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Bonus, I’d like to ask you a question about the tech article which compares the PS2 to a PC ( http://www.arstechnica.com/ cpu/2q00/ps2/ps2vspc-1.html )
In this it has an analogy that represents cache size and bus speed properties. For those who haven’t read it here it is:
“Imagine a series of large buckets, connected by pipes to a main tank, with a cow lapping water out of each bucket. Since cows don't drink too fast, the pipes don't have to be too large to keep the buckets full and the cows happy. Now imagine that same setup, except with elephants on the other end instead of cows. The elephants are sucking water out so fast that you've got to do something drastic to keep them happy. One option would be to enlarge the pipes just a little (*cough* AGP *cough*), and stick insanely large buckets on the ends of them (*cough* 64MB GeForce *cough*). You then fill the buckets up to the top every morning, leave the water on all day, and pray to God that the elephants don't get too thirsty. This only works to a certain extent though, because a really thirsty elephant would still end up draining the bucket faster than you can fill it. And what happens when the elephants have kids, and the kids are even thirstier? You're only delaying the inevitable with this solution, because the problem isn't with the buckets, it's with the pipes (assuming an infinite supply of water). A better approach would be to just ditch the buckets altogether and make the pipes really, really large. You'd also want to stick some pans on the ends of the pipes as a place to collect the water before it gets consumed, but the pans don't have to be that big because the water isn't staying in them very long.”
So as you can see the PS2 has stupidly large pipes that pump into immensely tint pans vs. the Xbox which presumably has AGP-sized pipes and stupidly large buckets. What I want to know is will the Xbox’s cache/buckets ever “empty” and reduce the performance of the Xbox over a long session?
As far as I am aware, this would probably crash it, which is NOT what you want during the middle of a game. Perhaps it won’t crash, maybe there will be a severe slow-down for a second or gradual slow-down after a long time. I don’t really know but as far as I am aware something is going to happen when the buckets run out and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
Another thing I was worrying about was could this ever happen to the PS2? If all the data is basically just being streamed down the bus to the cache then off again then surely things like this won’t affect the PS2.
Anyway, I’m not a tech genius (software is my realm) so could you sort this out for me?
In this it has an analogy that represents cache size and bus speed properties. For those who haven’t read it here it is:
“Imagine a series of large buckets, connected by pipes to a main tank, with a cow lapping water out of each bucket. Since cows don't drink too fast, the pipes don't have to be too large to keep the buckets full and the cows happy. Now imagine that same setup, except with elephants on the other end instead of cows. The elephants are sucking water out so fast that you've got to do something drastic to keep them happy. One option would be to enlarge the pipes just a little (*cough* AGP *cough*), and stick insanely large buckets on the ends of them (*cough* 64MB GeForce *cough*). You then fill the buckets up to the top every morning, leave the water on all day, and pray to God that the elephants don't get too thirsty. This only works to a certain extent though, because a really thirsty elephant would still end up draining the bucket faster than you can fill it. And what happens when the elephants have kids, and the kids are even thirstier? You're only delaying the inevitable with this solution, because the problem isn't with the buckets, it's with the pipes (assuming an infinite supply of water). A better approach would be to just ditch the buckets altogether and make the pipes really, really large. You'd also want to stick some pans on the ends of the pipes as a place to collect the water before it gets consumed, but the pans don't have to be that big because the water isn't staying in them very long.”
So as you can see the PS2 has stupidly large pipes that pump into immensely tint pans vs. the Xbox which presumably has AGP-sized pipes and stupidly large buckets. What I want to know is will the Xbox’s cache/buckets ever “empty” and reduce the performance of the Xbox over a long session?
As far as I am aware, this would probably crash it, which is NOT what you want during the middle of a game. Perhaps it won’t crash, maybe there will be a severe slow-down for a second or gradual slow-down after a long time. I don’t really know but as far as I am aware something is going to happen when the buckets run out and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
Another thing I was worrying about was could this ever happen to the PS2? If all the data is basically just being streamed down the bus to the cache then off again then surely things like this won’t affect the PS2.
Anyway, I’m not a tech genius (software is my realm) so could you sort this out for me?
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What buckets?
Yes. BUCKETS of WATER that comes from RIVERS!!!!!
buckets, water, rivers????
Sonic
Sonic
I was actually able to follow that thread from start to finish without losing my sense of comprehension.
Just a couple of things though:
Do I need to preorder my elephants at the same time as I preorder my X-Box?
Do the buckets come in a choice of attractive colours?
Isn't all of that water sloshing about inside your console going to damage it?
FM: Getting the point since....where was I?
Just a couple of things though:
Do I need to preorder my elephants at the same time as I preorder my X-Box?
Do the buckets come in a choice of attractive colours?
Isn't all of that water sloshing about inside your console going to damage it?
FM: Getting the point since....where was I?
That's what I meant. Instead of elephants drinking at the bucket, you just say "Sod the bucket!" and plug the pipe straight into the elephant.
The Game wrote:
> No... because you need the buckets to be able to hold enough water
> for that moment in time.
You don't have to hold the water anywhere, the processors inside the PS2 are fast enough to stream the data straight out of the "pipe".
> No... because you need the buckets to be able to hold enough water
> for that moment in time.
You don't have to hold the water anywhere, the processors inside the PS2 are fast enough to stream the data straight out of the "pipe".
1: Game PS2 not very powerful??? You're off your head, son!! Explain yourself or be banished.
2: All this means for the Xbox, is that in games where you need a large free roaming environment the game will have to pause to load data back into the system, as current PS2 games must do at the moment i.e. Red Faction. Once developers get to grips with the PS2, they will be able to create free roaming environments without any of this stooping for loading i.e. Jak and Daxter, but that will be about the scale of the task. There hasn't been any games yet produced which the Xbox will not be able to technically handle, Jak and Daxter may be the one and only game which may need to add loading gaps. As for the Gamecube, no one knows yet.
2: All this means for the Xbox, is that in games where you need a large free roaming environment the game will have to pause to load data back into the system, as current PS2 games must do at the moment i.e. Red Faction. Once developers get to grips with the PS2, they will be able to create free roaming environments without any of this stooping for loading i.e. Jak and Daxter, but that will be about the scale of the task. There hasn't been any games yet produced which the Xbox will not be able to technically handle, Jak and Daxter may be the one and only game which may need to add loading gaps. As for the Gamecube, no one knows yet.
But what if you just pipe the water straight into MGS2?
If you have a 60CL bucket and MGS2 needs 100CL every 'drink' the bucket size isn't big enough, therefore it does matter.
No... because you need the buckets to be able to hold enough water for that moment in time.
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