Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

PSX2 development on... Linux! 97

Posted by HeUnique from the surprise dept.
Here is something from PSX-Nation news:" According to The Japanese site Gamespot it has been reported that the PlayStation 2 will use the operating environment of Linux for development! As Linux prepares to host its first huge convention this week at Linux World, this is huge news and pits Dreamcast with Windows against PlayStation with Linux. Gamespot also revealed that the specs for the CPU have been bumped up from the 250Mhz announced at the IEEE conference to 300Mhz. PSX Nation will have much more tomorrow and throughout the week. Also, here are some tech demos screenshots. Would any of our Japanese readers mind translating the article in ZDNet Japan?
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

PSX2 development on... Linux! More

PSX2 development on... Linux!

Comments Filter:
  • "Companies can talk a big game, but until they really throw their support behind Linux, it is hard to know who to trust. A lot of companies seem to provide half ass support for Linux, while not really making any quality products for it. It is refreshing to see Sony doing this."

    Do you know how stupid that sounds? Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, but your comment is embarassing to the Linux community. I mean, just because they use Linux doesn't mean they are behind the "Linux Propaganda Machine". I would be willing to bet that it just gives them a much less "No Fuss" environment to develop, not because they are "Against All That Is Windows". Your comment has a very immature ring to it. It sounds like, "I'm better because I have better toys". Grow up. I'm sure Sony really couldn't give a crap about Linux. They are a huge company, and don't place sides because one is "The Right Thing To Do". They place sides where the money is, and where it makes sense. If developing on Linux makes sense, then that is what they will do.

    Sorry if this seems like a flame, it's not. Just an opinion. :)
  • You cross-compile on a computer. You have a development console which is connected to the computer, so instead of reading a CD, it mounts a filesystem from the computer.

    I imagine the development consoles will run a slightly different OS to the consumer model, with more in the way of diagnostics etc. Look at the developer's PalmOS ROMS for comparisom.

    Of course, developers are free to choose whether to write in assembly or C, or anything else. Usually it's a combination of C for the high-level stuff and ASM for stuff like graphics engines.

    One reason the PSX took off, was that Sony provided nice easy to use APIs to the graphics hardware, so early game development was fast. By comparisom, although the Saturn could outperform the PSX, it was fiddly. Only later in the PSX's life did developers start to need more oomph, and began to replace Sony's APIs with their own.
    --
  • No.

    Cross compilation.

    The binaries will be neither Linux binaries nor intel binaries

    At least I hope not.
    Gaming needs a realtime OS
    Linux is not a realtime OS
    Gaming does not need the stuff Linux is good at
    --
  • I've translated over 2100 pages of manga, but I'm still not that used to this kind of stuff. Didn't have my character dictionary around either, AND it was in SJIS...

    Anyway, in the 3rd paragraph it says something like "one clear fact about the next generation playstation is that the development OS is Linux. The name of the hardware is still not clear."

    Okay, the development OS is Linux. I believe that's also the case with "Project X". However, the OS for the shipping product will probably be a RTOS. Probably some development of the original Playstation OS, whatever that was...

  • Errr... I can bet you anything most serious developers have more than two machines laying around...

    In fact, I'll say more. If you are a developer, you don't want to interrupt content creation to initiate a compile, so you *want* more than one machine.

    So quit yer FUD.
  • Well... Dreamcast does run Virtua Fighter 3, so I guess I *have* to spend money on it when it comes out. At least, that game does not run on CE, unlike, say, Sega Rally 2.

  • Next-Generation Online, has been posting important information about the PSX2, Anyone interested should check it out.

    www.next-generation.com [next-generation.com]
  • I didn't notice that they said so explicitly.
    Will the binaries work on a regular Linux machine?
    Will it be compiled for Intel processors or what?


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • Visit my homepage [geocities.com] for the OS/2 version of Stella, or the Stella Homepage [atari.org] for version for Linux, Mac, Amiga, and many other operating systems(even winblows).
  • The current PSX already has development going on under Linux -- this is no surprise.

    It would surprise me if Nintendo did anything intelligent. :>

    The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

  • Don't know why this is in the playstation thread, but I might as well answer..

    Um, I'm writing commercial BeOS software *right now*. MGI, where I work, has made a public commitment to write software for BeOS.

    Or maybe I didn't understand your message?

  • Ok, here my humble attempt at a translation of the Japanese ZDNet article...

    ---
    Tokyo, 2 March, at the Playstation Meeting 1999 organized by Sony
    Computer Entertainment (SCEI), the company provides first details of
    the much-spoken about next-generation Playstation.

