Official PSVita launch thread.

[Todd33]

Thank your lucky stars you don't notice it. I've always felt the PS3 has suffered from horrible aliasing. It's very distracting in a number of games. Given that the Vita isn't even matching the PS3 I can understand the complaint.

First hardware doesn't suffer from aliasing. Aliasing is sampling issue, in this case the frame buffer resolution. Second, how can the Vita "match" the PS3, it has a much lower resolution screen, it should not match a console which is typically hooked up to a 1080P capable screens.

the biggest issue i see in this device is: no multitasking.
i mean come on we are in 2012 ffs and even a rudimentary cellphone has this ability

This is not being honest. When I play a full game on my phone, like Plants vs Zombie and back out of it, then come back to it , it has to reload the entire game and loses my place in the level. The Vita does better than that, it will pause and minimize your game while you do something else, provided it is not something like another game. Then when you continue the game carries on where it was.

I'm not sure what you expect, games are demanding on consoles, you can only spare so many resources before you have to make choices which hurt the actual gaming. Can I pause my game on a 360 and watch Netflix? No, they are not PCs with 8GB RAM.

What the Vita needs is what the PSP Go did, it would essentially dump the state of your game in RAM to the memory card so that you could instantly load it where you left off even after you rebooted the console. This should be easy to do, but it is not multitasking.

 

[gorcorps]

First hardware doesn't suffer from aliasing. Aliasing is sampling issue, in this case the frame buffer resolution. Second, how can the Vita "match" the PS3, it has a much lower resolution screen, it should not match a console which is typically hooked up to a 1080P capable screens.

Whatever the issue, the games I played on PS3 were quite bad about it. Infamous 1 while being a great game suffered from terrible aliasing that was hard to ignore.

 

[zerocool84]

I finally got my hands on a Vita @ Gamestop on Monday and yes, the jaggies were quite noticeable on Uncharted. Also the textures weren't that great looking but with that said, it still looks awesome for a handheld game. I can't wait to see how games look a year or two from now on the Vita.

 

[mmntech]

Whatever the issue, the games I played on PS3 were quite bad about it. Infamous 1 while being a great game suffered from terrible aliasing that was hard to ignore.

I'm not sure why the PS3 has this issue. The CPU and GPU (marginally for the latter but true all the same) are more powerful than the 360. RAM constraints maybe? Antialiasing requires a lot of power though, so I expect a portable to struggle with it.

I find I'm digging the 2D games on the system more than the 3D ones. Rayman and Mutant Blobs Attack are phenomenal. Wipeout and Uncharted just feel like more of the same. IMO, Wipeout is a ripoff considering its $40 price tag, with content about the same as the $20 versions that came out for the PS3 and PSP. Not that it's a bad game. I really like it, just too expensive compared to others in the same series.

I was underwhelmed by Uncharted. Whats her face kept getting killed in the demo. Got fed up with that fast. At least Elaine had a gun.

 

[Joseph F]

I finally got my hands on a Vita @ Gamestop on Monday and yes, the jaggies were quite noticeable on Uncharted. Also the textures weren't that great looking but with that said, it still looks awesome for a handheld game. I can't wait to see how games look a year or two from now on the Vita.

What if Sony released the initial firmware with scaled-back clocks and release a later one with it running at full-tilt, like they did with the PSP? :awe:
Either that, or the hackers will probably find a way to OC it.

 

[gorcorps]

What if Sony released the initial firmware with scaled-back clocks and release a later one with it running at full-tilt, like they did with the PSP? :awe:
Either that, or the hackers will probably find a way to OC it.

Whoa, what? I must have missed something.

 

[Joseph F]

Whoa, what? I must have missed something.

Yup, that's right. The PSP's firmware up to v3.40 had the CPUs locked to 222MHz. After v3.50 was released, developers could clock the CPUs up to 333MHz.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/47564/sony-confirms-full-psp-cpu
ZOMG, finding old news articles can be a pain in the ass, sometimes.

 

[ViRGE]

the biggest issue i see in this device is: no multitasking.
i mean come on we are in 2012 ffs and even a rudimentary cellphone has this ability

I'm not sure what you're expecting. It's a game console, not a cell phone. Games need sovereign control of resources both for performance purposes and for platform consistency purposes (imagine being a console programmer and not having a specific amount of RAM available). So you're not going to see true multitasking, or even Android style mulititasking here.

