PS3 backwards compatability...what gives?
- Thread starter Furioso
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Really? Huh. Did not know that. I'll look into that personally, first, since I'm paranoid and all, but thanks for the tip. Family has a Wii, so maybe I could find something for them in the older generation...siddif said:
Wow, the people in this thread just haven't been paying attention at all to the PS3.
First year, they released the PS3 20 and 60gig. Both of these had a special, not used in any other sony product chipset that was most of a PS2 on a single chip. This was soldered onto the motherboard along with the CellBE and RSX chip and was used for all BC. These had 4 USB ports.
The next year, they released the PS3 60gig in Europe. This was a completely new beast. It eliminated half of the EEGS chip that the US and Japanese PS3's had, leaving only the GS chip on the board. The EE chip was emulated in software. This was NOT a full PS2 backward compatibility in software, only the CPU was emulated. The Cell is not fast enough to emulate the EE and the GS both at the same time, and the RSX isn't close enough to the design of the GS to emulate it.
The European PS3 was released over here as the PS3 80gig model. It has the Software EE BC mixed with the GS chip from the PS2.
Then Sony released the 40gig PS3. This one only has 2 USB ports. It has no GS chip, so it can't do PS2 games at all.
All of the above models are out of production.
All that we have now is the 120gig and 250gig PS3 Slim, neither of which have the GS chip, and thus can't do PS2 emulation, even if they put a patch together. They'd have to really heavily optimize the emulation code and do a great deal more work to make these do PS2 BC.
All of them support PS1 BC, because the PS1 is ancient and tiny and can be emulated entirely in software on the PS2 and the PS3. Single core 33mhz Mips? Pshaw, cake. 3-core 300mhz Mips/VU hybrid with extremely fast memory access and a Graphics chip that is designed to heavily layer on textures and effects? Much harder to emulate.
Pretty much every step along the way was done to save money over the $800 manufacturing price tag of the original 60gig model. Almost all of them dropped at least one lesser used feature. I would prefer they left PS2 BC in, but instead I baby my PS3 20 gig along, and have a PS2 slimline as well that I use to preserve it, along with my 40gig model that I use more now for PS3 games to save wear on my 20gig... (I've upgraded the hard drive in both.)
First year, they released the PS3 20 and 60gig. Both of these had a special, not used in any other sony product chipset that was most of a PS2 on a single chip. This was soldered onto the motherboard along with the CellBE and RSX chip and was used for all BC. These had 4 USB ports.
The next year, they released the PS3 60gig in Europe. This was a completely new beast. It eliminated half of the EEGS chip that the US and Japanese PS3's had, leaving only the GS chip on the board. The EE chip was emulated in software. This was NOT a full PS2 backward compatibility in software, only the CPU was emulated. The Cell is not fast enough to emulate the EE and the GS both at the same time, and the RSX isn't close enough to the design of the GS to emulate it.
The European PS3 was released over here as the PS3 80gig model. It has the Software EE BC mixed with the GS chip from the PS2.
Then Sony released the 40gig PS3. This one only has 2 USB ports. It has no GS chip, so it can't do PS2 games at all.
All of the above models are out of production.
All that we have now is the 120gig and 250gig PS3 Slim, neither of which have the GS chip, and thus can't do PS2 emulation, even if they put a patch together. They'd have to really heavily optimize the emulation code and do a great deal more work to make these do PS2 BC.
All of them support PS1 BC, because the PS1 is ancient and tiny and can be emulated entirely in software on the PS2 and the PS3. Single core 33mhz Mips? Pshaw, cake. 3-core 300mhz Mips/VU hybrid with extremely fast memory access and a Graphics chip that is designed to heavily layer on textures and effects? Much harder to emulate.
Pretty much every step along the way was done to save money over the $800 manufacturing price tag of the original 60gig model. Almost all of them dropped at least one lesser used feature. I would prefer they left PS2 BC in, but instead I baby my PS3 20 gig along, and have a PS2 slimline as well that I use to preserve it, along with my 40gig model that I use more now for PS3 games to save wear on my 20gig... (I've upgraded the hard drive in both.)
I sort of see what the fuss is about but it never really bothered me.
