PS3 Compatibility

[patrickp]

Game glitches for PlayStation 3

Does this mean that pSX can run games that the PS3 can't? ;D

[Gamesoul Master]

It'll be a race between Sony and pSX Author to see who can get 100% compatibility with the Final Fantasy PSX series first...

[smegforbrain]

Funny stuff, but nothing worth freaking out over.

The same issue occured with PSX->PS2, and it wouldn't surprise me if it also happened with X-Box->X-Box 360.

At least you won't have to buy a new machine altogether now to get a newer bios to fix the problem, as software upgrades can be done online with the PS3.

And at any rate, I don't know about you guys, but I am not shelling out $500 or $600 just to have another PS2 on hand.

[Ultima]

Hm...? One of the sound processing chips in PS2 is a shrunk version of much of the PlayStation hardware, IIRC (or maybe it was the PlayStation processor... don't quite remember), so I doubt PS2 had bad compatibility with PlayStation at the beginning -- or at least not as bad as PS3 vs PS2...

[Gamesoul Master]

Correct. PS3 is having a different kind of problem than PS2 had. As I recall, wasn't much of PS2's PS1 emulation driven by hardware (not just the sound)? The PS3 seems to have a more software driven approach to backward compatibility (evident by the ability of a *patch* solving the problems).

Ultima: The problem here is sound *and* graphics... it's just that the sound problems are a bit more evident and numerous. The symptoms are basically the same as seen on pSX... hell, even many of the games are the same. But certainly, PS2 did not have anywhere near the same level of compatibility issues as PS3.

It would be an interesting (though probably useless) concept to examine this patch Sony plans to release to see how they fix the problems... XD

I do intend to buy a PS3, but I will be waiting for a couple things to happen. One is that I want to see most of the bugs fixed for the PS3. The other is I want to see at least a handful of *good* games that I'd want that aren't out on any other system that I own. Buying a system to play a game I already have, but with slightly better graphics, would be foolish (Need for Speed Carbon and Marvel Ultimate Alliance come to mind instantly). Both of these requirements are of course my requirements for *any* system I have bought or will buy.

[getnuts]

Sony plans to eventually change their methods of backward compatability in a later redesign. They announced it awhile ago. I read the bulk of it takes place in one chip right now. A lot of people say about the backward compatibility "you aren't paying $600 to have another ps2/ps1"...I suspect those people never owned either system at full price and had one (or two, or three) wear out. I could've bought two ps3's from the consoles that died on me.

My problem with the next gen is that more and more games are based on streaming engines like renderware. The cd drives in game consoles are not built for that and I don't see it changing. Especially not when they are busy implementing a brand new medium (UMD anyone?).

If pressed, game developers and Sony alike will admit nothing about the hardware/streaming conflict but I think if you google DRE you have all the evidence you need. Its games like Star Wars battlefront, Battlefield: Modern Combat, Grand Theft Auto, and many others that use streaming which cause the problems. Not even class action lawsuits against Sony won by Toys R' Us could get people asking the right questions - after thousands of complaints. And now you have the dirty lens/weak laser cureall myth propogating (just like you saw with PS1 when the tracks started burning out from "excessive" use). The fundamental problem goes unnoticed.

I'll buy next gen hardware @ full price when
a.) the next gen software is more than just shiney latex looking character models, hi-res-yet-still-flat textures, crudely stretched over razor edged polygons with points as jagged as a Dimebag Darryl guitar rendered in 3D on a C64, masked in naseauting framerates) and
b.) it plays that next gen software without burning the crap out of the system

I do plan to buy a ps3 eventually but its going to really be a pain swapping games on and off the hard drive just to save the life of the system.

[Deleted]

I plan to get ps3 but only after it's price goes waaaaaay down. It's just not sane to get it at launch, for various reasons. Besides, the European release is in like March, so I don't really worry about it yet.

[Ultima]

@gamesoul Master: Erm... I meant that the PS2 uses the PlayStation *whatever* (don't remember if it was just the core processor, or a shrink of most/all of the hardware) as its own sound processor when it's not playing a PlayStation game. When playing a PlayStation game, it uses that chip to process the game instead of having it process audio. That's what I *think* I recall on the matter anyway. And yes, it was hardware driven, but not really emulation either, since the PlayStation hardware was *essentially* in the PS2 entirely (as I have been suggesting).

[smegforbrain]

I got the impression from articles I've read that it was not only a sound issue with some games, but that other games were also not working at all.

getnuts said:

A lot of people say about the backward compatibility "you aren't paying $600 to have another ps2/ps1"...I suspect those people never owned either system at full price and had one (or two, or three) wear out.

Actually, I owned both an original PSX and a PS2 at full prices, some months after they came out. Yes, my first PSX wore out, but then I got a second at a good price (which I still have to this day).

But I got a PS2 to be a PS2 and a DVD player. I thought I'd use it more for backward compatibility, but never really got around to it much.

I'll get a PS3 to be a PS3, and only buy Blue Ray stuff when they stop making regular DVD's. I'd rather abuse my newer Slim-PS2 for PS2 games for a few more years before using the PS3 to play games.

[Ultima]

I'm still can't, for the life of me, figure out where sound compatibility issues in PS2 vs PS1 came into question here in the first place... but oh well

And yeah, there were compatibility issues with PS2 vs the original PlayStation games, but IIRC, it was because of different disc reading speeds... or at least that was one of the primary troublemakers.