flipacholas

It’s been updated many times since then!

That was a small fundraiser started to convert all articles into epubs, finished in 2022

Please see this: https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles

A suggestion from me is to provide sources, and also maybe an epub of this

What do you mean?

Ah no worries! From my side I was only trying to explain more about the origins of the article, since I see it often mentioned/speculated in many forums.

By the way, I'm always open to criticism ! (https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles/issu...)

If you check the other articles about the PlayStation [1] and the Nintendo 64 [2], you'll see that the design of a 3D-capable console in the 90s was a significant challenge for every company. Thus, each one proposed a different solution (with different pros and cons), yet all very interesting to analyse and compare. That's the reason this article was written.

[1] https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation/

[2] https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/nintendo-64/

Whoops indeed. I’ve just added the new info, thanks!

Author here! Surprised to see it shared! This article was the first one where I studied how a cryptography-based system worked and how it was subsequently broken, back in late 2019. Lot of things in the website have changed since then.

For this reason I humbly ask, if you find any mistakes, please report them here:

https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles/issu...

That will make sure I don’t miss them, thanks!

Much appreciated

Oh, this is actually a bug of the html template, until now I've never realised it was happening. I've just fixed it, thanks.

Yeah, it was mainly because the article got too long, so I had no option but to draw the line somewhere. There's still a tiny mention at the footer below the main motherboard image:

Showing the 'Xenon' revision (the first one), taken from my model from 2005. Xenon motherboards are also famous for being defective by design (they get too hot to play games with!). Remaining GDDR3 chips are found on the back.

Btw, I've replaced the bad links with archived ones. I triggered an archive of that site back in December just in case such great source would disappear, never expected to happen just after releasing the article!

No nitpick is too small or too big :) I've just logged your comment on the repo (https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles/issu...) so I remember to take a look at it after I get back home.

Hi, this took me 6 months to write, I've also tried as hard as possible to cross check all my references, and include them in the article in a way the reader can find the citations just like in academic writings.

Statements denoting speculation are started with words like 'presumably' or 'it is assumed that'.

I've also took an extra month to send the draft to many experts (part of whom are still active in the Xbox 360 scene) to gather feedback and make all the appropriate corrections. See the 'Changelog' at the end of the article.

I'm afraid I can only do so much. Just like you said, this is all voluntary work. I also keep a repo with all the manuscripts to correct all the mistakes after publishing any content (https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles).

I don't know how else I could improve this, but I'm always open to suggestions.

I don't know what you mean with reorganization and editing.

Hi Hackernews, don't forget you can use the alternative edition without styles: https://classic.copetti.org/writings/consoles/xbox-360/

(works better with accessibility tools, like text to speech; and translators)

There are also new PDF and EPUB editions here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/67035520 (it's a public post, I just needed a place to upload those files without consuming my hosting's bandwidth).

If you spot a mistake, please log an issue on the repo (https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles) so I can review it. Thanks!

Essentially, every single PS1 game 'faked' 3D by using the GTE (which was separate from the GPU) to project 3D points and polygons into a 2D rasterizer.

While it's true that the PS1 handles perspective projection through the GTE (as the GPU is a primitive rasterizer, after all) I don't think it's fair to call it 'faked 3D' since, in my understanding, 3D projection is another fundamental stage in the graphics pipeline (our displays are 2D grids of pixels, so we need to transform the 3D world into something it can be displayed there). Other consoles like the Nintendo 64 provided more capability on the GPU side (the RCP) which allowed to move part of the matrix operations away from the CPU chip.

Be as it may, I've seen the 'fake 3D' claim before and I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing something in my understanding of this technology, maybe someone can offer a third opinion?

P.S I'm the one that wrote https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation which is referenced at the bottom of the article (the 'Other reading'), I'm glad the author found it helpful (or interesting)!

Thanks. I was worried about the fact this console has so much going on inside, so if I end up writing too much (like 100k words) about it, the reader may get too tired and lose interest. In the end, I wrote 20k words with lots of diagrams to help out. I also adapted the site to properly add citations, in case the reader wants to know more about a specific topic.

If you are referring to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, I think it's been decommissioned (their project is now archived https://web.archive.org/web/20090426190617/https://www.bsc.e...). Though this is expected in my opinion (Buy equipment -> Produce research -> Move to the next thing). IIRC their big thing is now the MareNostrum 4 supercomputer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MareNostrum).

