Some Back Compat Problems For PS3 138
Via Opposable Thumbs at Ars Technica, the news at IGN that there are some annoying backwards compatibility issues with the PS3 and the PS2. Specifically, there are about 196 games that are experiencing issues. From the article: "In response to these issues, Sony's PR department pointed out that it, from the start, expected backwards compatibility to be less than 100%. It was also good enough to point out that some people can put up with playing games that lack sound. Regardless of this somewhat arrogant response, an official statement issued at the PlayStation.com site states that Sony will fix the problems with a future system update, and may even resort to individual patches for certain titles. When this will happen has yet to be specified." Qj.net has a list of some of the problem games, with their specific issues. It sounds bad, but to put this in perspective I believe there are still far more PS2 games playable on the PS3 than there are Xbox games playable on the 360.
Re:i wonder (Score:2, Informative)
Re:i wonder (Score:2, Informative)
Currently the Emotion Engine has been included in the PS3 in a similar way
Personally, I would suspect that much of the non-CPU related functionality of the PS2 is being emulated on the Cell processor but the emulation is incomplete
Re:They expected it, but did they point it out? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:i wonder (Score:2, Informative)
Re:i wonder (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, that's exactly what Sony did with the PS3 - the PS3 motherboard contains the same EE+GS chip that powers the slim PS2.
You can see it on the left side of this photo [impress.co.jp].
Re:i wonder (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the pictures there are 4 chips. Cell (the main CPU), RSX (the GPU), EE/GS (the PS2), and an unmarked I/O chip.
They plan on doing software emulation at some point in the future, and when they do they'll drop the PS2 chip and RAMs from the board. Untill then there's a full hardware PS2 in every PS3.
List not that bad (Score:4, Informative)
As least you don't have older versions of popular games not being supported in order to push newer titles (Ridge Racer was not on that list).
Also noted is that the PS3 does not support the multitap - but it does support multiple controllers directly in PS2 games (since the PS3 can support up to seven wireless controllers at a time).
Re:List not that bad (Score:3, Informative)
Simple answer is. (Score:5, Informative)
The hard answer is it depends.
1. Did the program use some strange feature or bug that you are not emulating? This can cause problems even for hardware. You do a new rev of some chip and a program that uses some strange workaround fails. This was a major problem for Apple when they created the Apple IIc. It used the 65c02 which fixed a lot of bugs in the 6502 that some software depended on. It was also a problem for some Amiga users when they upgraded to the 68010 or higher.
2. timing. This can be a real pain since on a modern CPUs you can not cycle count. On a modern CPU the amount of time an instruction takes is not fixed. Again did the software you are tying to emulate do something really odd with timing? Sound issues are often caused by this.
3. Bugs. No program is perfect. Emulators tend to multiply bugs. One bug my effect a dozen games.
4. Lack of documentation. Even if you have perfect documentation for the hardware specs that isn't enough. Some developer somewhere will go outside the specs and try something strange just to see if it will work. When it does they will leave it in. Unless you have the source for every program you intend to run on your emulator the odds are pretty good you will miss something. Even if you do it is unlikely you will go through every line of code.
What developers like about consoles is that you can program right down on the hardware to get the maximum performance. You know that each and every console will have exactly the same hardware.
What emulator writers hate about consoles is that console developers program right down on the hardware. If you make the smallest mistake it will come back and get you.
Just a short list of reasons.
Re:i wonder (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, there's also those idiot programmers that had NO idea how function Y was supposed to work, used it wrong and got a 'meaningful' answer somehow. Maybe it rounded the float early and shouldn't have, but his code now relies on that bug. Maybe he used it BECAUSE it does that. Who knows.
In the end, it has nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with the software used on that hardware, and that's why those 'experts' can't answer your question.