further PSP specs(should be new)

[konfig]

Look here(Japanese. but technical details in the slide pictures are all in English):
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005 ... gai166.htm

Some main points:

(1)In order to save battery power, frequency of processor and bus are currently limited within 222Mhz and 111Mhz. PSP now could only release about 2/3 of its full power at most.

(2)Huge OS kernel(for game console) occupies 8MB of PSP's main memory.

(3)PSP movie format(psmf) are based on MPEG-2 stream. (So there should be a way we can play AVC movies from ms in the future)

(4)MIPS R4000 CPU is a 32-bit core(though it can be 64-bit). ICache 16KB, DCache 16KB, 7-stage pipeline.

(5)When decoding AVC movies, the media engine itself needs 500mw power. Considering that PSP now needs 1200mw to play non AVC movie(1800*3.6/5.5), perhaps that's why AVC movie is not available now?

There are other informations as details of the OS core, graphics library, audio library, UMD format, VFPU, kernel applets etc, all in the slides(English).

[bpoint]

(1)In order to save battery power, frequency of processor and bus are currently limited within 222Mhz and 111Mhz. PSP now could only release about 2/3 of its full power at most.

Yow.

The article goes on to mention that once the manufacturing process moves to 65nm (allowing for less power consumption), Sony will most likely move to 333Mhz with a 166Mhz bus. It appears that a 4-6 hour playtime for the 1800mAh Lithium-Ion battery in the current PSPs is why the CPU speed is being limited.

So where does that leave us with the older 222Mhz models? :) Are developers going to have to write code for both CPU speeds? That sounds... unimaginable for a console.

[Hazuki]

couldnt that be a software lock, like with the gp32?

[konfig]

(1)In order to save battery power, frequency of processor and bus are currently limited within 222Mhz and 111Mhz. PSP now could only release about 2/3 of its full power at most.

Yow.

The article goes on to mention that once the manufacturing process moves to 65nm (allowing for less power consumption), Sony will most likely move to 333Mhz with a 166Mhz bus. It appears that a 4-6 hour playtime for the 1800mAh Lithium-Ion battery in the current PSPs is why the CPU speed is being limited.

So where does that leave us with the older 222Mhz models? :) Are developers going to have to write code for both CPU speeds? That sounds... unimaginable for a console.

The PSP's CPU clock is software tunable from 1 to 333Mhz since its first announcement. The purpose is obvious: to save power as many as possible - not all games need the CPU to run at 333Mhz.

Due to the current battery life, SONY prohibits the use of full speed by some means. Some speech reference there also proves it. Once there's larger capacity battery, or shorter time in exchange for better graphics is found worthful, the seal will be released at once - not to wait for the 65nm manufacturing process. I think that is it.

The manufacturing pipeline for the 90nm PSP now runs. SONY should have paid countless money for this pipeline. It is not likely that a new 65nm pipeline be set up in "quite a few" years. This is my view.

[Guest]

The manufacturing pipeline for the 90nm PSP now runs. SONY should have paid countless money for this pipeline. It is not likely that a new 65nm pipeline be set up in "quite a few" years. This is my view.

I think Sony is building 65nm fabs for Cell ? They could easily make the PSP cpu's from those facilities as well, once they are fully online. Shouldn't be too long now eh ?

[bpoint]

The PSP's CPU clock is software tunable from 1 to 333Mhz since its first announcement. The purpose is obvious: to save power as many as possible - not all games need the CPU to run at 333Mhz.

I understand that. But if games start requiring 333Mhz, I either get less battery life, or I have to buy a new battery (assuming Sony makes a new one which pushes out more than 1800mAh). Nothing like changing the spec at the last minute and not telling anyone about it -- seems Sony's been doing that a fair amount lately (PSX, anyone?). :/

Sony's "limiting" of the CPU to 222Mhz is probably just a programming TRC. Sony just says to the developers that they can't exceed 222Mhz, and during testing, they just confirm it. I doubt it's anything hardware related at all.

[konfig]

Nothing like changing the spec at the last minute and not telling anyone about it -- seems Sony's been doing that a fair amount lately (PSX, anyone?). :/

I feel the same when knowing the PSP is actually used as a 222Mhz one, while still announced 333Mhz till the last moment.

Due to battery power, system frequency is locked. But the lock itself may be a means of management, or call it tactics - to prevent the abuse of battery power when developers are still not familiar with PSP's envionment(the author declaird in their webpage that SONY did not say what the lock was for). When developers knows the envionment well, they will know how to control the power consumption. Also unnecessary power consumption can be reduced. After all, considering battery power when coding a game is a new matter.