I still have my PS2 slim and it works great. If people want to play PS2 games so much why did they get rid of their PS2s in the first place? It wasn't a secret that Sony did away with BC.
I still have my PS2 slim and it works great. If people want to play PS2 games so much why did they get rid of their PS2s in the first place? It wasn't a secret that Sony did away with BC.
Doesn't playing PS2 games on those select few PS3's really distort the picture? I wouldn't know since my PS3 isn't BC but I recall seeing a thread that mentioned such distortion issues.
Anyway, just buy a PS2. Should be really cheap and you can probably load up on a lot of great games for cheap too.
Also, can't all PS3's play PS1 games still?
Anyway, just buy a PS2. Should be really cheap and you can probably load up on a lot of great games for cheap too.
Also, can't all PS3's play PS1 games still?
Only the oldest PS3's (the "fat" 60GB, mostly) maintained backwards compatibility. I made sure that my PS3 would have such when I bought it. As for anyone else, if you truly want one, better run over to eBAY and hope to get lucky...Bright_Raven said:
Uh, I'm pretty sure this isn't accurate. If this were true, the PS3 slim couldn't play DVDs and copy CD's to the hard drive, and I've seen it do that. The PS2 BC isn't a matter of a lack of a laser or a lack of software, it's the inability of the Cell chip to emulate both the EE and GS chips at the same time. I'm pretty sure the PS3 slim can still play PS1 games as well.GaiderDraco said:
Well if you have PS2 games, you probably have a PS2 on which you played them before you bought your PS3, and if you bought the PS2 games to play on your PS3, then considering you didn't buy a PS2 to play them when they were new and popular, it probably isn't that big a deal for you because you waited all that time, so my question is, what's the problem? Either you still have your PS2, or you really didn't care about the PS2 to begin with.
Very early on there were some distorted pictures with a select few PS2 games. That was corrected by a firmware update. It's proper to note though that if you play those same games on a real PS2 with a component cable, it has the exact same issues with its picture. It was a problem in the PS2, not the PS3. The problem didn't occur on a PS2 with a Svideo or Composite cable though.God Worm said:
All PS3's can play PS1 games.
I still have my PS2 slim... It's harder to use now that all of my TV's are actually HDMI-having computer monitors though... I had to find a really old NTSC tv card with no mpeg chip to play my PS2 games...
It plays PSone games, but not PS2 which I think is a bit of a gip. They could easily put in the software for not that much more money, but I'm sure they're planning on using it further down the track to milk more blood (i mean money) out of us.Furioso said:
Craigslist, craigslist, craigslist. Got mine there, plus a buncha semi-good games, all for $70.Kheapathic said:Just saying good luck finding one, most of them if not being used have been bought up or being used for hackers to practice their craft. The ones that don't fall into that category have probably been affected with the firmware curse. But from what I understand they run about $200.00 if you can find a working one. But as I said, I'd recommend the cheap PS2 route, brand new in the box it's only $100.00 and that's cheaper then the Nintendo DSi.Furioso said:How much do those go for nowadays anyway?Amnestic said:You can likely pick up some of the older PS3's which do have backwards compatability on eBay or other second hand places, but really, your best bet is to just go buy a cheap PS2. S'what I did.Bright_Raven said:well... there go my plans for getting a PS3... that is the WORST development/marketing decision EVER in the games industry since the Virtual Boy.Furioso said:The new PS3 slim version doesn't have it... sad faceBright_Raven said:
I posted above... That's really not true. The PS2 isn't a simple piece of computing, it has 3 cores capable of free running, and a very complex (though not very powerful) graphics chip. The 3 cores have been emulated in the Cell, but the GS is just too much for the poor cell chip.Daedalus1942 said:
To tell you the truth in my eyes the backwards compatability isn't that big of a deal you either already have a ps2 since its the best selling console in history and they are still being produced so you can still get them at a reasonable price. Also I'd want a ps2 over a ps3 with BC just for the fact is the ps2 is a lot more sturdy a system no matter what you do to it, it will still run fine It got shorted by a bolt straight to an electric box in my house once and still works fine after 2 years so, if for nothing else forcing you to get a ps2 or use one you already have is like forcing you to have a backup just in case something like y10k happens again.
