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PlayStation 2 software is distributed on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. In addition, the console can play audio CDs and DVD movies, and is backwards compatible with original PlayStation games. This is accomplished through the inclusion of the original PlayStation's CPU which also serves as the PS2's I/O processor, clocked at 36.864 MHz in PS2 mode.[1] The PS2 also supports full functionality with the original PlayStation memory cards and controllers. The PS2's DualShock 2 controller is an upgraded version of the PlayStation's DualShock with analog face, shoulder and D-pad buttons replacing the digital buttons of the original.[2] Like its predecessor, the DualShock 2 controller features force feedback technology.
The standard PlayStation 2 memory card has an 8 MB capacity and uses Sony's MagicGate encryption. This requirement prevented the production of memory cards by third parties who did not purchase a MagicGate license. Memory cards without encryption can be used to store PlayStation game saves, but PlayStation games would be unable to read from or write to the card – such a card could only be used as a backup. There are a variety of non-Sony manufactured memory cards available for the PlayStation 2, allowing for a larger memory capacity than the standard 8 MB. However their use is unsupported and compatibility is not guaranteed. These memory cards can have up to 128 MB storage space.
The console also features USB and IEEE 1394 expansion ports. Compatibility with USB and IEEE 1394 devices is dependent on the software supporting the device. For example, the PS2 BIOS will not boot an ISO image from a USB flash drive or operate a USB printer, as the machine's operating system does not include this functionality. By contrast, Gran Turismo 4 and Tourist Trophy are programmed to save screenshots to a USB mass storage device and print images on certain USB printers. A PlayStation 2 HDD can be installed via the expansion bay in the back of the console, and was required to play certain games, notably the popular Final Fantasy XI.[3]
250-nmCMOS manufacturing (ending with 65-nm CMOS), 13.5 million transistors, 225 mm² die size,[6] 15 W dissipation (combined EE+GS in SCPH-7500x and later SCPH-7000x): 86 mm², 53.5 million transistors)[7] (combined EE+GS+RDRAM+DRAM in SCPH-7900x ended with 65 nm CMOS design)[8]
CPU core: MIPS R5900 (COP0), 64-bit, little endian (mipsel). CPU is a superscalar, in-order execution 2-issue design with 6-stage long integer pipelines, 32 32-bit GPR registers, 32 128-bit SIMD linear scalar registers, two 64-bit integer ALUs, 128-bit load-store unit (LSU) and a branch execution unit (BXU).
Instruction set: MIPS III, MIPS IV subset with Sony's proprietary 107 vector SIMD multimedia instructions (MMI). The custom instruction set was implemented by grouping the two 64-bit integer ALUs.
32-bit FPU coprocessor (COP1) with 6-stage long pipeline (floating point multiply accumulator × 1, floating point divider × 1). FPU is not IEEE compliant.
Two 32-bit VLIW-SIMD vector units at 294.912 MHz: VPU0 and VPU1 (floating point multiply accumulator × 9, floating point divider × 1) each VPU contains a vector unit (VU), instruction cache, data cache and interface unit. Each vector unit also has upper execution unit containing 4 × FMAC and lower execution unit containing FDIV, integer ALU, load-store unit, branch logic, 16 16-bit integer registers and 32 128-bit floating point registers. VPU1 has an additional EFU unit.
VPU0 (COP2; FMAC × 4, FDIV × 1) is tightly coupled with the main CPU and is typically used for polygon and geometry transformations (under parallel or serial connection), physics and other gameplay related tasks
VPU1 (Elementary Functional Unit, EFU; FMAC × 5, FDIV × 2) operates independently controlled by microcode, parallel to the CPU core, is typically used for polygon and geometry transformations, clipping, culling, lighting and other visual based calculations (texture matrix includes processing of UV & STQ coordinates)[9]
Parallel: results of VU0/FPU sent as another display list via MFIFO (for e.g. complex characters/vehicles/etc.)
Serial: results of VU0/FPU sent to VU1 (via 3 methods) and can act as an optional geometry pre-processor that does all base work to update the scene every frame (for e.g. general transformations of world space relating to gameplay, such as boning and animation, physics and general motion)[10]
Image Processing Unit (IPU): MPEG-2 compressed image macroblock layer decoder allowing playback of DVDs and game FMV. It also allowed vector quantization for 2D graphics data.[11]
Memory management unit (MMU),[12] RDRAM controller and DMA controller: handle memory access within the system
Scratchpad (SPR) is extended area of memory visible to the EE CPU. This extended memory provides 16 kilobytes of fast RAM available to be used by the application. Scratchpad memory can be used to store temporary data that is waiting to be sent via DMA or for any other temporary storage that the programmer can define.