What the Vita needs is what the PSP Go did, it would essentially dump the state of your game in RAM to the memory card so that you could instantly load it where you left off even after you rebooted the console. This should be easy to do, but it is not multitasking.

That's certainly doable, but performance would be a problem. The PSP had far less RAM to backup; the Vita would need to backup 640MB of RAM every time you stopped a game, which not only takes a while to write out to a flash memory card, but also creates concerns about how much space is used by these save states and the impact on the longevity of the card by writing so much data to it so often.

 

[finbarqs]

I'm not sure what you're expecting. It's a game console, not a cell phone. Games need sovereign control of resources both for performance purposes and for platform consistency purposes (imagine being a console programmer and not having a specific amount of RAM available). So you're not going to see true multitasking, or even Android style mulititasking here.
That's certainly doable, but performance would be a problem. The PSP had far less RAM to backup; the Vita would need to backup 640MB of RAM every time you stopped a game, which not only takes a while to write out to a flash memory card, but also creates concerns about how much space is used by these save states and the impact on the longevity of the card by writing so much data to it so often.

It's currently doing that for me right now... if I leave uncharted by hitting the Ps button, and just hit the power button once, i can pick up EXACTLY where I left off! I can even go browse the web or do something else! Haven't tried playing another game though...

 

[ViRGE]

It's currently doing that for me right now... if I leave uncharted by hitting the Ps button, and just hit the power button once, i can pick up EXACTLY where I left off! I can even go browse the web or do something else! Haven't tried playing another game though...

When you go to standby mode it's not writing the game state to flash memory. The RAM stays powered up.

 

[finbarqs]

wow, I'm on my 3rd day of playing the vita without charging... about 50% of battery left! most of the time, it's in standby mode... haven't been plugged in yet! Battery life isn't really a big issue... i think I don't play 5 hours straight... probably casually like 1 to 2 hours max at a time..

It's one of those things where you can just pick up and play for a for minutes before you go to sleep, or if you're waiting on something, you can just play it for a few more. It's very convenient, and I think there is a market for this type of device! I thought for sure the Xperia Play would've been a hit, but I guess Android Marketplace isn't saturated with games like this yet...

 

[tornadog]

I was playing the vita for about 30 minutes a day, but since I bought Rayman and Mutant Blob, my playing time is upwards of 1.5hours. Those 2 games are simply too addictive to let go.

 

[Todd33]

That's certainly doable, but performance would be a problem. The PSP had far less RAM to backup; the Vita would need to backup 640MB of RAM every time you stopped a game, which not only takes a while to write out to a flash memory card, but also creates concerns about how much space is used by these save states and the impact on the longevity of the card by writing so much data to it so often.

It does not need to write out 640MB, but even if it did it could write that fast enough with a 6MB/s write speed. The space concern, well it is optional and there is a max, so it cannot take you or the OS by surprise. Longevity? Even if you wrote to them every ten minutes, how many decades would it last?

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I have :

Hot shots golf
uncharted
wipeout
blazblue
mutant blob
Stardust

then I got Monster hunter and God Eater for PSP.

but I'm really too addicted to Hot Shots to spend much time with anything else.

 

[ViRGE]

It does not need to write out 640MB, but even if it did it could write that fast enough with a 6MB/s write speed. The space concern, well it is optional and there is a max, so it cannot take you or the OS by surprise. Longevity? Even if you wrote to them every ten minutes, how many decades would it last?

There's 128MB of VRAM and 512MB of main system RAM, so if it wants to do a save state it needs to write out somewhere near 640MB of data. Compression is an option, but gamestate data rarely compresses well, so you basically need to account for it as if it's uncompressed.

As for the hardware itself, keep in mind that the Vita memory card is almost certainly TLC NAND like other memory cards and USB flash drives. That puts the longevity it at around 1.2K writes. With 640MB of data and an average write amplification of 5 (this is likely too low), you're burning through 3.2GB of writes every save state. So given an 8GB card, for every 2 times you use a save state, you've gone through a write cycle on the card. That of course is on top of everything else written.