Alternative edition without styles: https://classic.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation-3/

(ideal if you use accessibility tools, like text to speech, or want to read from an eBook or legacy browser)

If you spot a mistake, please log an issue on the repo (https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles). Thanks!

I don't mind being wrong and I will correct the article if needed. That being said, I'm interested in debating this, what if the PS1's GPU had implemented some sort of sub-pixel precision and edge antialiasing? Do you think the lack of floating-point vertex coordinates would have been noticeable? (I'm assuming the 'jitter' means the sudden jumps when polygons move slowly).

Or is it that it isn't a problem of PS1 but a problem of games

Yes, this is what I wanted to emphasize.

My intent wasn't to say that the 'lack of z-buffering' statement was incorrect (it's still true), but that there's a fundamental issue behind it, the visible/hidden surface determination, and now it depends on the developer's implementation. I believe this is overlooked on non-technical sites.

With this, I just wanted to make it more informative for the reader. I don't think the question is if the PS1 has a z-buffer or not. Sure, z-buffering is a solution, but there's the reasoning behind it that I wanted to transmit it to the reader.

Anyway, that's just my opinion.

The lack of floating point unit on the PS1 is commonly misinterpreted, see https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation/#tab-5...

Ah don't worry about that, I use Hugo which has a ToC generator. My problem is regarding the style (CSS) which I need to spend more time to make it blend better with the rest of the site. Thanks anyway!

The Nintendo Wii case is an interesting one, because instead of introducing a completely new architecture, both CPU (Broadway) and GPU (GX) come from well-known Gamecube hardware (Gekko and Flipper). So I presume the existing toolkit and game's codebase were easily ported. Thus, more time could be spent in improving the quality of the game.

Although technically correct, that's a bit misleading IMO.

I Agree. My issue is that the other consoles also have a pipelined CPU and I'm trying not to copy-paste the same long explanation from other articles every time. So I included a link next to the PS1's pipeline description. I will try to reword it though. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing! The next one will be about the PS3!

I experimented a bit with a ToC wikipedia-style but the results didn't fit very well with the rest of the design. I'll try to allocate more time in the future to focus on the design.

The tabs were made to prevent the user from scrolling indefinitely if he/she is not interested in one section in particular. This only appears in desktop (not mobile).

I'm not a web dev though, so I don't mind switching to a better pattern. Do you know a better one?

Oh what an amazing feeling seeing one of my articles here. Let me share you a bit of history about this one:

- A year ago, an old version of this article got shared in hn (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22932134) and since then, google started positioning my site in their search results, and many forums started noticing the site. Yay!

- Fast forward, I graduated from uni, continued working on more articles in my free time, and with all the newly acquired knowledge, I decided to re-write the old PS1 article to make it much more informational and accurate - This is the one you are seeing right now.

- The rewrite wasn’t easy, though. Luckily, I found very kind and talented experts that lent me a hand, you can see them credited in the ‘Changelog’ at the end of the article. Curiously enough, we are still debating on Discord about some discrepancies regarding the main diagram shown in the article. LSI’s docs (the CPU manufacturer) and Sony’s docs contradict each other when they explain the layout of the CPU’s ‘main’ bus! But don’t worry about it, it doesn’t affect any statement in the article. It’s more of a need to have everything as accurate as possible.

Finally, I’m always open to comments, improvements, suggestions, anything really! I share the writings here (https://github.com/flipacholas/Architecture-of-consoles) to discuss improvements but you can also find my email in the site.

PS: The insight shared by developers in the parent thread is phenomenal.

Thanks for sharing, but please bear in mind that this, as a ‘series’, is currently in the process.

For this reason, people have previously shared individual articles instead in hackernews.

Sorry but please take a longer look:

- The series is currently in the process, see the ‘roadmap’ at the end (along with an explanation of the current state of things).

- The author is european and uses british english, ‘the crash’ it’s just a quick way to introduce that generation (have you clicked in any console?).

- List is grouped by ‘generations’, not whether they are ‘portable’ or ‘home console’. Again, that’s not the point of the series... you only have to click on one console...

Fixed, thanks