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By now you should know about the Anti Aliasing problem on the PS2, and that Sony has finally solved it... but here's what actually went on.
First, when the PS2 was made, Sony did not tell developers how to do AA or how the chip architecture worked. Developers didn't bother to implement it, and this led to Jaggies and shaky edges.
Sony has finally found a way to do polygon based AA, and they sent a copy of this, along with other neet stuff, to developers. However, polygon based AA is terrible. Although it looks great, the CPU has to redraw the screen from back to front rounding off every polygon. This takes lots of Processing power, and was simply just not worth doing. One developer in particular decided to go into a forum and talk to a Sony guy about this, and he soon found out that amount the "other neet stuff" in the technical document sent out was a way to do Full Screen AA, even though it was labelled as something else. This works great, and can be implemented in a day on most games., Problem Solved!
This leaves the question: "why didn't Sony solve the problem ages ago." While Sega's DE does Full screen AA in the same way as the PS2 (redrawing the screen at double resolution and then scaling down), this is done automatically using Sega's tools. Meanwhile, Sony's developers have had to wait for a while, and have to do it themselves. Sony's answer to this would be that it allows developers to chose different types of AA, but I believe that this is due to the poor design of the PS2 and it's rushed developement. Just as Sega rushed the Saturn in the wake of the PSX, Sony have made the same mistake, where as Sage have taken time to make a machine that is so much easier to make games for. Let's just hope developers manage to see how over-rated the PS2 is, and how under-rated the DC is before they start their next cycle of games.
-Rav
First, when the PS2 was made, Sony did not tell developers how to do AA or how the chip architecture worked. Developers didn't bother to implement it, and this led to Jaggies and shaky edges.
Sony has finally found a way to do polygon based AA, and they sent a copy of this, along with other neet stuff, to developers. However, polygon based AA is terrible. Although it looks great, the CPU has to redraw the screen from back to front rounding off every polygon. This takes lots of Processing power, and was simply just not worth doing. One developer in particular decided to go into a forum and talk to a Sony guy about this, and he soon found out that amount the "other neet stuff" in the technical document sent out was a way to do Full Screen AA, even though it was labelled as something else. This works great, and can be implemented in a day on most games., Problem Solved!
This leaves the question: "why didn't Sony solve the problem ages ago." While Sega's DE does Full screen AA in the same way as the PS2 (redrawing the screen at double resolution and then scaling down), this is done automatically using Sega's tools. Meanwhile, Sony's developers have had to wait for a while, and have to do it themselves. Sony's answer to this would be that it allows developers to chose different types of AA, but I believe that this is due to the poor design of the PS2 and it's rushed developement. Just as Sega rushed the Saturn in the wake of the PSX, Sony have made the same mistake, where as Sage have taken time to make a machine that is so much easier to make games for. Let's just hope developers manage to see how over-rated the PS2 is, and how under-rated the DC is before they start their next cycle of games.
-Rav
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By now you should know about the Anti Aliasing problem on the PS2, and that Sony has finally solved it... but here's what actually went on.
First, when the PS2 was made, Sony did not tell developers how to do AA or how the chip architecture worked. Developers didn't bother to implement it, and this led to Jaggies and shaky edges.
Sony has finally found a way to do polygon based AA, and they sent a copy of this, along with other neet stuff, to developers. However, polygon based AA is terrible. Although it looks great, the CPU has to redraw the screen from back to front rounding off every polygon. This takes lots of Processing power, and was simply just not worth doing. One developer in particular decided to go into a forum and talk to a Sony guy about this, and he soon found out that amount the "other neet stuff" in the technical document sent out was a way to do Full Screen AA, even though it was labelled as something else. This works great, and can be implemented in a day on most games., Problem Solved!
This leaves the question: "why didn't Sony solve the problem ages ago." While Sega's DE does Full screen AA in the same way as the PS2 (redrawing the screen at double resolution and then scaling down), this is done automatically using Sega's tools. Meanwhile, Sony's developers have had to wait for a while, and have to do it themselves. Sony's answer to this would be that it allows developers to chose different types of AA, but I believe that this is due to the poor design of the PS2 and it's rushed developement. Just as Sega rushed the Saturn in the wake of the PSX, Sony have made the same mistake, where as Sage have taken time to make a machine that is so much easier to make games for. Let's just hope developers manage to see how over-rated the PS2 is, and how under-rated the DC is before they start their next cycle of games.
-Rav
First, when the PS2 was made, Sony did not tell developers how to do AA or how the chip architecture worked. Developers didn't bother to implement it, and this led to Jaggies and shaky edges.
Sony has finally found a way to do polygon based AA, and they sent a copy of this, along with other neet stuff, to developers. However, polygon based AA is terrible. Although it looks great, the CPU has to redraw the screen from back to front rounding off every polygon. This takes lots of Processing power, and was simply just not worth doing. One developer in particular decided to go into a forum and talk to a Sony guy about this, and he soon found out that amount the "other neet stuff" in the technical document sent out was a way to do Full Screen AA, even though it was labelled as something else. This works great, and can be implemented in a day on most games., Problem Solved!
This leaves the question: "why didn't Sony solve the problem ages ago." While Sega's DE does Full screen AA in the same way as the PS2 (redrawing the screen at double resolution and then scaling down), this is done automatically using Sega's tools. Meanwhile, Sony's developers have had to wait for a while, and have to do it themselves. Sony's answer to this would be that it allows developers to chose different types of AA, but I believe that this is due to the poor design of the PS2 and it's rushed developement. Just as Sega rushed the Saturn in the wake of the PSX, Sony have made the same mistake, where as Sage have taken time to make a machine that is so much easier to make games for. Let's just hope developers manage to see how over-rated the PS2 is, and how under-rated the DC is before they start their next cycle of games.
-Rav