December 18, 2007, 07:18:54 am
Spartan: Knock it off.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 18, 2007, 03:08:06 pm
You don't necessarily need all that power for porting over just the engine, actually. You can run the engine with practically nothing now; the only limitation is that the GUI etc is based on graphics, so you sub in a scripting.tbl and a fontset and make your own interface. You could basically make a 2D lua game.

I don't think that'd have much practical appeal but it might be something to do if you were bored. :p
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: bonusbartus on December 20, 2007, 03:41:03 pm
Hmm I don't really understand how it is possible that the xbox 360 couldn't handle the scp engine, which runs great on my older pc,
Especially when I look at games like Call of Duty 4, that won't run very well on my new pc..

someone care to expain?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 20, 2007, 05:30:25 pm
it doesnt have the memory. youd have to scale back the graphics abit. reducing the textures down to the previous power of two would be a start.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: bonusbartus on December 20, 2007, 05:49:26 pm
I've understood that part, but how is it possible that that xbox could run a game like cod4, which is very Graphic Memory sensitive?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 21, 2007, 01:29:47 am
Umm.... guys, how about port to XBOX instead of 360?  Then, you get 360 support through backwards compatibility.  XD
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 22, 2007, 01:42:11 am
That's only for some games, IIRC, and emulation as a rule is generally less reliable.

@bonusbarbus: It's very possible that the XBOX360 is optimized for lots of little textures being used, rather than a few slow ones like Freespace 2 is optimized for. For instance, the XBOX360 might have wicked fast pipelines for getting graphics to the processor, but once it gets to the processor, the accessible memory and algorithms might be set up for a very small texture. Think of having a GeForce 8800GTX with 8MB of video memory while running FS2 off of a ram disk.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: caibrenden on December 22, 2007, 03:20:01 am
Umm.... guys, how about port to XBOX instead of 360?  Then, you get 360 support through backwards compatibility.  XD
You know that might just work apart from the 64 Mb Limit
Code: [Select]
Shared memory subsystem

    * 64 MB DDR SDRAM at 200 MHz; 6.4 GB/s
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 22, 2007, 03:42:07 am
How do the XBOX games handle it?
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 22, 2007, 09:58:08 am
rather than creating the whole scene by working on the source data, creating the world, and storing it till its prepared to be worked on by the gpu, and then passing the whole load of data as a batch to the video card to be rendered like pc games do. the newer consoles pass the work from cpu to cpu, and drawing the scene as smaller manageable sections which are overlaid directly in the frame buffer. there is more time to prepare the frame (slower refresh on tvs) so theres extra time to allow the drawing of the scene as layers. essentially using its brains and not its memory to do the same job.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: jr2 on December 22, 2007, 06:15:43 pm
I thought the XBOX was a hotrodded PC??
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Nuke on December 23, 2007, 04:25:58 am
it is it just aint got no memory.
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Marcus Vesper on December 27, 2007, 04:33:29 pm
I thought the XBOX was a hotrodded PC??
Common misconception, most components in the original XBox are quite a bit slower then equivelant parts in PCs from that era.  That didn't work against it though because it's not running all the additional overhead your computer has to handle.  If your average PC only did one thing, it wouldn't need nearly as fast innards to achieve the same performance.  There's something to be said for simplicity of function. 

What ticks me off though is when developers design multiplatform releases with the XBox as the starting point, and then don't bother to differentiate it in any way on the PC, which isn't subject to the XBox's limited memory and thus can use textures that don't look like crap on our monitors.  Invisible War is something of a sore point still (Thief 3 had the same problem, but at least it didn't suck in every other way).
Title: Re: FS2 on Playstation 2 (Is it Possable)
Post by: Inquisitor on December 28, 2007, 03:23:51 pm
If someone with console development experience wants to contribute to this thread, let me know, but I think I have read enough rants on the "what ticks me off about consoles" theme.