 

[blurredvision]

There's 128MB of VRAM and 512MB of main system RAM, so if it wants to do a save state it needs to write out somewhere near 640MB of data. Compression is an option, but gamestate data rarely compresses well, so you basically need to account for it as if it's uncompressed.

The OS reserves half of the system RAM so games can only address 256MB in addition to the 128MB VRAM.

 

[Joseph F]

The OS reserves half of the system RAM so games can only address 256MB in addition to the 128MB VRAM.

Wow, that sucks. I hope they fix it like they did with the PS3.
I know that at least one firmware update (possibly many) reduced the amount of RAM the OS consumed.

 

[buckshot24]

It's currently doing that for me right now... if I leave uncharted by hitting the Ps button, and just hit the power button once, i can pick up EXACTLY where I left off! I can even go browse the web or do something else! Haven't tried playing another game though...

Playing another game shuts down the paused game.

 

[blurredvision]

Wow, that sucks. I hope they fix it like they did with the PS3.
I know that at least one firmware update (possibly many) reduced the amount of RAM the OS consumed.

You're correct, I fully expect the same thing to happen with the Vita, assuming it sells enough to stick around.

 

[tirregius]

Thank your lucky stars you don't notice it. I've always felt the PS3 has suffered from horrible aliasing. It's very distracting in a number of games. Given that the Vita isn't even matching the PS3 I can understand the complaint.

Have a look at WipEout 2048 or Fifa ... they are clearly performing at least 2xMSAA on the full frame, maybe more. WipEout is very clean from an aliasing standpoint. Would have liked it to have a little higher frame rate for my taste in racing games, but it'll do.

It is a beautiful game - and a launch title to boot. Can't wait to see some of the games on this baby in a couple of years. Granted, the chipset is likely better known than the PS3 was upon launch, but even so, they will certainly be finding ways to push this platform further.

 

[ViRGE]

The OS reserves half of the system RAM so games can only address 256MB in addition to the 128MB VRAM.

Oh, has that finally been announced somewhere? I went looking for it late last week, but nothing reliable turned up.

If that's true that's a really disappointing split. I could see 128MB, but 256MB is huge amount of RAM to waste on something you're not using while you're in a game.:|

 

[blurredvision]

Oh, has that finally been announced somewhere? I went looking for it late last week, but nothing reliable turned up.

If that's true that's a really disappointing split. I could see 128MB, but 256MB is huge amount of RAM to waste on something you're not using while you're in a game.:|

Saw this at NeoGaf:

http://research.scee.net/files/presentations/jordan2011/2011JordanGamingSummit.pdf (Slide 10)

 

[mmntech]

Does VitaOS really need all that RAM? iOS 5 maybe uses 128mb tops when everything else is closed, with the phone and email app in the background (by default). Mind you, it's still better than the PS3, which has 256mb for both the games AND the OS. Still, I don't know why Sony keeps putting to little RAM into their systems.

 

[Joseph F]

Does VitaOS really need all that RAM? iOS 5 maybe uses 128mb tops when everything else is closed, with the phone and email app in the background (by default). Mind you, it's still better than the PS3, which has 256mb for both the games AND the OS. Still, I don't know why Sony keeps putting to little RAM into their systems.

I don't get it, either. The Vita should have had at least 1GB of RAM, while 2GB would have been preferred.

 

[ViRGE]

Does VitaOS really need all that RAM? iOS 5 maybe uses 128mb tops when everything else is closed, with the phone and email app in the background (by default). Mind you, it's still better than the PS3, which has 256mb for both the games AND the OS. Still, I don't know why Sony keeps putting to little RAM into their systems.

I can't imagine the OS is doing so much that it needs 256MB. And if it is doing that much, it's doing too much. This is a game console, not a computer.

I don't get it, either. The Vita should have had at least 1GB of RAM, while 2GB would have been preferred.

Most SoCs have a 64bit memory bus. So 1GB of RAM is 2 4Gb LPDDR2 chips, which is as big as they come. 2GB would be out of the question.

Plus keep in mind this is a handheld console. Issues about cost aside, it's not as if there's a need to compensate for the slow random access times of optical and magnetic media. Vita games aren't memory mapped like old school consoles but random access time is still very good, so you can get away with streaming certain assets.