Well, that is only a guess. Buyers will not be pleased if they see a PSP-SP or PSP-One soon after they buy an older model.

[kry.sys]

google link to same article using googles tanslator...

http://www.google.com/translate?u=http% ... en&ie=UTF8

[konfig]

Finally, Sony confirmed that AVC was not available from ms in their updated official webpage:

http://www.playstation.jp/products/hard ... index.html

[Video]
"UMD":H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main Profile Level3
"Memory Stick":MPEG-4 SP,AAC
[Music]
"UMD":linear PCM,ATRAC3plus™
"Memory Stick":ATRAC3plus™,MP3(MPEG1/2 Layer3)


Now it is clear that ms video only supports till MPEG4 SP(not even ASP), AVC is the preserve for UMD videos.

[pspvideo9]

AVC playback on MS is possible, whether anyone other than Sony will be able to do this is another question.

See the AVC/H.264 section of my PSP Video codec document for info/pictures:
http://www.pspvideo9.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4

[konfig]

AVC playback on MS is possible, whether anyone other than Sony will be able to do this is another question.

See the AVC/H.264 section of my PSP Video codec document for info/pictures:
http://www.pspvideo9.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4

Cool site. I added it to my collection.

Based on what I saw from some video clips, if AVC is available on ms, the advantages will be the following:
1)Color block in the graph will no longer appear and the overall scene color will not become thinner any more.
2)Quarter the file size to achieve the same quality. A 512MB ms can match a 2GB one.


I can't help wondering how AVC achieves this. I'll spare some time to learn the coding in detail.

[Warren]

The current libraries do no allow you to set the CPU speed above 222 period. Future versions of the SDK may (probably will) lift this restriction but I assume TRC's will restrict it to 222.

[konfig]

The current libraries do no allow you to set the CPU speed above 222 period. Future versions of the SDK may (probably will) lift this restriction but I assume TRC's will restrict it to 222.

What is the 'TRC'?

Does the TRC restriction mean that if 333Mhz is allowed, chip will become hot and therefore system will be unstable?

I think if this restriction really exists, it either is a fatal mistake in design for the current model or -
Sony never planned to use this model as a 333Mhz model(it will be necessary for the customers to buy a new model in the future. It is proved not a successful pattern though).

[Cogboy]

I think its more to do with battery life. Once sony releases better batteries or switches to the more efficient 65nm process they may lift this limit on the developers. you can either get a new psp, get a new battery, or put up with the diminished battery life. either way the game will still work on the old hardware.

[bpoint]

What is the 'TRC'?

Does the TRC restriction mean that if 333Mhz is allowed, chip will become hot and therefore system will be unstable?

I forgot exactly what TRC stood for... something-Restriction Checklist. :) I did PS1 programming for a game company way-back when, so I've had to deal with it before. Nintendo also has a similar list, but they usually report violations when Mario Club does the actual game testing.

It's a list of things to check for once the developed game is near beta. Some of them include being able to properly recover when the disc cover is opened and closed, making sure load times do not exceed 4 seconds (or if they do, show "Now Loading..." and don't leave a black screen), memory card handling (making sure a card's been formatted... if you do format it, you have to write specific messages on screen, etc), or specific hardware issues, like in the PS1 days where Sony said you couldn't access the outside 20Mb of the CD.

Sony goes through and checks all of this stuff too. They even had a special hardware monitor which would show things like CPU/GPU usage and stuff, so odds are they know how fast the PSP's CPU is running as well.

Like I said before, it's probably not a lock of any kind. Maybe there's a function call in their OS library called SetCPUSpeed() and if it gets called with a value more than 222, it just clamps it for now. Then when they want to let the PSP run at 333Mhz, they just release a new set of libraries to the developers. Who knows?

[konfig]

I think its more to do with battery life. Once sony releases better batteries or switches to the more efficient 65nm process they may lift this limit on the developers. you can either get a new psp, get a new battery, or put up with the diminished battery life. either way the game will still work on the old hardware.

I think basicly that's it, but there may be other ways besides these.

For instance, store temporary data to ms to reduce the power consuming umd reading and seeking, loading time can also be greatly reduced.

I'd like to see psp's true power. But now, what can be done is just waiting.

[emoon]

TRC stands for 'Technical Requirement Checklist' and is a list
that developers have to follow in order to pass the submission
from the console company in question.

A TRC may for example be that the game must check if the CD/UMD
tray is opened during the running of the game and handle it according
to the specification in the TRC. If it failed to apply to these it will
fail the submission and the game wont be released until its fixed.

.emoon