The 333Mhz Debate

[wraggster]

Just lately we have had some great emulators released at 333mhz or be able to run at 333MHZ and there seems to be a lot of chat about if it will cause damage etc, now before the PSP was released i remember Sony saying that they are encouraging developers to basically program onthe PSP better to conserver battery life which could be translated as saying dont use the full power of the PSP because this does drain battery power, also cast your mind back to all the storys of battery life when the PSP was released and you can understand Sonys point.

But now with the release of External Battery adapters that give up to 3 times the power and the rumoured new battery thats also much more powerful and most likely to be released when Grand Theft Auto is, it seems that newer games will use the full power anyway.

So is runnning at 33mhz good or bad, or is it just down to concerns of the battery being drained much quicker?

thoughts anyone :)

[J@F]

I think the hackers should be underclocking the PSP. You would think PSP could emulate the PS1 @166Mhz or less. Emulating things like a GB/GBC, and probably everthing up to SNES, should be something PSP can do with minimal resources.

[shadowprophet]

I agree J@F, that source coders should be working on getting the psp to work better useing less power.
I had my doubts that i would ever see a perfect working emu on th e psp, but then i saw doom.
I was very impressed and now have no doubts in my mind.
The day will come when perfect emulation will happen for everything from gb to I truely believe ps1 and even n64,and everything between them on the psp.
But coders need to be focusing on dedicateing cpu useage in other needed directions.
I mean really I could understand choppy preformance years ago playing snex9x on a 333 pc,but also windows and other apps where loaded in the bg.

Truely we have only just opened pandoras box, this is only the beginning.

I cant wait to see what kind of awsome stuff we will be playing six months from now :D

[matthiti]

Hmmm...a couple of things. First, Doom is a direct port, not an emulation which is why it runs so very well! Second, like any new hardware, it takes time to learn how to utilize the PSP's hardware and programming language. Its truly amazing how quickly programmers have gotten aquainted with the PSP in this respect. As for now, emulators still have to be run at higher speeds to get performance until programmers have adequate proficancy with the hardware.

And just remember, Sony would not have given it a 333 mHz processor if it was only to be run at 244 for the rest of its life. Running your PSP at 333 mHz (its full speed), at the very worst, will only result in quicker battery consumption.

[consoul]

I'm certain there's no harm in it, and I welcome the use of it for emulation.

I take a special interest in this subject, as I wrote an article that woke up the mainstream media to the fact that PSP was underclocked in the first place (Unlocking PSP's Future (http://consoul.blogspot.com/2005/04/unlocking-psps-future.html)). Kotaku, GamesRadarUK, ComputerAndVideogames.com, Gizmodo, BluesNews etc. all linked to my article. Gamespot even Rumour Controlled it and agreed that it wasn't bogus. Why no-one is the gaming media had reported it earlier is still beyond me - perhaps Sony wanted to keep it quiet until they were ready to take the next step.

So I'm very pleased that the PSP dev community has unlocked PSP's full clockspeed. I for one am using the emulators at 333MHz whenever necessary and I have no fear of it causing any damage. PSP was built for it.

[ganon]

best thing wait for the cpu to be unlocked officially

[WSOUNitePirate895]

that would mean an update and you know what updates mean for the emulation scene... more AES security cracking (if that is what its called) anyway the point is to have sony "officialy unlock" the 333mzh, we are all going to have to update. Which leads to reason why people are going to be buying 2 psp's. It's rumoured that by the time GTA comes to PSP you will need thier latest update to run those new games, my guess the CPU will be jumped up from it 222mhz underclocking. We need to start cracking 1.5+ before sony even get a chance at releasing it or we will never be able to play the newer psp titles.

[consoul]

The firmware won't need to be updated to run at 333Mhz. There's no restriction in the firmware on the clockspeed. Sony are enforcing the clockspeed cap at the development level. No commercial games can run on PSP at higher than 222Mhz because Sony's development libraries are capped at that speed. Any that used hacked libararies to get around this would be rejected at the TRC stage.
Commercial games that run at 333MHz will only start to appear after Sony send owners of the official devkits updated libraries. The firmware allows 333MHz right now (which is why emulators can utilize it).

Of course Sony will unneccessarily force upgrades upon us with all commercial games from here on in anyway.

[ditto]

consoul, nice to see my initial thoughts backed up in your blog. Very nice read. I too have been running my emus(those that support it) @ 333.. This all reminds me of the good ol Turbo button on my old puters, it was there for those old dos progs that couldnt handle the blazing speeds when it was initiated. ;)

[Cross]

please tell me GRan Turismo is not going to update my PSP beyond 1.50... or I am not buying it lol.

[Jeisu]

we will never be able to play the newer psp titles.

You can play them, it's just simply up to _you_ the user if you want to update it. I also seriously doubt a secret "update" procedure from disks, only checks. If the disk started running the updates w/o warning, the user would freak from the heat (as much as you guys cry from the slight heat from 333mhz, this would have you guys scream murder), and it is RECOMMENDED to have the system plugged into the charger while doing the process, as the power drain is intense, and the program doens't allow you to update if the battery is below 50% (from what i've heard); then I also know that it isn't a simple update of 10 seconds (heard roughly 5 minutes). If this is done w/o a user's consent, the person will obviously cancel the program and shut it off during the intallation phase. If the program is stopped during that phase, you now have a paperweight.
I doubt Sony would like it if a huge majority of people suddenly have their PSPs become paperweights... ;;>>

[J@F]

I realize this isn't very practicle, and I wouldn't do it, but do the japanese firmwares work on the US psp's? Because we could use the 1.50 update to downgrade the firmware every time we wan't to use homebrew.

