#Half life 1 ps2 texture models code#

I just think, counterintuitive as it may sound, if you think of the great success it was after all, that it was the most underutilized of the three machines.ĭevelopers just never had any great incentive, time or will to push the machine beyond a certain almost preordained agreed upon limit.įor instance no one ever used the MPEG II decompression unit to do anything other than decompress video for FMV sequences, when in fact it was envisioned that it could be used to increase the texture budget by as much as 5x with the right method. I'm not saying the PS2 was a great misunderstood architecture with no flaws. Other than perhaps xbox where it was relatively straight forward to ad som extra assets because of the extra memory and use the API to put some detail texturing and other nice effects in.

I think multiplatform games were developed to some imaginary in-between console that just covered the common ground between the machines, with none of the strengths of the three machines catered to. The xbox was sort of a spanner in the works because it allowed for an 'easy' escape route into console land, with tools and methods that developers were familiar with. I think Sony counted on being able to dominate much more than they were able to. It is set up to perform to a certain spec and isn't very malleable and flexible beyond that.įive years isn't long to learn a completely new and very different architecture, and on top of that you have the constant pressure from deadlines and budgets. I also think the GC fits the ballpoint pen category well, just like another Nintendo machine, the DS. Even though the DX libs are abysmal, they are still better than panicing, half decent to bad coders trying to learn (or not learn, even) the PS2 architecture while doing a multi console port.Ī developer once described the difference between PS2 and xbox, as the difference between writing with a brush and a ballpoint pen. I suspect that the main reason xbox got such good results was mainly due to the above factors. It's like higher level development as in Lisp and Smalltalk was not applicable to games, etc. It's like the mythical man month was never written.

#Half life 1 ps2 texture models code#

What was a good way to code on small machines, very quickly became messy intractable garbage heaps at some point. And as with the rest of the business or perhaps even worse, the reaction has been really slow and incremental on already known things. Console coders finally ran into some of the same complexity problems that has plagued large computer programs since the 60's. Not only when it came to assets but perhaps more so with regards to code. The last generation was a kind of a watershed in complexity of development. Both with regards to who made it, but also if it does things how they are used to do them.īeing fans of stuff is not something that is confined to mortal gamers. Not the least factor being if the developers are fans of that particular system. I think there is lot more psychology in this than people are willing to believe.