    Originally, the main news of the meeting should be the worldwide
    distribution of over 50 Million Playstations. However, as on the 16
    February Toshiba presented in San Francisco a high-powered MPU for
    computer entertainment, the question arose as to "whether we should
    announce at this meeting the next-generation Playstation?"

    In the announcement at 3:30pm, it was stated that the development
    OS for the next-generation Playstation is based on Linux; though,
    details of the hardware are still unclear.

    The CPU was increased from the rumored 250MHz to 300MHz.
    Furthermore, according to SCE, sales might start in '99, which sounds as if it is difficult to meet. We try to get hold of more details about this
    machine. Stay tuned!
  • When will we see someone commit to developing on it?
  • Two ways on PSX. 1: Internal dev kit; 2 big fat cards, with optional profiling waz, v expensive, 2-3k ukp +. 2: External action replay / SN style; SCSI card in yer PC plugs into back of small box attached to expansion port of PSX, cheap 150 ukp, discontinued, thank you Sony.

    Either way, the libraries allow you read off of CD, or the PCs hard drive. Develop with one, test with the other. Figure the rest out yerselves.

    I imagine PSX2 will follow a similar path, although you may not need a box, just a firewire card, at a guess.
  • > This development system is of primary usage to the programmer. Since when does any games company require its programmers to use any of the above tools?

    Hey, guess what, I code games, and I need acess to most of the above tools to check and moidify original data.

    You seem to be under the misguided impression that professional games programmers work in total isolation from artists, musicians, and designers.

  • Nope, about $300-$350, anything larger can be atributed to an extra zero appearing in the Yen price during translation. At least that's what I've been told.

  • a) WINCE is only *one* OS the dreamcast runs. In fact there are at least two operating systems out there for it (SEGOS and the WINCE port). The Dreamcast allows booting any old OS you want off the CD.

    b) Dreamcast development is done on a variety of platforms. Windows is one of them yes, to allow easier porting of PC based games to the console.

    c) The PSX has already been using gcc so a linux hosting enviroment is nothing special.

    Games being developed under unix based OS's are nothing new (see DOOM).
  • Time to make a kick ass FF 8 playing beowolf cluster. Someone has to say it
  • I saw a Dreamcast a few weeks ago at Katsucon [io.com]. I saw some fighting game, a Godzilla game, and a demo that had deck guns on a ship firing into the air.

    I really wasn't impressed. The graphics were good, but not that much better than Playstation 1 or N64. The Godzilla game, in particular, looked REALLY REALLY polygonal, like the T-Rex in TOMB RAIDER. And, I have yet to see a game for it that I'd actually want to play. I hear that the Sonic game for Dreamcast is good, though.

    PSX2 looks like more of a quantum leap forwards, versus a small evolutionary leap for Dreamcast. Though we'll have to see screen shots of actual games to know what it'll really do when it has to work hard.
  • Duplicated stories? What about the stories that are never posted? About a week ago, I submitted the address to a BBC article describing the very recent Teleglobe transatlantic link failure. This caused the US to be inaccessible from Janet (the Joint Academic NETwork which connects all the UK universities) for roughly 24 hours. It probably affected quite a few slashdot readers, me included. It was never posted. However, www.doodie.com was.

    Late last year, I also posted the address of a New Scientist article which was very positive towards Linux. It too was ignored.

    Ford 'Mostly Harmless' Prefect
  • Metrowerks announced Code Warrior for Linux in autumn, IIRC. They said it would be out in spring, and that this wouldn't be based on gcc, but that they would build their own compiler. It was on their website.
  • It's probably too late to expect this is being read by you, dear AC, but anyway: Yes, AFAIK IIRC etc. it was supposed to be in spring 99
  • The original playstation development is done with playstation on a PCI card. A C API is used but I don't know too much more about it. I've got a Net Yaroze which allows me to write simple playstation games that are uploaded via a serial cable. It comes with a simplified library. If you want to see some (bad) source code using it you can go to

    http://www.identicalsoftware.com/yaroid/

    I have the source for my asteroid like game there.
  • The PSX2 is probably fast enough to _emulate_ a PSX in software. I'd doubt if the hardware architecture is even remotely compatible to the PSX and to make it so would warrant unnecessary cost (ok, the I/O coprocessor has the same R3000 core - big deal). What would make my day if it were powerful enough to emulate a Dreamcast...

    -t.
  • Linux people may not know, but Metrowerks is /very/ highly regarded in the MacOS world. They write outstanding compilers, and in fact, their PPC compiler pretty much saved Apple's bacon when they switched from 68k.

