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This post is the first of two (the second can be read here) that started off as a reply I couldn't post before the PS5/XSX tech speculation thread closed. I decided to thread the reply to catch as many eyeballs as possible and maybe spark some discussion.
Back when the tech thread was still open, K ksdixon expressed his hope that SIE would 'flood' PS Now with PS1, 2, 3 games and make them all available for download as a means to solve PS5's backwards compatibility problem. Unfortunately there are two issues hindering this as I see them:
1) At the start of PS4's gen, Masayasu Ito (SVP of hardware engineering/operations who had a hand in making PS3) stated:
I doubt his view has changed. Perfectly emulating CELL's finicky 3.2 GHz architecture with a Jaguar CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz was always a non-starter. Even with documentation, emulation on robust CPUs clocked much higher than PS5's Zen 2 still leave much to be desired. Comments by kd-11 and Nekotekina (RPCS3 team members) have convinced me that it's going to take more than a 3.5 Ghz Zen 2 or 2.23 GHz Tempest Engine to muscle perfect emulation pass the architectural and ISA disparities between Zen 2 and CELL. Nekotekina's characterization of the SPE's MFC in particular kills any idea I had about downloading SPU-heavy PS3 games from PS Now and playing them without any crashes, glitches, weird visual hiccups on PS5.
2) SIEA rep. John Koller made it clear that PS Now isn't the solution to the backwards compatibility problem (timestamped).
So if PS5's chips and PS Now aren't the solutions, what is?... I've settled on a patented compatibility adaptor that never released for PS3 but stands an extremely high chance of releasing for PS5, in my estimation. I say extremely high because the primary motivation behind the adaptor's invention is the same as the primary motivation that drove SIE to be mindful of how much flash memory it included in PS5. In both cases, the company's actions were driven by a need to be cost-effective as can be seen in the bolded text of the patent entries and quote below:
Though the patent entries point to cost as the primary driver for the adaptor's invention, backwards compatibility usage was a close second. The issue of usage gets at an observation Ryan made some years ago when he said:
I may be out on a limb here but IMO, difficulties emulating the particulars of CELL's architecture accurately, compounded by SIE's policy of being cost effective above all else when building consoles, combined with Ryan's view that backwards compatibility is an often requested but seldom used feature, assures that PS5 owners will have to fork over some cash for a compatibility adaptor in the near future... I can draw no other conclusion.
Getting back to the patent, it mentions an ASIC onboard the adaptor that does encryption, decryption and networking. Fortunately for SIE, the company wouldn't have to invest in an ASIC since CELL swallows them whole. I'd like to think that savings here would be passed along to prospective buyers as ASIC workloads like encryption, decryption, network processing, etc. can be accelerated on SPEs. SIE would only need to bump up the PPE/SPE counts on a new CELL variant to ensure that performance doesn't tank when processing those workloads in parallel with game data.
The 4 PPE + 32 SPE Quad CELL IBM and Sony had plans for in '08 could avoid the performance drop off when running PS3 games. It would also have enough hustle to run PS3 games in native 2K at locked peak fps. The software framework to pull it off already exists. Kaz likely had it stashed somewhere inside PD after demoing it twice in '08 and in '12. If it can be located, SIE could tweak it for a 28nm Quad CELL + butterflied RSX (as was done with PS4 pro's GPU) "APU", then call it a day without much expense.
Other interesting details in the patent also mention using the new-gen console to enhance the visuals of old-gen games, but the details I find most interesting are in the following patent entries:
Notice that the "new-generation game device" reads a legacy disc then sends a signal containing the information to the compatibility adaptor that uses a software-based emulator to demodulate the signal (i.e. extract the information from the signal) in order to emulate the optical disc drive of the "old generation game device".
I think this method answers my question as to why SIE gave PS5's optical drive a CLV mode in addition to a CAV mode (as I posted at the link, all PS1 discs and some PS2 discs spin in CLV mode, some PS2 discs spin in CAV mode and PS3 discs switch between CLV and CAV on the fly).
All things considered, it looks to me like Ryan will respond to the chorus of calls demanding backwards compatibility on PS5 with a demand of his own: "belt out a C-note and I don't mean singing".
If so, he's sure to trigger the wraith of and give fodder to the usual suspects. But personally if complying with the request means I get to download PS1, 2, 3 games from PS Now, play pre-owned PS1, 2, 3 digital titles after transfer from PS3 to PS5 and play PS1, 2, 3 game discs without a hitch (and possibly with visual upgrades), then I'll be answering "okay, a C-Note it is!". I'm willing to adapt(or), what say any of you?
Back when the tech thread was still open, K ksdixon expressed his hope that SIE would 'flood' PS Now with PS1, 2, 3 games and make them all available for download as a means to solve PS5's backwards compatibility problem. Unfortunately there are two issues hindering this as I see them:
1) At the start of PS4's gen, Masayasu Ito (SVP of hardware engineering/operations who had a hand in making PS3) stated:
"Realistically, to support backwards compatibility with PS3, the CELL Broadband Engine would have needed to been part of the new console. Currently, it’s not possible to simulate this via software." -- Masayasu Ito
I doubt his view has changed. Perfectly emulating CELL's finicky 3.2 GHz architecture with a Jaguar CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz was always a non-starter. Even with documentation, emulation on robust CPUs clocked much higher than PS5's Zen 2 still leave much to be desired. Comments by kd-11 and Nekotekina (RPCS3 team members) have convinced me that it's going to take more than a 3.5 Ghz Zen 2 or 2.23 GHz Tempest Engine to muscle perfect emulation pass the architectural and ISA disparities between Zen 2 and CELL. Nekotekina's characterization of the SPE's MFC in particular kills any idea I had about downloading SPU-heavy PS3 games from PS Now and playing them without any crashes, glitches, weird visual hiccups on PS5.