Interfaces
I/O processor interconnection: remote procedure call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer
Main RDRAM memory bus. Bandwidth: 3.2 GB/s
Graphics interface (GIF), DMA channel that connects the EE CPU to the GS ("Graphics Synthesizer") co-processor. To draw something to the screen, one must send, using 1 of 3 data paths, render commands & assets to the GS via the GIF channel: 64-bit, 150 MHz bus, maximum theoretical bandwidth of 1.2 GB/s.[6]
Display lists generated by CPU/VPU0 and VPU1 are sent to the GIF, which prioritizes them before dispatching them to the Graphics Synthesizer for rendering.
Vector Unit Interface (VIF), consists of two DMA channels VIF0 for VPU0 and VIF1 for VPU1. Vector units and the main CPU communicate via VIF DMA channels.
SIF – Serial Interface or Subsystem Interface which consists of 3 DMA channels:
Subsystem Interface 0 (SIF0) and Subsystem Interface 1 (SIF1), used for communication between the EE main CPU and IOP co-processor. These are serial DMA channels where both CPUs can send commands and establish communication through an RPC protocol.
Subsystem Interface 2 (SIF2), used for backwards compatibility with PS1 games and debugging.
Performance
Floating point performance: 6.2 GFLOPS (single precision 32-bit floating point)
Tri-strip geometric transformation (VU0+VU1): 150 million vertices per second[15]
3D CG geometric transformation with raw 3D perspective operations (VU0+VU1): 66–80+ million vertices per second[9]
3D CG geometric transformations at peak bones/movements/effects (textures)/lights (VU0+VU1, parallel or series): 15–20 million vertices per second[15][16][17][18]
Lighting: 38 million polygons/second
Fog: 36 million polygons/second
Curved surface generation (Bézier): 16 million polygons/second [15]
Image processing performance: 150 million pixels/second
Actual real-world polygons (per frame): range of 500–600k at 30FPS, 250–300k at 60FPS [17]
Stores all aspects & assets of an application or game's level, for fetching the right data at the right time, with assets being streamed to their appropriate destinations, when needed, a level's geometry, for instance, to either vector unit, via each unit's VIF, and textures to the GS, the system's GPU, via the GIF [20][21][9]
Video memory: 4 MB of 2560-bit DRAM @ 150 MHz, 48 GB/sec peak bandwidth
Stores temporal work or drawing buffers for drawing operations & mapping procedures; main memory, again, pre-storing all aspects & assets of a level, streaming only what that part of the frame needs processed & drawn at a time to the GIF, accumulating a single frame in small, very quick doses, bit by bit, using the video memory's buffers & high bandwidth, along the transfer bus speeds provided [22][9][21]
Handles communication between external peripherals or devices & the hardware, also helping transfer data to the SPU2, the system's sound processing unit, via the same bus, its 32-bit bus being shared between the SPU2, optical drive, USB ports and more [25][23]
Updated to 4 MB SDRAM as of revision to SCPH-7500x model systems [24]
Raster setup & execution consists of the entire block of 16 pixel pipes being involved in every stage of drawing a frame, in parallel, being equipped to handle processing functions such as fogging, texture mapping, AA and more, cycles split between all pipes [28]
On their own, the 16 pipes output/process 16 pixels/cycle (1 pixel/pipe), giving a maximum throughput of 2400 megapixels/sec, at the GS's max clock speed, which includes 32bit pixels & all the systems basic alpha-blending, Z-buffering & filtering operations [28]
When needing to do texture mapping, the 16 pipes output/process 8 pixel/cycle & 8 texels/cycle, per each pipe, in parallel, for a maximum throughput of 1200 megapixels & 1200 megatexels [28]
The hardware's native fogging & AA uses additional cycles which reduces the overall throughput; but AA & fogging can be done as a post effect, using full-screen passes or sprites, and VRAM imaging operations, using then just a part of a said 2d vfx budget, as opposed to lowering the ceiling, perpetually, from the prior said textured fill-rate figure [30][21][9]
Disc Drive type: proprietary interface through a custom micro-controller + DSP chip. 24x speed CD-ROM [3.6 MB/s], 4x speed DVD-ROM [5.28 MB/s] — region-locked with copy protection.