    If they really get a new compiler for Linux out the door, I for one would pony up the $$$ to check it out.

    Just info,
    JFB

  • Odd (Score:1)

    by TopFlite ( 14806 )
    The strange thing is that SN Systems & Metroworks are still being used for the psx development tools. Both have significant Wintel investments with their current toolsets. It'd be quite suprising to see them move to Linux.

    I wish the news houses would stop pushing all the demo screenshots & start talking about the dev stuff, but then again the masses could care less what we develop in. Oh well, patience is a virtue.

    -TF
  • Ya I can see the compiler not changing, the curious thing will be the debugger.

    Especially since SN is using the same debugger (the new win one, not the old dos one) for the N64 & the PSX, It's suprising that they'd move away from this. On first guess I would have thought they'd just make the current debugger support the PSX2 as well.

    More over this is just some musings, guess I'll drop a note to SN & see what they have to say.

    -TF
  • Compile via a gnu compiler, link some psx libraries.

    Run on a devkit which is essentially a psx on an IDE board (well 2 boards).

    The executable & data are then burnt onto a CD & run off a blue box (psx w/o integrated copy protection) or a mod-chip'd psx. When sony manufactures the final discs the copy protection is put into the finals so the discs will run on a normal psx.

    As for the new system, that's kinda up in the air, there's a few paths that can be taken from doing the same as now (ide/pci board), having a tcp/ip connection, etc.

    The developers who went to the '50 millionth' party are arriving back in the states tonight / tomorrow so there will be alot more info soon hopefully

    -TF
  • There, no you guys can stop complaining about why they never post Dreamcast news. Dreamcast runs and is developed on Windows. PSX2's will run whatever it is Sony wants, but the games'll be developed on Linux. So there, justification (after the fact).
  • So, someone tell me how video game development works. Do they have an API that they use (presumably) or is it mostly assembly? So, they write a program on Linux and then burn it to a DVD every time they want to see if it works? That sounds like a pretty slow development system. Or do they emulate a PSX in software on the Linux sysetm? How does this all work?
  • While as far as the PSX goes, you get the yaroze playstation dev kit, with has a pci card to put in your pc, hook it all up, and cross-compile to Risk 3000 Binarys, which is all big indian asm, so as long as that is your end product use what ever you want, C/C++/asm.
  • The PSX, is Risk 3000, big indian asm.
    I can't see why they would go to something different.
  • I wonder what Atari developed 2600 games on back in the day...

    --jwriney
    John Riney III
    jwriney@awod.com
  • This is the closest I've been to being aroused by hardware/software specs.
  • What is it with people who spout off numbers and benchmarks and stuff?

    Its a secondary blessing that it beats DreamCast, and not a disappointment if it doesn't.

    It boils down to games and support for the console; if its there, I'll play, if it isn't, I won't. If the PSX2 were only twice as powerful as the PSX, we would be well served, considering how long and useful the PSX has been with such old and dated technology.

    Having DVD and 3d sound is really nice, essentially you get a DVD standalone for free when you buy the game machine.

    Or you get a game machine for free when you buy the DVD player.

    Suspension of disbelief does not require FFMovie quality graphics; I was able to play and enjoy FFVI when it was only measly sprites on a SNES. I will continue to enjoy well crafted games over beautiful games if I have to choose between the two.

    Sure I'll appreciate all the benefits of the advanced hardware in the PSX2, but I'll mainly be getting it because(I hope) FFIX will be released for it, and FFMovie:RPG will be released for it...

    AS
    AS
  • I never understood all the fuss over M$ anyway.

    Complaining about underhanded and immoral business practice is one thing, but railing against M$ just because they're dominant seems stupid and particularly irrational.

    I personally don't particularly like M$, but neither do I revile or hate them. It's never bothered me much that any company remain closed and proprietary, when it made sense to be. For example, patents for Transmeta won't be given away, despite the staunch interest in open source, intellectual freedom, etc.

    On the other hand, I firmly believe that the Win32 API should be opened up and not kept under M$ control, necesarily. Essentially, M$ is such a large portion of the market, it would be a public good/service for the API to be open. This is ill thought out, and mainly personal opinion, of course..

    AS
    AS
  • Greetings,
    Y'know, in reading the responses here, it's almost frightening how many other people have said, or shown by knowledge, that they are PSX programmers... I'm one also, fwiw.

    Trippy. Offtopic, but trippy.