2) SIEA rep. John Koller made it clear that PS Now isn't the solution to the backwards compatibility problem (timestamped).
So if PS5's chips and PS Now aren't the solutions, what is?... I've settled on a patented compatibility adaptor that never released for PS3 but stands an extremely high chance of releasing for PS5, in my estimation. I say extremely high because the primary motivation behind the adaptor's invention is the same as the primary motivation that drove SIE to be mindful of how much flash memory it included in PS5. In both cases, the company's actions were driven by a need to be cost-effective as can be seen in the bolded text of the patent entries and quote below:
[0007]
Many of the users of game devices available on the market with a new-generation graphic processor or multiprocessor expect downward compatibility capable of running game titles for an old model as well as game titles for a new model. New models may be provided with downward compatibility by having at least part of the old-generation processor system installed. This will, however, cause a disadvantage of increasing the product cost. Users who do not use game titles for an old model do not need downward compatibility functions and do not want to be forced to buy expensive products.
[0075]
According to the embodiment, users will enjoy the benefit of cost efficiency because only those users wishing to use a game title for an old model need purchase the compatibility adapter 200 and connect to the new-generation game device 300 via the network.
"The key question for us was is that enough it's tempting to add more but flash certainly doesn't come cheap and we have a responsibility to our gaming audience to be cost effective with regards to what we put in the console." -- Mark Cerny (timestamped)
Though the patent entries point to cost as the primary driver for the adaptor's invention, backwards compatibility usage was a close second. The issue of usage gets at an observation Ryan made some years ago when he said:
“When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” -- Jim Ryan.
I may be out on a limb here but IMO, difficulties emulating the particulars of CELL's architecture accurately, compounded by SIE's policy of being cost effective above all else when building consoles, combined with Ryan's view that backwards compatibility is an often requested but seldom used feature, assures that PS5 owners will have to fork over some cash for a compatibility adaptor in the near future... I can draw no other conclusion.
Getting back to the patent, it mentions an ASIC onboard the adaptor that does encryption, decryption and networking. Fortunately for SIE, the company wouldn't have to invest in an ASIC since CELL swallows them whole. I'd like to think that savings here would be passed along to prospective buyers as ASIC workloads like encryption, decryption, network processing, etc. can be accelerated on SPEs. SIE would only need to bump up the PPE/SPE counts on a new CELL variant to ensure that performance doesn't tank when processing those workloads in parallel with game data.
The 4 PPE + 32 SPE Quad CELL IBM and Sony had plans for in '08 could avoid the performance drop off when running PS3 games. It would also have enough hustle to run PS3 games in native 2K at locked peak fps. The software framework to pull it off already exists. Kaz likely had it stashed somewhere inside PD after demoing it twice in '08 and in '12. If it can be located, SIE could tweak it for a 28nm Quad CELL + butterflied RSX (as was done with PS4 pro's GPU) "APU", then call it a day without much expense.
Other interesting details in the patent also mention using the new-gen console to enhance the visuals of old-gen games, but the details I find most interesting are in the following patent entries:
[0048]
Also built in is a DVD decoder emulator 226, which emulates the DVD decoder 110 of the old-generation game device 100 of FIG. 1 by software.
[0049]
The DVD decoder emulator 226 demodulates the reproduced signal that the new-generation game device 300 reads from the disk 302.
[0051]
Therefore, it is realistic to acquire the reproduced signal that the DVD decoder of the new-generation game device 300 reads from the disk 302 before demodulating the signal and to transmit it to the compatibility adapter 200 via a network. The DVD decoder emulator 226 is built in the compatibility adapter 200 so that the compatibility adapter 200 is configured to demodulate the reproduced signal transmitted from the new-generation game device 300.
Notice that the "new-generation game device" reads a legacy disc then sends a signal containing the information to the compatibility adaptor that uses a software-based emulator to demodulate the signal (i.e. extract the information from the signal) in order to emulate the optical disc drive of the "old generation game device".
I think this method answers my question as to why SIE gave PS5's optical drive a CLV mode in addition to a CAV mode (as I posted at the link, all PS1 discs and some PS2 discs spin in CLV mode, some PS2 discs spin in CAV mode and PS3 discs switch between CLV and CAV on the fly).
All things considered, it looks to me like Ryan will respond to the chorus of calls demanding backwards compatibility on PS5 with a demand of his own: "belt out a C-note and I don't mean singing".
If so, he's sure to trigger the wraith of and give fodder to the usual suspects. But personally if complying with the request means I get to download PS1, 2, 3 games from PS Now, play pre-owned PS1, 2, 3 digital titles after transfer from PS3 to PS5 and play PS1, 2, 3 game discs without a hitch (and possibly with visual upgrades), then I'll be answering "okay, a C-Note it is!". I'm willing to adapt(or), what say any of you?
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