PlayStation 2

From LibertyWiki

The PlayStation 2 (PS2) (Japanese: ?????????2) is Sony's second video game console, after the PlayStation. Its development was announced in April 1999, and it was first released in Japan on March 4th 2000. The console model for Japan was Silver instead of Black. The US version was released in the United States on October 26th 2000. For the first year Sony had slow production and was plagued with shipping problems when it was released. Only a selected few obtained the Playstation 2 by January of 2000. Developers also complained about the system being too hard to develop for. Later Sony gained steam with new development kits for game developers and more Playstations for consumers.

[edit] Technical Specs

The specifications of the PlayStation 2 console are as follows, with hardware revisions:

• CPU: 128 bit "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294 MHz (later versions 299 MHz)
  • System Memory: 32 MB Direct Rambus or RDRAM
  • Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2 GB per second
  • Main processor: MIPS R5900 CPU core, 64 bit
  • Co-Processor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1, Floating Point Divider x 1)
  • Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9, Floating Point Divider x 1), 128 bit
  • Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS
  • 3D CG Geometric Transformation: 66 million polygons per second (1)
  • Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG2
  • I/O Processor interconnection: Remote Procedure Call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer
• Graphics: "Graphics Synthesizer" clocked at 150 MHz
  • DRAM Bus bandwidth: 48.0GB Per Second
  • DRAM Bus width: 2560 bits
  • Pixel Configuration: RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8, 15:1 for RGB, 16, 24, or 32-bit Z buffer)
  • Maximum Polygon Rate: 75 million polygons per second (1)
  • Dedicated connection to: Main CPU and VU1
• Sound: "SPU1+SPU2"
  • Number of voices: 48 hardware channels of ADPCM on SPU2 plus software-mixed channels
  • Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz (selectable)
• I/O Processor
  • CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8 MHz or 37.5 MHz)
  • Sub Bus: 32 Bit
  • Connection to: SPU and CD/DVD controller.
  • Interface Types: 2 Proprietary PlayStation controller ports, 2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption, Expansion Bay (DEV9 or PCMCIA on early models) port for Network Adaptor, Modem and Hard Disk Drive, IEEE 1394 (2), Infrared remote control port (2), and 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller.

• Disc Media: DVD-ROM (CD-ROM compatible) with copy protection. 4.7GB capacity, a few are DVD-9 (8.5 GB)

(1) Polygons per second under ideal circumstances (e.g., no texturing, lighting, or vertex colors applied). Some criticize these figures for being unrealistic, and not indicative of real-world performance. The true polygons per second figure with full textures, effects etc. is around 13 million.

(2) IEEE 1394 removed in SCPH-50000 and later hardware versions, and Infrared remote port added.