[quzar]

I think the hackers should be underclocking the PSP. You would think PSP could emulate the DS @166Mhz or less. Emulating things like a GB/GBC, and probably everthing up to GBA, should be something PSP can do with minimal resources.

There is no way the PSP could emulate a DS at 166Mhz. That is the biggest load of sony fanboyism crap or complete lack of any sort of knowledge of the process that I have ever seen. The PSP DOES however have the capability to in theory emulate an n64, although it would require intamate knowledge of the hardware.

[wraggster]

remember that the gba struggles to be emulated on a 200mhz dreamcast so a ds is out of the question, although i agree a N64 with the right knowledge could be done

[shadowprophet]

I wouldnt sweat the whole froced firmware update thing.
By the time this becomes a problem, somone will have found a way to allow those tabo games to run without having to update the firmware.
it could be as simple as a card swap exploit:D

One thing if for certain tho.If an exploit isnt found.
It better be a killer title before i even think about updateing,and I mean killer.
Even then, I would most likely get another psp before giveing up homebrew.
No im certain i would :p

[Eric]

N64 wouldnt be possible on the DS if GBA isnt possible. Just cause the graphics are just about identicle or identicle to the DS doesnt mean crap. All cartridge systems from Nintendo seem to be the most hard system to emulate and if i am right thats do to the core or i am completely stupid. If GBA and N64 cant run on Dreamcast it will probably be the same on the DS.

Eric

[ArchAngel]

Like I read off of a thread from another forum, since emulation runs directly from Software induced hardware imitation, it has to run at about 10x the power instead of the power coming from the hardware, so usually its hard to underclock an emulator since normal MHz would be way to slow. What would be great is a way to tap into pieces of PSP hardware whether it be tabs of graphical information to make up for a bit of speed. If there was a way to take just tabs and pieces of hardware support from the PSP, Im sure it would run alot faster and make it possible to underclock an emulator. For me, I have not had any trouble with 333MHz, my PSP did stall once, but I tried the method of holding the power button for 10 seconds for a hard reboot and it was fine. So if anything, its like playing a UMD movie for 3 hours. So pretty much, if a programmer made an emulator that leaked PSP support, we would have emulators like the new Genesis emulator that runs pretty damned good at a constant 40-50FPS.

But then again, Im just talking out my ass, I know nothing of programming :P

[Lord_Rob]

The thing is that people want the emulation more than the games.....everybody would rather have the emulation that the games
....

[ArchAngel]

Some day Im sure there will be a website dedicated to Firmware hacking that works compatible to new UMD games, so in the mean time, Emulation or Crappy New titles, your pick :P

[quzar]

N64 wouldnt be possible on the DS if GBA isnt possible. Just cause the graphics are just about identicle or identicle to the DS doesnt mean crap. All cartridge systems from Nintendo seem to be the most hard system to emulate and if i am right thats do to the core or i am completely stupid. If GBA and N64 cant run on Dreamcast it will probably be the same on the DS.

Eric

i said that the PSP could emulate the N64 not the DS. The N64 uses an R4300, which is a revised version of the R4200 (to be cheaper) which is very similar to the R4000 that the PSP uses. The PS uses an R3000 which is an even earlier chip made by the same company, but unless the psp actually uses a custom R4000 with more cache, it wouldn't be as easy to directly emulate as the R4300 (the R4000 series had a reduced amount of cache in order to get higher clock speeds).


The thing is that people want the emulation more than the games.....everybody would rather have the emulation that the games
....

no, the people HERE want emulation more than games. which isn't something to even make note of considering this is an EMULATION website. I'm sure if you were to poll PSP buyers a good deal of them would go wtf is emulation? or meh, i don't care.

[F34R]

I agree. I am going to have a hard time deciding on this myself. I would love to have new games that are great, i.e. GT4.. but, I dont want to be forced to run a certain firmware...

[quzar]

You said things without any backing. There are only three reasons why you would do that: 1)pure disinformation/sloth/stupidity/etc 2)to make yourself look smart 3)to make your system of choice(psp) look better. I took the least insulting path, and imagined you were trying to improve the perceived impression of the PSP and not of yourself.

As for the n64 thing, i meant at 333. There is no way it could possibly emulate the n64 at 166, since the n64 ran at 100mhz.

[aesthetic]

so what exactly is the problem running emu's on the current firmware or new firmwares?

like.. i dont know how to explain what im saying.. but is it the way the code is written that makes it unauthorized? Because obviously some programs are going to be able to launch from the memory card, hence why we have that option. But is it really going to be only what sony approves? Or is there a way to program the emulator to be authorized so that it can run without having to go through security exploits (i.e. memory card swap)..

anybody understand what im asking?

[consoul]

But is it really going to be only what sony approves?

Short answer: Yes.