Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: gil@snsys.com (Gil Jaysmith) Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.programming.3d_graphics Subject: Re: How fast is fast? Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:36:11 GMT Organization: SN Systems Lines: 46 Message-ID: <5otr2k$fv51@chuka.playstation.co.uk> References: <33B09E84.191E@charlie.cns.iit.edu> Reply-To: gil@snsys.com NNTP-Posting-Host: gil.snsys.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 Ed Federmeyer wrote: >Are the profession libs faster just be thier very nature (ie, the pro's >don't use TMDs, they use XXXs, which is faster???) >Do the pro's get thier speed by scrapping the libs completely and >directly programming the GTE/GPU? I guess I'm wondering how close >Yaroze programming really is to professional PSX programming- do the >commercial PSX games really use the Gs routines us Yaroze guys >know-and-love? In a word: yes. Exactly how much more detail is mine to give without violating the Sony NDA is debatable, but the Net Yaroze library looks like it's made up of the more straightforward aspects of some of the professional libraries, and you don't seem to get the grimy stuff. In the full library set there's direct access to the GTE via macros, routines, and structures which manipulate primitive polygons. The library from which the 'Gs' functions are taken is a high-level library which wraps the GPU and GTE functions to make them more human-friendly. (And to do things like light-source and perspective.) It also, as you note, slows you down by a factor of six, but you might not have been supposed to notice that :=) While we're on the subject of performance limits: - the PlayStation doesn't have a hardware FPU, so you can assume the floating-point libraries are real slow; if you were thinking of manipulating floating-point numbers, consider implementing your own fixed-point stuff - most games these days use code and data overlays, so if you were planning on using the Net Yaroze as a stepping-stone to professional development, don't feel particularly constrained by the thought of a 2Mb limit (I don't know about Net Yaroze's support for the overlay concept, but someone else was posting summat about having managed it in theory at least, and I agree that there's no theoretical reason why it shouldn't be possible) It's amusing to note that Crash Bandicoot was half-implemented in LISP. And to think some people are whining that they can't use C++. Gil Jaysmith SN Systems Software Ltd, makers of Psy-Q... http://www.snsys.com Disclaimer: What I say when I post here represents me, not my employers.