Supported Disc Media: PlayStation 2 format CD-ROM, PlayStation format CD-ROM, CD-DA, PlayStation 2 format DVD-ROM, DVD Video. DVD5 (Single-layer, 4.7 GB) and DVD9 (Dual-layer, 8.5 GB) supported. Later models starting with SCPH-500xx are DVD+RW and DVD-RW compatible.
Connectivity
PlayStation component (YPBPR) (left) and A/V (composite video/stereo audio) (right) cables
2 proprietary PlayStation controller ports (250 kHz clock for PS1 and 500 kHz for PS2 controllers)
2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGateencryption (250 kHz for PS1 cards. Up to 2 MHz for PS2 cards with an average sequential read speed of 130 KB/s)
2 USB 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller
PC Card slot for Network Adaptor (PC Card type) and External Hard Disk Drive (SCPH-10000, SCPH-15000, SCPH-18000 models)[34]
Emotion Engine (EE) includes an on-chip Serial I/O port (SIO) used internally by the EE's kernel to output debugging and messages and to start the kernel debugger.
i.LINK S400 (also known as FireWire 400 or IEEE 1394a) (SCPH-10000 to 3900x only)[35]
Infrared remote control port (SCPH-500xx and newer)[36]
^† Standard RGB mode only allows interlaced modes up to 480i (NTSC) and 576i (PAL) and progressive modes up to 240p. A display or adapter capable of sync on green (RGsB) is necessary for higher modes. Furthermore, the PS2's Macrovision copy protection isn't compatible with either RGB mode, and thus DVDs cannot be played with RGB. However, motherboard modifications have been known to bypass these issues. ^†† VGA connector is only available for progressive-scan supported games, homebrew-enabled systems, and Linux for PlayStation 2, and requires a monitor that supports RGsB, or "sync on green" signals. ^††† Contrary to popular belief, the PS2's YPBPR/component output does fully support 240p outputs, including games from the original PlayStation. However, 240p isn't part of the YPBPR standard, and thus not all TVs and HDTVs support it. Upscaling can be used as a workaround.
^"Dual Shock 2 Review". IGN. September 27, 2001. Archived from the original on 2011-05-15. Retrieved February 7, 2011. The biggest difference between the Dual Shock 2 and the original… all of the buttons and even the digital pad offer analog support. This means that the d-pad, the four face buttons and the four shift buttons are all pressure-sensitive and have 255 degrees of sensitivity. It is also worth noting that the Dual Shock 2 is a bit lighter than the original Dual Shock because it appears to have less in the way of gears for the vibration function of the controller.
^ abcdef"Tapping into the power of PS2"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on July 20, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2010. See bits on ps2's TnL & data setup. Also, look to pages 25 & 26 for a comparison of the ps2 to a PC architecture & memory setup, showing ps2 is based more around fast streaming of assets, as well as page 42 for a simple FSAA example.
^"Emotion". Kim L. Vu. Archived from the original on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
^Reaching for the Limits of PS2 Performance See pages 15 & 18, also, for an example of the default setup including sending textures, stored into main RAM at load up, to the GS, via the GIF.
^ abcdefPS2 Optimizations See pages 11-13 about texture syncing & transfer methods, an example of the PS2's setup. Also, see pg.29 for fill-rate for 4 passes, per second, likely at the standard PAL or NTSC rates of 50 Hz or 60 Hz, along with more evidence about using full-screen passes to implement bump mapping, with an example for alternative fogging being shown on pg.31.
^MDK2 Armageddon Chat Transcript "DavidBioWare What we've found since then is that the PS2 has enough bus bandwidth to transfer each texture from main memory to video memory as it's needed. That's on the order to 100s of Mb per second. We hadn't anticipated that the PS2 had that kind of brute horsepower on its bus. No other machine I've used does, including any PC or the Dreamcast. We had to reorient our thinking after that. :) So now we have almost more texture memory than we know what to do with."
^ abcdefGS User's Manual, Sony Computer Entertainment, 2001. See chapter/section 5.1.2 for ps2's output resolutions. Also, see chapter 1.2, specifically the diagram of pg.16 & "Pixel Pipeline" of pg.17, as well as chapter 3.1, namely Rasterizing (DDA) of pg.37, showing all the pixel pipes are involved in doing these operations, in parallel, including texture mapping. Lastly, look at pg.18 for GS performance figures.