    Cyberfox!
  • "The Playstation 2's CPU, jointly developed by Toshiba and SCE, is an enhanced version of the device described at ISSCC. The device has floating-point performance of 6.2 Gflops..."
    http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990302S0026


    Compare that to:

    "Intel said Merced would achieve 3-Gflops extended-precision floating-point performance and 6-Gflops single-precision performance."
    http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990226S0012


    Richard
  • This is true.. Sega has even said that they would rather developers not use the Windows CE on the Dreamcast, and instead use Sega's own OS and libs for development. Windows CE was pretty much there just for ease of porting games from Windows to Dreamcast, but now Sega doesn't really want anything to be ported like that.. As for what games are designed on, I've heard that Sega itself uses some flavor of *nix, but their development software is not limited to *nix environments..
    Now, as for Sony, everything I've ever bought that has the Sony logo on it has broken rather quickly, or was defective before I even purchased it, so I've stayed away from their products..

  • wow (Score:1)

    by Not Ben ( 19358 )
    I've always hoped in the past that Sega would
    come out on top, for the sake of nostalgia,
    while using Sony products, but no more!
    I am now 100% behind Sony, and I hope this new
    Playstation rules the video gaming world even
    more than the current Playstation.
    Companies can talk a big game, but until they really throw their support behind Linux, it is hard to know who to trust. A lot of companies seem to provide half ass support for Linux, while not really making any quality products for it. It is refreshing to see Sony doing this.

    &lt rant&gt Now, if I could only do serious java programming under Linux...&lt/rant&gt
  • I miss my Atari 2600.
  • Put the keyboard down, and slowly walk away.
  • nothing in the article indicated that sony would be developing quality products for linux. they could be bunk junk. too early to tell yet
  • This has already been the case for years for the serious players: the artist tools ran on SGIs, the development boxes were DOS or Windows based. Now things are coming full circle, with NT being the platform of choice for the modelling packages and Unix (Linux) as the development platform. Developers are used to dealing with this situation, I assure you.

  • This follows reading a coupla threads, and doing a bit of looking around.

    1. Backward compatibility: The I/O processor in the PSX2 is the old chip. They're guaranteeing no improvements to old games, 'cos they're just interfacing that chip it so that it will be running the old games (apparently). Not software emulation, good old 100% hardware. It'll take the old controllers, too; a lot of the demos were done with dual-shocks hooked up.

    2. DVD capability. So far, they're still undecided about DVD movie support; It *does* have MPEG2 (used for texture compression, interestingly) and DVD-ROM, AC-3/DTS sound support, so it would certainly kick some serious hiney if they did, but they haven't implemented the interface and are unwilling to go on record either way yet. I'd imagine it would depend on how much they want to compete with their own products.

    3. Interesting tidbits: it may not ship with a modem. But, I/O wise, it will apparently include PCMCIA (not sure about # ports or anything),IEEE 1394 (FireWire), and USB capability. Graphics: NTSC, PAL, HDTV and VESA compatible. Software-lib wise, they're also going to be trying to provide extensive physics libs for real time rendering, and avoiding motion capture. Criminy.

    4. One comment had a Sony rep saying they'd be using their own proprietary stuff for internal OS, as they didn't want to use "inefficient" external stuff. Seems fair, they need a RTOS. Doesn't trying to make Linux go on that HW sound tempting, tho?

    I hope I have only decreased the UD ratio.

    Sources:

    Australian Playstation Review Page- psx2 news [wire.net.au]

    Gamefan [gamefan.com]

    Sony Playstation pages [playstation.com]

  • >Why? because the software we people use to
    >make games does not currently run on Linux.
    >Ie,

    >Softimage, Maya , 3D Studio Max , Lightwave
    >Nichiman , Photoshop , Fractal Painter
    >Debabilizer , Sound Forge , Premire
    >etc, etc, etc.

    This development system is of primary usage to the programmer. Since when does any games company require its programmers to use any of the above tools?

    Sure, the musicians/graphic artists etc use the tools above, and they can continue to use `doze.

    The programmer however only needs Linux, and a development kit.

    >Every current game developer would complain
    >because they would each need two machines.
    >One machine to make/edit data and one to host
    >software development on
    Nonsense.
    There is no reason why one Linux box couldn't do both tasks.

    You seem to be under the misguided impression that games programmers are involved in the creation of things other than code. Sure this happens on occasions, but I think you'll find in a vast majority of development houses, everyone has _one_ function.

  • They use a hardware kit. A add-on card plugs into the motherboard...at least that's what I had heard.

Slashdot Top Deals

"A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten." -- Doug Larson

Close